These days, building an iconic Aussie muscle car into a truly stand-out street machine is no easy task – especially when the car in question is a first-generation Monaro. Coming up with a genuinely different spin on the HK-T-G coupe formula requires a ton of creative thinking, along with an extra-large set of stones!

First published in the June 2025 issue of Street Machine

Clearly, Sydney’s Martin Pecotich possesses both attributes, as the HT Monaro he created with Paul Sant and the ProFlo Performance crew offers a fresh take on a contemporary pro street Monaro. From its one-off wheels, hand-made chassis and sumptuous, almost factory-looking trim to that epic 14/71-blown, 533ci billet Noonan H2O Hemi poking through the bonnet, this Monaro definitely walks the path less travelled.

We first featured Martin’s HT in the March 2024 issue when it was still untrimmed, sitting in bare steel. Since then, ProFlo has blown the car apart and finished it to a top-shelf level in time for its unveiling at Street Machine Summernats 37 earlier this year.

“I don’t think I fully appreciated the scale and scope of the build until I saw it at Summernats,” says Martin. “When I looked at it all finished, I felt disbelief that this was something I own. But it was a long journey to get here.”

Starting with a basic rolling shell that came from Martin’s mate in Western Australia, the ProFlo team wasted no time cutting the floors out to begin giving it the signature attitude we’ve come to expect from Sydney’s pro street gurus.

“We wanted the flavour of those tough, aggressive cars like [Matt Bell’s] FATG and [Brett Hewerdine’s] FUCKIT Monaros, but I wanted a bit of elegance and class,” says Martin. “It needed to be nicely finished and take the classic feel of an HT, but built with all the best hardware that’s available to us in the aftermarket today.”

Plenty of fab work was needed to build a stable base for the prodigiously grunty powerplant Martin had in mind for the build, with ProFlo crafting a custom chassis from the firewall back to the rear bumper, but retaining the bolt-on front rails as a subframe, like on a factory HT.

The ProFlo crew then narrowed the Rod-Tech independent front end and modified it to suit the massive 22-inch front wheels Martin wanted. The sills were extended 20mm, and the rear guards were stretched to swallow 24×13-inch rollers.

Having chopped so much original General Motors tinware out, ProFlo then set about adding custom inner guards and rear wheel tubs, tucked and shaved bumpers, a tightly tucked rollcage, a custom four-link rear with a track bar, a hand-made raised floor and transmission tunnel, and a bespoke smoothed firewall.

Once the steel work was finished, the swoopy coupe was transported to C&J Custom Paint. “Picking a colour was a tough part of the build,” says Martin. “The car is so aggressive; I didn’t want an over-the-top, bright colour to be in your face, as the car had enough going on. The Champagne we chose could be an original colour, but the important fact is that it’s classy. We didn’t want the paint to overshadow the rest of the car, and that colour will still look good in 30 years.”

Blasting through the HT bonnet like a Saturn V rocket is a mountain of polished billet hardware guaranteed to drive horsepower junkies into a frothing mess. Wanting to stand apart from other pro street Monaros, Paul and Martin figured it was high time someone stuck a Hemi in a first-gen Monaro, and it may as well be them.

This isn’t some junkyard elephant motor, though: this is a Noonan Race Engineering billet H2O. Spanning 533ci, the billet-block-and-head combo is a water jacket-equipped version of the Noonan mills used in alky Doorslammers and Pro Mods, and combines the best engineering features of several pushrod V8s, including big-block Chevys and Chrysler Hemi designs. It’s filled with a Scat crank, Oliver rods, 10:1 JE slugs, and a custom solid-roller cam from Bullet. Oiling is handled by a DMP billet dry sump set-up. The engine is crowned by a billet Noonan intake, 14/71 BDS supercharger and matching billet PFP hat.

Behind the finely polished monster mill is an Al’s Race Glides TH400 with a Reid case and a 4500rpm Shotgun converter. Out back, a sheet-metal nine-inch diff puts the Hemi’s power to the ground, packing 40-spline full-floater Mark Williams axles, a Strange Engineering alloy centre, Wavetrac LSD, and 3.25:1 gears.

The finished car was unveiled in all its glory at Summernats 37, where the judges were practically falling over themselves to throw trophies its way. “We took out Top Engine Bay, Top Interior and Top Pro Two-Door gongs, plus 2nd Top Engineered and 2nd Top Undercarriage/Driveline, a Top 10 place, and a Superstars invitation,” Martin marvels. “It’s a rich reward, and it’s a reward for the guys who put the car together.”

The Monaro claimed a whole bunch of tinware at MotorEx too, but Martin is looking forward to the time when he can just hop in and let all those horses loose. “We’ve turned the engine over, but we haven’t put it on the dyno yet,” he says. “We don’t want to discolour anything on the engine by running it, because we’re taking it to a couple of other shows. Hopefully we can cruise it around Summernats next year.”

That will be a sight – and sound – to behold!

SEAT OF POWER

Pro street cars are typically all about attitude and surviving the streets with hardcore race parts, but Martin’s HT adds oodles of class to that formula, and the sumptuous interior by X-Trim is a big part of that.

Modified Chrysler Sebring seats now wear leather and low-back frames, while the centre console is a complete custom piece that houses the M&M ratchet shifter working the TH400 auto. A Billet Specialties tiller sits ahead of a 3D-printed gauge cluster, which houses the FuelTech dash while still paying homage to the original HT look.

Because Martin wants to drive the HT once its show days are done, the rollcage features a bolt-in front section to remain legal, and the back seat has been heavily modified to squeeze between the tubs required to fit the 24in wheels.

“We wanted the interior to be what a classic Monaro would be like if it was built today,” says Martin. “It’s heavily inspired by the original interior but with modern materials and hardware, which is why there are timber accents through the console and door cards.”

MARTIN PECOTICH
1969 HOLDEN HT MONARO

THANKS
Paul and the ProFlo team; X-Trim Motor Trimming; C&J Custom Paint; Ontrak Auto Electrical; OAC Engineering; KINGR Media; All Aluminium Welding; Custom Metal Polishing; ProTilt Towing; Danny’s Moulding Restorations; Concourse Moulding Repairs & Polishing; Empire 3D Printing + Design; last but not least, my friends and family for their support.