In years to come, we’ll look back at Anna and Lee Povey’s insane longroof radial race car and ask ourselves, “Did a standard-looking VL wagon really herald the advent of diesel drag racing in Australia?”

First published in the August 2026 issue of Street Machine

But a diesel-powered drag car this Commodore most certainly is – the first of its kind on our shores, and finished to a high-enough standard to earn it a spot under lights at Street Machine Summernats 38.

Anna and Lee are no strangers to VLs, with Lee’s twin-turbo LS-powered Calais, JKLHYD, one of the country’s most awarded cars across the show scene, drag racing and dyno competitions. Anna has dutifully crewed for Lee at all these events, and four years ago, she decided she wanted a project of her own.

“I’d entered my Duramax-powered Patrol in Red CentreNATS,” says Anna of where her competitive streak was born. “We used to have a VH wagon, and I always liked the longroof, but with Lee’s car, it made sense to look for a VL wagon.”

By day, Lee and Anna run LAP Auto Centre in Mt Isa. They’ve owned and serviced countless diesel vehicles, which is how the notion of a Duramax-powered VL race car was born. 

“We found the car in Melbourne and had it shipped to Mt Isa,” Anna recalls. “We’d already been talking with Spot On Performance & Fabrications, who did all of the fab and set-up on Lee’s car. They agreed they’d take the car on, but only if we fit the engine. We got stuck in and had it mocked up that weekend!”

According to Lee, fitting the L5P Duramax diesel mill in the unsuspecting VL’s engine bay wasn’t as challenging as you might think. “Everyone thinks that because the trucks these engines come in are huge, the engines are too, but the block itself is roughly the same size as a big-block Chev,” he explains.

Even so, in order to fit the donk comfortably, all of the engine accessories now run on custom brackets, while a custom-made firewall allowed the mill to sit down low and rearward in the bay for better packaging and weight distribution for racing. To help the sump clear the steering assembly, Lee and Anna went with a manual rack but installed power steering on the column instead.

“Talking to Ryan from Hardway Performance in the USA, he was confident we could hit our power goals with stock internals, but it would have left us with no head-room to turn it up later on,” explains Anna. With that in mind, the couple went on a diesel power parts shopping spree, decking the L5P out with the best aftermarket bits and getting Jase at CPE Engines to assemble it here in Oz.

SoCal Diesel supplied CNC-ported heads and one of their alternate-fire camshafts, which reduces stress on the factory crank. Not that a factory crank is a concern for the Poveys, as they’re running a SoCal billet stroker crank that bumps the Duramax out to 7.1 litres of black, sooty fury.

“The engines rev to around 3500rpm in stock configuration; we’ll turn this thing to around 7000rpm,” Lee declares. “We’ve got enough fuel system to make around 1500hp with nitrous, but with the amount of torque it’ll make, we’ve had to spec the driveline as if it were a 3000hp petrol car.”

Indeed, the Turbo 400 is a bulletproof M&M Transmission Pro Mod unit with a billet bolt-together converter, while the diff is a Race Products nine-inch with floating 40-spline axles and 3.0:1 gears.

Andy at Spot On Performance has decked out the VL’s underside with everything needed to handle the rigours of hard racing. “Andy’s VL Calais was the first generation of the Spot On suspension program, my VL was the second, and now Anna’s uses everything they have learnt from years of building street/radial race cars, along with the latest products,” Lee explains. The extensive chassis work and bracing is as much about going fast safely as it is about stopping the Duramax from twisting the VL up like a pretzel, while AFCO shocks front and rear from Gazzard Brothers tie it all together.

During the build, the Poveys agonised over what colour to paint the car, eventually concluding that the solution had been right in front of them the whole time. “We’d been staring at it as a white car in the build for years, so we decided against an eye-catching colour – the Duramax makes it interesting enough,” explains Anna of the factory-inspired white-over-silver paint scheme the car now wears. 

“The trim by Carman’s Auto Trimmers was only finished the week before Summernats!” laughs Anna when asked about the VL’s race-inspired but practical interior fit-out. It includes Kirkey seats, an M&M shifter, a Motion Raceworks steering wheel, and an expertly disguised rollcage that hugs the pillars in an effort to remain discreet when the car hits the streets.

Anna is adamant that the car’s time on the show scene will be limited, as she’s itching to start racing. “We always wanted to do Drag Challenge in Lee’s car, and now the plan is to do it with the two VLs,” she says. “I laughed, because Lee can’t get E85 everywhere along the routes, but I can always get diesel!” 

ANNA AND LEE POVEY
1987 HOLDEN VL COMMODORE WAGON

THANKS
Spot On Performance & Fabrications; Jason Cowie at CPE; Gav at Spray King Restorations; Ash Mason at Wiring & Tuning Solutions; Adam at Carman’s Auto Trimmers; Ryan at Hardway Performance; all our friends and family for their support and encouragement