“While working on a property in the Lockyer Valley, Queensland, I noticed a big old Ford sitting in the long grass. I asked the owner about it, and he told me it was a 1966 Ford Galaxie, an Australian-delivered American Ford – a big brother of sorts to the Aussie Fairlane. I bought the car for $800 with no idea what I was going to do with it; I just knew it had to come home with me.

“It had rust in the floorpans and other areas, but otherwise, its bones were good. It came with an FE 352 big-block with a 390 crank, which had been sitting in the dirt next to the car for a few years. This is when I decided to put a Barra in it. 

“I began the build by finding the interior pieces, such as seats, door cards and other missing bits. I had plans of a full resto, so I started sanding the paint back, until I came to the Ford Power sticker, which was cool as hell! So, I stopped sanding, and then time and money put a halt to the project for another five years. 

“Over the past two years, I’ve started working on it again, deciding to get the car on the road as it is. With the time-consuming rust repairs done, it was time to start the fun bits of strengthening my LPG greentop Barra with the typical recipe of head studs, billet oil pump gears, valve springs and timing chain. It’s paired with a built TH400, and it all easily fit into the big Galaxie’s bay without any problems! In the rear, the factory nine-inch has now been fitted with a Truetrac LSD centre.

“I built my own four-inch stainless exhaust and turbo manifold to carry the Pulsar GT42-1450 turbo, which blows through an ARE cooler and custom alloy Proflow Performance intake, all controlled by a Haltech 2500 Elite ECU, PD16 PDM and iC-7 dash. 

“It was taken to Forced Performance for a tune, where it punched out a healthy 630rwhp on E85. Soon after, I went to Rockynats 3, and on the drive home, I made the decision with my mate Rob to enter our unfinished project cars for Rockynats 4. From that, we got some great feedback from the people, so we will definitely be back again for Rockynats 5 with a few new mods to the cars!

“The Galaxie has been built with cruising, car meets and some Drag Challenges in mind.”