“IT ALL started a couple of years ago,” says Queenslander Brett Ernst of his gnarly XD Ford Falcon van. “I had a garage at Powercruise 50 booked and paid for, but just nine weeks out I had no car.

“While having a beer with mates and surfing Gumtree online, I came across this nice, clean, windowless XD van. In nine weeks we pulled out the old 250 crossflow motor, blocked the car back and resprayed it at Jase Race & Restoration. Dave Flohr built the 460 big-block (which has pushed the car to a best of 10.9-seconds at Willowbank).

“I managed to find a Ford nine-inch locally. As we built it, the boys dubbed it ‘Frankenvan’, and the name stuck. It rolls on Weld Stars that I scored off Facebook, and was trimmed by Chris Anscombe of Evan’s Trim Shop. I’d like to thank each of these blokes for their help to get me to PC 50; I had a great incident-free time.”

The motor will be coming out for a once-over and freshen up with a bigger roller cam on the way, but Brett has no plans to fit a roll cage and go faster. Right now he’s happy to cruise, clocking up more than 100kms a week on E85.