As the proprietor of Sydney engine builders Westend Performance and a much-decorated drag racer, Sam Fenech was a well-known, universally loved figure, and his tragic death in a racing accident in 2023 rocked the Aussie car community and devastated the close-knit Fenech family.

First published in the March 2025 issue of Street Machine

That makes the triumphant comeback of Sam’s iconic LJ Torana, ORSM, all the more remarkable. In just two years, the Fenech family rallied to rebuild the car for an unveiling at Street Machine Summernats 37, where Sam’s son John Fenech drove the revitalised machine to an emotional Grand Champion victory.

John smiles fondly as he recalls how the story began. “Dad was working as a mechanic and became infatuated with the racing at Oran Park and the street racing that was happening back in those days,” he says. “He’d borrow his old man’s XA Falcon for the night, fit a set of slicks and go racing, then change the tyres again before he got home!

“He started Fenech Performance and met the original owner of the Torana, who, after years of racing it all over the country, offered to sell it to Dad.” The car has been with the Fenech family ever since.

Sam and the family campaigned the car as a fierce competitor in countless Australian drag racing classes, including Super Sedan, Top Sportsman and APSA. “Dad was always looking for the next way to make the car go faster,” John says. “He just kept throwing more and more nitrous at the Holden motor until we found the limits, and then came the Buick-headed Chev engine, which dropped his PB to 8.36 seconds. And when that overpowered the tyres, out came the hammer to clearance the guards. He was competitive, for sure!”

In 2011, the family pulled the Chev combo out and sold it, and the LJ then went into the long hibernation many cars endure when the engine comes out. “It went into the corner with a cover put over it, and we forgot about it for years,” John says.

While the family continued to bench race different engine combos for the Torana (including a potential turbo LS build that our man Arby had a say in), it wasn’t until John dragged the car out and blew the cobwebs off it a few years later that it got its second chance at life.

“I convinced Dad that we should just fit a Holden combo back in it and get it going,” says John. With that, the shell was sent to Grange Smash Repairs, where it was sand-blasted and the crew began to unpick years of race-track battle scars.

While John continued to work alongside his dad at Westend Performance, ORSM’s bodywork was ticking along in the background, until Sam’s accident in January 2023 rocked the family and the Australian street machining community at large.

“When Dad passed away, we all looked at one another and knew we had to finish the car,” says John. “Working on the car brought us all together during a really difficult time, and we’re all much closer thanks to it.”

The initial plan was to have the Torana ready for Street Machine Summernats 36 in 2024, but that deadline came and went. The new build finally broke cover at John’s wedding in May 2024, before its proper public debut in a packed Top 60 Hall at Summernats 37 earlier this year.

The car that the Fenech family and their close network of friends and customers have pieced together in Sam’s memory is a modern re-imagination of the iconic ORSM Torana. While it stays true to its racing heritage, it’s been reworked with street cruising in mind.

“One of the big things we wanted to do was get rid of that old-school rake – I used to jokingly call it the John Deere, because it was green and it had the same stance as a tractor!” John laughs. In order to modernise the LJ, the team extended the existing tubs and stretched the quarters to fit 315 radials, while also managing to get it sitting nice and low.

The front suspension and bodywork got just as much attention, but for an entirely different reason. “We were measuring the front end, and it was out of whack by inches. The only reason we could think of was Dad doing wheelies for all those years!” laughs John. The Grange Smash Repairs team tidied all of that up before laying down the PPG Dublin Green paint.

Under the cowl-scooped bonnet is a Holden V8 stroker, a combination that John was adamant went back in. “We all agreed the car needed to be a Holden V8, and a 383 crank is the same price as the 355,” explains John of the thumping 6.2-litre Iron Lion that now occupies ORSM’s engine bay.

The block is a VT Commodore unit, arguably the pick of the Holden V8 crop. A Scat crank and rods lob CP pistons into the bore, while fettled Yella Terra heads contain the chaos. An SCM Engine Developments single-plane manifold has been plumbed for nitrous by Phil Kerjean at Fuelworx in another fitting tribute to the car’s racing days, but the engine bay is also littered with neat tricks to help modernise the car.

A Holley EFI throttlebody sits atop the intake manifold, while the factory distributor has been turfed in favour of an ICE dual-sync unit that drives a coil-based ignition system. “We pushed the motor back, so removing the dizzy cap helped with clearance, but being able to take full advantage of the Holley EFI features like spark retard and sequential ignition have made it a nicer car to drive on the street,” John explains.

Given the build’s street-focused goals, particular attention was paid to the interior, which now boasts a complete GTR-style black-out, including over the retrofitted Recaro bucket seats. The colour-coded rollcage neatly blends into the black trim, while the Holley EFI dash and Precision shifter offer the only suggestions that the LJ is anything other than a stocker.

The crew comfortably made the Summernats 37 deadline and were rewarded with a ton of accolades, including the People’s Choice award, which put them in a position to shoot for Grand Champion. John wheeled the LJ to victory in the driving events and ended the weekend with the famous Grand Champion sword hoisted above his head – a fitting end to a build overflowing with emotions.

“I wanted the car to be exactly as I remember Dad owning it,” John says. “It’s got a whole new life ahead of it now and plenty more years to make memories as a street car.” True to his word, in the week after Summernats, John was spotted driving the renewed LJ in the rain on a run to remember his late dad.

HISTORY LESSON

Sam bought the LJ with a basic nitrous 308 stroker combo with Yella Terra –3 heads, racing it in that guise for a few years for a best of 10.0@133mph.

A fresh VN-headed Holden then saw the ETs tumble into the nines, before an even wilder combo with Kostecki-ported Yella Terra –9 alloy heads and a 275-shot of spray had the car into the 8.70s and ripping some monster wheelstands!

Sam went with a staunch, Dart-blocked 406ci small-block Chev combo next, running a Scat crank, GRP rods, JE pistons, 18-degree Buick heads, a sheet-metal manifold and twin Barry Grant carbs. It made 785hp naturally aspirated, to which Sam added enough spray to run an 8.36@165mph best.

With this latest rebuild, ORSM has been returned to its roots as a nitrous-huffing, Holden-powered street-and-strip weapon.

The young fella in the photo above? That’s John!

SAM FENECH
1973 HOLDEN LJ TORANA GTR

THANKS
The Westend Performance team – Daniel, Samuel and Nathan Fenech; Lorraine Fenech; Keven Gilbert at Grange Smash Repairs; Brett at Wicked Industries; Phil Kerjean at Fuelworx; Dom Desisto; Sebastian Desisto; Fred at Protrans; Simon Bonello; Frank Fenech; Theresa Fenech; all the women in our lives for putting up with us over the past 20 months.