I must admit, the first thing I asked myself when I first saw Ben Bolton’s TD Cortina was: Why? And it seems I’m not the only one curious about the thinking behind the veritable mountain of metal that now sprouts from this little Ford’s engine bay.

First published in the September 2026 issue of Street Machine

Packing not only two turbos but also a GM 6/71 blower, this Ford Barra combo is certainly a feat of engineering, and it’s been built for just one job: destroying tyres.

As for the ‘why’, we have to go back to when Ben got invited to the home of fellow burnout aficionado Mick Brasher to rip a few skids on his custom-built skid pad. “I’d always been a drag racing guy; I’ve got about six Ford Capris in the shed,” Ben says. “But as Mick was local to me, up around the Grafton area [in northern New South Wales], I headed over to his place one day with my son Blake to rip off a couple of burnouts.

“I’d never really been a fan of skids, but by the time I left, I was ready to get into a father-son burnout project as fast as I could. Six years later, I’m still loving it!”

Ben immediately began the search for a suitable skid car, and scored a great deal when he came across a TD Cortina from Campbelltown in Sydney’s south-west. Although it was just a roller, it already had a four-link rear and a rollcage installed – perfect. Sure, it needed some loving – panel and paint work, and all the usual upgrades – but as far as Ben was concerned, it was game on!

The late Sam Fenech at Westend Performance had been doing Ben’s engines for years, and Ben knew that if he was going to start doing burnouts with the thousands of other cars already competing, he needed something that would really stand out from the crowd. 

“Let’s face it, nearly every car has a blower and hat on it, so I went and spoke to Sam about me building a twin-turbo 351 Cleveland with a 6/71 blower as well. Sam wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was, but I thought, ‘What the hell, let’s try it.’”

So, project OVERKILL began in his back shed. The boys got into tidying up the bodywork, and whatever Ben and son Blake couldn’t complete themselves was done by Grafton fab shop Pro Metal Worx.

Initially, the car was set up with a blow-through carb mounted on top of the blower, with Pro Metal Worx taking care of the fab work on this mechanical jigsaw – even adding an electric power steering conversion. 

Unfortunately, the Clevo kept eating exhaust valves – probably because of intake temps and pump gas – so Ben ditched the bent-eight for a Ford Typhoon Barra six-banger he already had in his shed. 

The eBay twin GT42 turbos and wastegates were fed by three cylinders apiece, via steampipe manifolds. At first, the blower was so overdriven that it was actually boosting at idle, so some overdrive issues had to be rectified. 

The factory six-cylinder intake manifold was fitted with an adapter plate to accept the big GM supercharger, and there was a lot of fiddly work to get everything aligned perfectly so that it didn’t throw belts and turn into a nightmare.

Despite all the boosting going on, there is no intercooler, although the factory injectors were swapped out for six 2200cc E85 items, squirting the chilled corn juice from twin Bosch 044 pumps. “I like the Bosch pumps because they’re cheap and get the job done,” Ben says.

IPS Tuning wired the car with a Haltech Elite 2500, and continue to do a great job tuning the Corty.

However, the new six-pot combo was no instant success. After struggling with the Clevo, the gearbox had a meltdown due to heat and was driving through the converter. And once Ben got that fixed, the stock Typhoon Barra died suddenly when the converter ballooned, pushing the crank forward in the block, which took out the main thrust bearing. You’ve got to break some eggs to make an omelette, it seems, so it was back to the drawing board for Ben.

“We ended up getting that C4 trans sorted out, and the converter is now just a total mystery bag – bits of this and bits of that – but it seems to work,” Ben says. “I was referred to Woodys Engines on the Gold Coast, and they built us a whole new Barra, this time with Boostline rods and pistons, a billet oil pump, half grout-filled block and some Stage 4 Crow cams. Four years later, we have had no issues, and the motor belts out 780rwhp on 18psi of boost.

“It’s a little bit interesting to drive; when you smack the throttle, there is like a two-second delay, and then it’s smooth sailing. As you get up in the rev range, the turbos start overtaking the blower, but it all seems to work. The car doesn’t get hot and it’s ended up being very reliable.”

As Operation OVERKILL has been running for so long, Ben’s son Blake now has his own car, a turbo Barra-powered BMW drift car, which he’s currently fitting a widebody kit to. 

“I’ve let Blake have a skid in the Cortina, and he did really well,” Ben says. “It’s just been a great journey with him, together with all the great people we met on the way. Being added to the Powercruise Dream Team has opened a lot of doors for us, and we just love what we’re doing.”