One car that made a big impression on us when it debuted at Chopped 2024 was Chris Wroe’s small-block Chev-powered XP Falcon gasser, ‘Looney Tunes’.

Chris has a long history of creating wicked cars, including a cool Chev C10 burnout truck for Street Machine Summernats 31, which he built alongside his then fellow students at the Canberra Institute of Technology and Farmtruck and AZN of Street Outlaws fame. He now builds cars out of his workshop in Albury, NSW under the Old Cool Customs banner, and this XP ute is one of them.

“I was looking for something to build for Chopped, and this popped up on Facebook Marketplace,” says Chris. “It was in Leeton [NSW] on a farm, and I paid $2000 for it.”

Other than a tweaked front rail from a hit with an old bullbar, Chris says it had solid bones. “There was barely any rust. Some people got up me about cutting up a rust-free car, but I had those rear guards cut and the whole front end out straight away!” he laughs.

Chris had a clear vision of what he wanted his first gasser build to look like, and he was intent on doing it with as many recycled parts as he could. “The front axle is from a first-gen Transit van; the only things I bought were the engine and gearbox,” he says.

That engine is a 400-cube small-block Chev, with Quick Fuel 450 carbs on top of a tunnel-ram intake. “I had the tunnel rams before I’d even got the car,” Chris says. “I wanted to build this just like they did back in the day – no fancy new stuff.” The diff is a Borgy from an 80s Falcon, while the gearbox is a TCI TH350.

Lincoln Camilleri from Link’s Lines Pinstriping gave the XP its ‘Looney Tunes’ livery and ’striping. “I love old cartoons, so it made sense to me to go with that theme,” Chris says. “The whole inside of the roof has clippings from old cartoons that my partner Ashleigh Maree stuck up for me,” he says. 

Chris had a mad time at Chopped ripping up the dirt drags, and recently had the XP out at the Wilby eighth-mile drags to see how it’d take to the black stuff. “I got a best of 7.47, but that was only at 80mph, because the brake zone is really small and I was worried about not pulling up!” Chris laughs. “I’m taking it to Heathcote soon, so we’ll see how it goes there.”

Photos: Chris Thorogood, Kadeograph