First published in the December 2007 issue of Street Machine

Take a bow, Wayne Ogier. “It’s my first V8 and the first car I’ve ever built up,” says the Auckland-based owner of this green XW Ford Falcon. Having a couple of mates who are into cars — Richard Tuthill and Mike Bari, who both own supercharged Commodores featured in Street Machine and Street Machine Commodores — helped.

“We’re always pumping each other up and giving each other crap,” Wayne says. “They’re mongrels! First Mike talked Richard into a blower and then Richard talked me out of my V8 jet boat and into buying a blower, too.”

Despite this being his first build, Wayne’s had hands-on experience with motorsport in the past, crewing with rally cars, midgets and a 440 Dodge. He was learning the whole time. These days he’s president of Wheels Incorporated Hot Rod Club and counts many of the club members among his mentors for this project.

“I worked right through Christmas a few years ago building some boats and I decided I’d use the money I earned to buy a V8 — this one. I knew this car before I bought it as it was owned by a flatmate, Rob, who I crewed with. It was bought simply to get out and have some fun but before I knew it, it was stripped down for a complete colour change,” he says. “Oh yeah, and I wasn’t going to have a blower either. We wanted to make it a bit different, and of course stand out visually with the big wheels and the stance.”

It’s a long way from the shabby unit he bought.

“I thought it was pretty cool but looking back, it was a heap of shit,” he says. “It overheated and had a few problems so the priority was to get it reliable. The body had minimal rust and underneath was covered in oil. I thought that was bad, but I remember Richard saying: ‘You call that oil, I call it preservative.’”

How about that colour, Wayne? “I had to make a really quick decision about the paint one day,” he explains. “I was flicking through Street Machine and found an ad for a transmission or something on a green background. I plonked the page in front of the paint fella and said ‘match that!’”

Wayne sprayed the paint in the door inners and engine bay and Geoff Stringfellow laid on the remainder in Wayne’s dad’s spray booth (not normally used for cars — he makes kitchens) before Brent Denholm applied the stripes. Reassembly wasn’t too difficult, with the Ford’s body trim requiring little more than relatively easy dent-removal and polishing.

Although Wayne has owned the car for several years, it’s been evolving the whole time. “They’re never finished, are they?” he says. “It was a year to get it running and legal, one to do the engine bay and battery in the boot and all that, then the blower and Simmons wheels went on in late 2006.”

The Cleveland V8 engine was fresh when Wayne bought the car. He’s not sure of its pedigree but he has seen inside it — to fix the distributor.

“Beautiful; not a mark anywhere,” he says of the internals. “It all works as long as I keep the boost down. Six pounds is the magic number, as far as I can determine. Any more than that and you need tougher pistons, tougher rods, tougher everything.”

Which sort of suggests that he’s found out the hard way how hard to lean on the car.

“I’ve blown the centre out of the diff once,” he admits. Other than that, the list is pretty short: “The drive pin dropped out of the distributor and the original steering box shit itself.”

On the street, it’s happy on pump fuel. “If I’m going to lean on it, I might splash some octane boost in it,” Wayne says, “but apart from that it’s fine on the good 98, though I keep an ear open for any detonation.”

And how about the boys in blue? “Twice the cops have pulled me over and said: ‘That’s a nice car.’ If you’re a monkey, you get in trouble.”

The transmission is a C4 three-cogger with a shift kit that so far has resisted any attempts to break it. The nine-inch diff has already been narrowed but Wayne’s contemplating taking another 30mm slice from the track over the summer so he can fit some even deeper-dish Simmons than the current 19x10s. Why? Just because he can. He’ll probably fit RRS 330mm discs at the same time.

Having mates like Mike (mechanic) and Richard (fitter/machinist) was a huge help with the Falcon build but Wayne also worked on the car himself.

“I grew up on a farm,” he says. “We used to weld up lawnmowers and make go-karts. So although I’m not mechanically trained, I’ll get in and have a go.”

Building the Falcon DIY was a case of little and often. “I used to go out into the shed and do an hour or two each night,” he explains. “This thing didn’t get built overnight, and I didn’t have much money to spray around to build it.”

Apart from the iron lung late in ’06, Wayne’s mechanical tweaks are a blend of necessity, appearance and convenience. “The engines were designed for left-hand drive so for right-hookers the power steering lines run across the engine bay,” he says. “I didn’t like that so I got a pump from a Magna that I could discreetly mount on the driver’s side.”

The substitute pump drives a transplanted XF Falcon power box. The alternator has switched sides too, with hidden wiring.

“I’ve had an auto eleccy ask: ‘Where’s your wiring?’” Wayne says. “And I had a hot rodder stand there for quarter of an hour and say: ‘You’ve done some cool stuff.’

“That made me proud; all the hard work was worthwhile.”

WAYNE OGIER
FORD XW FALCON

THANKS
Mum and Dad, Richard and Anita Tuthill, Brent Denholm for the stripes, Geoff Stringfellow for the paint, Mike Bari, Carl Jensen, Wayne Grimmer, Stu Hansen, Mic Crocker, Neil Waters, Ron Penmann Motorsport. And my neighbours for putting up with the noise before the Kumeu show.