If you stop to admire Jordan’s bright-red Patrol, be prepared to stay a while.
Ask him about his GQ Patrol, SHQRTY, and before long you’re talking about backyard engineering, Saturday-night car meets, the history of hidden tracks in and around Alice Springs… and why on earth he decided to stuff a BMW turbo diesel into a GQ Patrol.
That’s because SHQRTY isn’t just another modified Patrol.
It’s a reflection of the bloke who built it.
“I’ve owned my SHQRTY for nearly 10 years,” Jordan says. “It’s been my daily driver and desert tourer, always reliable.”
The old GQ has become something of an icon among four-wheel-drive enthusiasts, and clean short-wheelbase examples are getting harder to find. Rather than restoring this one back to factory spec, Jordan wanted to give it another life, one that’s just as comfortable crawling through the scrub as it is sitting in the Show and Shine.
So two years ago, the Patrol disappeared into his Alice Springs shed for what he casually calls “the big refresh.”
In reality, it was closer to a complete rebuild.
“I’m a bit of a cheeky bloke,” He laughs, “and I think that bit of a prankster attitude was kind of like, well, what if I just stuck something that just does not belong in there into it, and then see what happens.”
The answer turned out to be a BMW M57N 3.0-litre straight-six turbo diesel backed by a built ZF six-speed automatic. Jordan even integrated the BMW electronics into the factory Nissan dash through a custom CANBUS setup, so everything works as though Nissan built it that way. It’s the kind of homebrewed engineering that most people don’t notice, but what turns a clever engine into a genuinely useable beast with serious torque potential and reliability.
The interior is retrimmed with custom leather, a new roof lining, fresh flooring and restored trim, while underneath the Patrol is braced on chassis rails, strengthened diff housings, Fox remote-reservoir shocks, lockers, skid plates and custom bar work.
“It’s designed to be a tank in the bush but fast on the street,” he says.
It’s somehow an off-roader, a street car and a show car all rolled into one.
“It might not be a purpose-built drag car, but I have a lot of fun doing it,” he says, “The beauty’s in the eye of the beholder. And I built it to do exactly what I wanted it to do.”
It still heads bush. It still gets driven around town. It still tours Central Australia. And when Red CentreNATS rolls around, it swaps dusty tracks for the Show and Shine lawn before lining up at the drags and dirt drags.
And that versatility hasn’t gone unnoticed.
SHQRTY has already claimed back-to-back victories on the Red CentreNATS 4WD Track, taken home Best 4WD at the 2024 Show and Shine and built a loyal following online. But ask Jordan what he’s proudest of and the conversation quickly shifts away from trophies.
“It’s also important to keep people aware that the culture still exists,” he says. “It’s not a dying breed. There’s still a lot of people out there who are into cars and it’s not going to go away anytime soon.”
Growing up around local car meets, he watched first-hand how one build could inspire the next generation.
“I was lucky. I grew up in a time where the car scene was still heavy with car meets and car parks filled with cars on a Saturday night,” he says. “You saw young fellas and girls come up to these meets and get inspired to get into the industry, get into cars.”
He believes events like Red CentreNATS are helping create that same spark for the next generation.
“It’s become such a broad event now that there’s something there for everyone,” he says.
“People see them as just an outlet for hoons… but throwing everyone in a bucket and calling them a hoon is simply untrue.”
Instead, Jordan sees the event as a celebration of craftsmanship, engineering and community.
“There’s always a lot of cars and you get to talk shop and mingle with like-minded people,” he says. “Every now and then you see something about as strange as SHQRTY rock up and you go, ‘Wow, that’s something different.'”
Whenever SHQRTY appears on social media, Jordan makes sure the backdrop gets just as much attention as the Patrol itself.
“When I take a photo of the SHQRTY, I always like to see if I can get a bit of the background in it too,” he says. “It’s as much showing people the car as it is showing them Central Australia.”
It’s his way of challenging perceptions of Alice Springs.
“The town itself is surrounded by some of the oldest and some of the most beautiful geographical anomalies and terrain that you’ll ever see. It is stunning.”
Ask him where visitors should point their four-wheel drives and he doesn’t hesitate.
“Everyone goes down the West Macs,” he says. “Not a lot of people go up the East Macs. They’re just as pretty, if not more spectacular…”
And if there’s one thing he’d love to see at this year’s Red CentreNATS, it’s more people bringing their own projects out to join the fun.
Whether it’s a championship-winning Patrol or a project that’s only just made it out of the shed, Jordan reckons every build has a place.
“Definitely bring it down, show it out, have a crack at the events. If you can’t, just come down and say hello. There’s so many different cars there and there’s going to be something there for somebody.”
And that’s exactly what Red CentreNATS is all about.
Entries are now open for the 12th annual Red CentreNATS, presented by LMCT+, taking place in Alice Springs from 3 to 6 September 2026. Enter now, even if it’s just to show Jordan. He’s keen to see it!
Visit redcentrenats.com.au for more information on how to enter the Ultimate Festival of Wheels.
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