Blown and injected, Holden 202-Powered Dragster Debuts at Sydney Hot Rod Expo – Video

Many moons ago, 15-year-old Sydney schoolkid Joe Kurtovic drew a picture of his dream front-engined dragster.

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Pure old-school, it looked like a classic late-60s American strip rioter, only it was powered by a classic Aussie six-cylinder – the Holden 202!

Twenty-five years after doing that doodle, the grown-up Joe now stands proudly alongside his dream-come-true.

Holden powered dragster“In my opinion, anyone can build a small-block Chev or a Hemi,” said Joe, who also owns a small-block powered ’34 Ford coupe and a ’55 Pontiac custom. “As a kid, I always liked 202 Holdens, and I love a challenge.”

This is the first dragster Joe has ever built and it took seven years to complete. Virtually everything was done in the shed by him and his mates.

Holden powered dragster engine“The car is basically hand-built from scratch in the garage, every bracket and bolt,” he said.

The 202 six-cylinder is one that Joe bought from drag racing veteran Norm McCormack a decade ago. After cleaning it up and replacing the head and crank with fresh billet items, he topped it with a 6/71 Jeff Ramsay Engineering supercharger and Enderle mechanical injection. It’s backed by a Powerglide with JW case and full-floating nine-inch with 40-spline axles.

Holden powered dragster engineThe chrome-moly chassis and aluminium ’chute-pack body were hand-built. The only things Joe didn’t have a hand in producing were the front wing, which was imported from the States, the gold sparkle seat trim, which was handled by Kira Jurado, and the stunning metalflake paintwork, which was laid on by Kyle Smith of Smith Concepts.

The theme for the paintwork was derived from a customised race helmet that Joe got for his 40th birthday from his brothers in The Outkasts Car Club.

Holden powered dragster“Originally I was going to do the car in matte black,” revealed Joe, “but I met Kyle Smith four weeks ago and we got talking. Up until that point I didn’t have a paintjob in mind. We had a meeting and I told him I wanted it to look like it had come from a 1969 American dragstrip. He started painting it three weeks ago and he’s just blown me out of the water with what you see here today.”

Now that the FED has made its show debut, Joe’s eager to get it to the race track and start chasing the title of World’s Fastest Holden Six!

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