BIRD OF PREY
TOM JURIC BUILDS THE 800HP PRO STREET FALCON HE DREAMED OF AS A 16-YEAR-OLD
A tubbed, Clevo-powered XY is an Aussie pro street staple. This one is executed to perfection
TOM Juric was mad about cars from a young age. As a teenager, he dreamed about building a wild pro street Falcon, but life as a uni student meant that an EF with AU Tickford alloys would have to do for a while. “It was a piece of junk, but I loved that thing; I cruised it to death,” Tom says. “I dumped it on its arse and put a big stereo in it – all that stuff you do when you can’t really afford much.”
That was followed by a pretty nice VH Commodore that was an unfinished project; a painted roller that Tom slotted a healthy 308 in and finished off.
Things went quiet on the car front for a little while as Tom focussed on work and his career. Then the itch came back.
In 2013 Tom bought this XY Falcon off ebay; it was – supposedly – ready to paint. “There was more bog and spray filler than there was metal,” he recalls. “The floor was buckled and it was so bad that the guys at the panel shop were looking for another shell. I said: ‘Bugger it, let’s do it.’”
That decision resulted in Tom ordering the entire Rare Spares catalogue of Falcon replacement panels and tasking Tim Bubb and Kane Armstrong at Ol’ School Garage with bringing the car back to life and looking better than ever.
It’s pretty obvious this isn’t just another XY GT replica with a killer engine combo – not that there’s anything wrong with that – but what isn’t automatically apparent is the amount of custom bodywork that was performed on the car. The work is pretty substantial: deleted fuel filler and rain gutters, re-profiled rear wheelarches, deleted rear window moulds and reshaped front window moulds. The bumpers have also been tucked in nice and tight to the body, and there is more custom metalwork in the boot and engine bay.
To fit those 15x10 Billet Specialties Street Lites under the back, the car was mini-tubbed to the rails so the 295 ET Streets could ‘easily’ be swallowed up. With all of the bodywork done, Ol’ School Garage covered the whole lot in the stunning Lexus Infrared paint. “It was
THE FLOOR WAS BUCKLED AND IT WAS SO BAD THAT THE GUYS AT THE PANEL SHOP WERE LOOKING FOR ANOTHER SHELL
always going to be Mazda Soul Red; then one day I was driving to work behind a Lexus and thought: That’s the colour for me,” Tom says.
For all intents and purposes it’s candy apple red, but Lexus calls it a Quad-coat finish. Doing a bit of research reveals that, as the name implies, there are four layers to the paint, not three as you’d find in a traditional candy apple. First off, a copper base coat is laid down and covered in clear. That is followed by a translucent red coat before more clear goes over the top. In the case of Tom’s Falcon, it was the final clear, then the stripes, then more clear, then it was chopped back until it was dead flat before, finally, a hundred hours of detailing.
The interior follows a similar theme to the exterior, where a lot of the original parts have been used but everything has been tweaked and improved. The car still uses an original bucket/bench seating configuration, but
everything has been stripped back down to the frame and then re-bolstered to add some muchneeded support. All of the interior work was handled by Shane Webb at Image Trimming, and Tom can’t speak highly enough of his work: “Shane came highly recommended, but after working with him I can tell you the praise wasn’t high enough,” he says. “Absolutely great trimmer, super easy to get along with, a great work ethic, intense attention to detail and incredible knowledge. I can’t fault the guy. With what he started with and what we ended up with, it’s absolutely incredible and a credit to him.”
Underneath the car is all business as well, with an RRS Phase 2 suspension up front and Mcdonald Brothers triangulated four-link out back. The steering is now rack-and-pinion and there are disc brakes on every corner as well. Fully adjustable coil-overs front and rear mean the car can be dialled in for the street or the track, although looking at those skinny frontrunners, it’s pretty obvious Tom’s goal wasn’t to go around corners in a hurry.
Straight lines, on the other hand, won’t be a problem. Tom turned to TOCA Performance to screw together a small-block Ford, which in actual fact isn’t very small at all. The base for the engine is a World Products 9.5in-deck castiron block with billet four-bolt mains. It’s fitted with a Callies Magnum 4.00in stroker crank, Callies Ultra rods and custom-made JE pistons that measure up at 4.185in. If you do the maths, that adds up to a hair over 440 cubic inches.
That’s all good and well, but if your engine is going to make horsepower, it needs to be able to breathe. Tom selected a pair of CHI 3V heads and matching intake manifold, which then had around 50 hours of porting at TOCA Performance to absolutely maximise their performance. The cam is a custom solidroller grind designed by TOCA to match the engine’s characteristics, and the pump fuel is supplied by a massive BLP Racing carb rated at 1350cfm! It’s no surprise that Tom only gets about 100km out of his 75-litre fuel tank.
While it might not be the most economical engine, it’s one of the tougher naturally aspirated combos out there, making a dynoproven 800hp at the crank. “Tony and Will at TOCA Performance, in my humble opinion, are the best small-block Ford builders in the country – there, I said it!” Tom laughs. “I’m sure he does a lot of other things well too, but Tony knows his engines backwards. I can call him any time and ask his advice and opinion and he’ll give it to me. I wouldn’t go anywhere else for the powerplant.”
It may have taken four-and-a-half years to finish and more money than Tom cares to add up, but the effort was all worthwhile when it
TOM TURNED TO TOCA PERFORMANCE TO SCREW TOGETHER A SMALL-BLOCK FORD, WHICH IN ACTUAL FACT ISN’T VERY SMALL AT ALL
THE BIGGEST BUZZ I GET IS WHEN PEOPLE COME UP AND TALK TO ME ABOUT MY CAR AND THEN SHARE THEIR STORIES. IT’S REALLY ABOUT THE COMMUNITY
came time to unveil the XY at Summernats 32: “That was a surreal experience and something 16-year-old me could only dream of, so to do it was a bucket-list item ticked for sure. The biggest buzz I get is when people come up and talk to me about my car and then share their stories; I used to think it was about the car, but – and this may sound clichéd – it’s really about the community.”
After chatting to Tom at length about his car at Summernats and also for this story, it’s pretty obvious he’s a well-educated and switched-on bloke, and he had some wise words to say about our scene overall: “As you can see, this build was a team effort. I had the absolute pleasure of working on this project with some super-talented and dedicated professionals. I’m sure it’s a common theme with car builders globally, but it takes a team to pull something like this together.
“When you look at the contribution the auto industry makes to the market, I often wonder why the government doesn’t get behind the industry more. Sure, large-scale manufacturing may not be suited to Australia; however, there is a thriving small-scale, specialised industry out there. Why not support and encourage it, rather than demonise it? When you look at what we turned out in this very specific project, long may the street machining industry reign, I say.”