PROFLO PERFORMANCE
Join us for a poke around the workshop that churns out some of Oz’s toughest streeters
SOME shops have a signature look. For Sydney’s Proflo Performance, that means worm-burning ride heights, steamroller meats out back and metal skyscrapers jutting out of engine bays, all finished to Summernats Elite-level quality. Owner Paul Sant first came to Street Machine’s attention with a tasty blown Torana hatchback that we featured way back in our March 1996 issue. “I wasn’t Proflo back when that car was featured,” says Paul, sitting in his office at the new, much larger shop he moved Proflo Performance into a little over a year ago. “Jeez, when was the start? I don’t even know!”
You can’t fault the street machining legend for not recalling the exact date his empire began (it was 1998), given the hundreds of top-shelf street machines and off-tap engine combos he’s built since then. But it all started from afterhours, extra-curricular activities.
“I used to tinker with engines and cars at home when I worked elsewhere,” says Paul. “When I started Proflo, it was intended to be more concentrating on building engines and developing cylinder heads, with a bit of car work involved. But I didn’t believe it would evolve into the monster it is today.”
Paul took home the John Taverna Memorial Award in 2014 at Summernats 27, which is fitting when you consider the Proflo highlights reel. Some of the cars you may recognise from his workshop include Paul Souma’s 2000rwhp ATTACK ’56 Chev (SM, Jan ’13); the blown small-block IMB05S Escort of Geoff Newton (SM, Feb ’20); Brett Hewerdine’s pro street HT Monaro (SM, Apr ’19); Blake Fardell’s blown Hemi-powered XY (SM, Dec ’14); Milan’s 940ci LJ Torana (SM, Feb ’20); and the genre-busting ’57 Chev of Anthony Sant (SM, Feb ’04).
However, Paul points to a bona-fide legend of the Sydney scene as being the one who put him and his fledgling business in the spotlight. “I believe one of the cars that really kickstarted the Proflo name was Tristan Ockers’s Capri, MINCER,” he says. “Tristan was one of my first
I DIDN’T BELIEVE IT WOULD EVOLVE INTO THE MONSTER IT IS TODAY
engine customers, so then all the Thirlmere Fryers boys came to me, and they were a big force at Summernats at the time.”
This was in the days before everyone had a Roots blower sitting in the stratosphere and power figures for street cars were well down in the three-digit territory. The sight of tubbed and blown cars with number plates was absolute outlaw territory, and the connection with the Thirlmere skid fiends led to Proflo building a rep as the place to go if you wanted a titanium-tough car that was detailed to the nines.
After 21 years in the same shed, Proflo took a big leap at the start of 2020 and expanded into a new facility in Campbelltown on the southwestern fringes of Sydney. Paul feels it will be a much better workspace, among other benefits.
“We’ve been almost a one-stop shop for a while, so the new shop is an evolution of that process of expansion,” he says. “Cars are very expensive these days, so presentation is an important part of the business. The old shop evolved from a tin shed into a giant tin shed, so there were some bits of the shop here and other areas over there, but the new shop’s layout is much better thoughtout, as it was designed to do this job from the get-go, and it flows between work spaces.
“I have the engine room and cylinder head area upstairs, near reception, with the fab area and car assembly across the shop downstairs. When we first purchased the building, a few good mates and I spent six months after-hours renovating and upgrading the facilities to make it present well and function well for both staff and clients. There’s a few of us working here now; I have four fab guys, one mechanic, my son Charlie and myself.
“I couldn’t tell you how many cars we do a year, but there’s normally 40-50 engines on the go at once, and there’s usually 20-30 cars on the go, too. When we do a full build, the car basically only leaves for paint, as the trimmers and auto electrician come to us. The rest we do in-house.”
Keeping projects moving between sections of the shop is a challenge for anyone building a handful of cars, let alone tackling as many full-on builds as Proflo knocks out each year. This is why Paul points to his employees as one of the shop’s greatest strengths.
“What I like about my guys is there are no egos at work; everyone works together and I think that is a big part of why the cars turn out the way they do,” Paul says. “Everyone has a car they work on and a job to do; I don’t usually team people up because everyone knows what to do and when. The boys all work together consulting each other to make sure projects flow through the shop, and they’ll sometimes come grab me from upstairs in the engine room to look at something and