Carrot-fuelled obsessions
With multiple drag racing titles under their belt, the Lamattina family knows a thing or two about fast cars.
The three brothers who head up Lamattina Top Fuel Racing can trace their love of such cars back to a pair of XW GTs from their youth.
“The reason we bought this (Silver Fox) one a long time ago was that my father had an XW GT, a Track Red one,” middle brother Phil explained to AMC. “It was the rst car he bought new, in late 1970 or early ’71. He had it for 11 years, until he had to get rid of it to buy more of a family car.”
That red machine went to a family member in the early 1980s, whom the brothers subsequently lost touch with.
“I have an older brother, Angelo, and a younger brother, John. We got our heads together in the 1990s and decided we wanted to get, speci cally, an XW GT, because our father, Rocky, had one. Most others want an XY, but we wanted an XW. So we went searching for one.”
Phil found the silver beast, a March 1970-build GT, which was for sale in Terang, Victoria.
“It was owned by a mechanic, a good sign it had been looked after. It was automatic and had a factory sunroof. He wanted $16,000 for it, which I thought was a ridiculously large amount of money. This was the mid to late nineties, well before the muscle car boom.”
Phil’s brother-in-law egged him on to buy it and they were soon driving it home to Mildura.
It wasn’t long before the silver Ford was being run down the border city’s dragstrip. “One thing led to another and we got involved in drag racing
here in Mildura and soon decided we weren’t going fast enough!
“We took the original gearbox out, put a two-speed powerglide in it; also put a 460ci big block engine in it. This, remember, was before the boom. We got that going pretty quickly down the eighth mile, but, of course wanted to go faster. We were told that if we wanted to go faster that we’d need to start cutting it up – tubbing it, adding a rollcage, that sort of thing. But that wasn’t what we bought the XW GT for and never wanted to touch it to the point of no return. So that’s when we bought a Capri as a proper drag car and we kept the XW as a ‘streeter.’”
The Capri eventually gave way to Top Fuel dragsters – “yes, we took some massive steps up” – and Lamattina Racing became a powerhouse of the sport’s elite category.
Fast forward to 2017 and Phil, now retired from driving the family’s Top Fuellers, was eager to embark on two projects that would dovetail nicely: a) return the XW GT to original; and b) build a hotrod. The 460ci engine and transmission were transplanted from the silver Falcon, with the hotrod receiving both. Meanwhile, the XW’s original engine and gearbox, safely stored in the shed on the family’s carrot farm, were returned to their rightful home after the engine bay had been repainted. Phil wanted to maintain the original exterior paintwork, but it was damaged when the stripes were being removed for replacement. Thus, to his chagrin, an exterior respray was unavoidable. “It went against the grain of what I wanted to do, i.e. maintain the near 50-year-old car’s patina, but what was done was done. I removed the car from the original bloke who was doing the exterior work and gave it to another guy.” Overall, the resto was overseen by Angelo Rodi.
“The interior hasn’t been restored,” Phil continued, “For instance there’s still a burn mark from when an early owner must have missed the ashtray when stubbing a cigarette!”
Since the resto, their father’s old Track Red XW GT has come back into their lives. We’ll tell you more about that car in a coming edition.
At the time of writing, LTFR’s driver Kelly Bettes leads the 2018/2019 400 Thunder Top Fuel Championship. Last season Bettes was the rst female to win a professional Australian drag racing category, a feat achieved in the ‘The Carrot Kings’ Top Fueller. Bettes’ feat added to Phil’s titles from the noughties. And to think, everything the Lamattinas have achieved in drag racing started with a pair of XW GTs.