BORN TO BE WILD
> FROM ITS LAIRY GRAPHICS TO ITS RUSSELL JONES-BUILT 351 CLEVELAND, OWEN WEBB’S WILD THING XY WAS AN INSTANT AUSSIE PRO STREET CLASSIC
CALL me biased, but the XW/XY Falcon has to be one of the toughestlooking body shapes to ever roll off the Broadmeadows production line. Owen Webb’s WILD THING XY took those muscular lines and turned them up to 11!
Debuting at Summernats 1 in 1988, WILD THING was one of the new breed of showquality pro streeters. To prove the point, it scored a spot in the Top 10, as well as Top Undercarriage & Driveline. While its wild graphics and lurid rear end were plastered across the cover of the March 1988 issue of Street Machine as part of the huge Summernats coverage, readers had to wait until the following issue, April/may ’88, to get the full rundown on this legendary machine.
The car was already pretty wild when Owen got his hands on it, as it was on its way to being transformed into a drag car. The rear tubs were already in, as well as the rollcage and the firstever chassis by the famed Murray Anderson. That said, it still took a mountain of work to get the XY into show-stopping WILD THING form.
As the then-proprietor of Pro Finish in Bowral, paint maestro Webby handled all the paint-andpanel duties himself. First up was the engine bay; with all the factory seams welded and smoothed, it set the standard for Ford guys from that day forward. It also raised the bar high for the rest of the car, so the smooth stuff didn’t end there. The rest of the underside and the entire driveline were finished to the same slick standard.
It certainly made a big impression on me in 1988 when I saw it parked out on the Natex oval next to Rob Beauchamp’s VL Calais, Greg Carlson’s VK Commodore and Rick Dobbertin’s Pontiac J2000. I stared at it for hours, stealing every idea I possibly could.
The style of the car’s interior could be described as ‘luxury race’, with acres of beautifully beadrolled and painted sheet metal augmented by exquisite mirror-polished aluminium panelling. The scant few niceties included two fixed-back
WEBB SIGHTS
OWEN Webb has had a hand in many Street Machine feature cars, several of which were his own personal rides.
His black XW ute, The Bruiser (pictured left), initially made an appearance in the April/ May 1983 Readers Rides section before returning in improved form as a full feature car in the Jan/ Feb 1986 issue. “It was one of the first Aussie cars to have Center Line Auto Drags and Bfgoodrich TAS,” Owen recalls.
Owen’s incredibly tidy Vermilion Fire XY GS featured in the August 2005 mag. Built to drive, it featured a Ben Gatt 351, a Top Loader and a Matt Gilkes-tweaked interior. Despite having built a string of XWS and XYS, Owen has always insisted he’s not a Ford guy per se, as he proved when KANDYSTAR, his 1969 Chev Camaro, was unveiled at Meguiar’s Motorex in 2010. “Ever since I was 17, I’ve always wanted a candy apple red car, and now I’ve got one,” he said at the time.
With its LS, six-speed manual, hip-hugging buckets, hefty Harrop brakes, big wheels and grippy rubber, KANDYSTAR is a full-on pro tourer.
Both the GS and the Camaro are still in Owen’s collection, with the latter undergoing a bit of a freshen-up at the moment.
I WANTED A PROPER PRO STREETER, A CAR THAT WAS STILL RECOGNISABLE AS AN XY BUT BUILT LIKE A RACE CAR EVERYWHERE ELSE
race buckets trimmed in blue and black velour, four-point harnesses, a rollcage and floor mats. Notably absent was any visible wiring; Mark Roberts managed to hide it all neatly out of sight.
As tough as it looked, WILD THING had the goods to back it up. Russell Jones gets the credit for screwing together the angry 351 Cleveland, which boasted stout 12:1 comp, a solid cam and a set of 4V cast-iron heads that Joe and Ben Gatt had worked their magic on. And while loaded with plenty of top-shelf goodies, it was Owen’s keen attention to detail that got the mill looking so fine.
Rounding out the fine driveline was a C4 and a four-linked nine-inch that Chris Soulos at Diff Conversions narrowed to just 44 inches flangeto-flange.
When Street Machine interviewed Owen back in ’88, he commented: “What I wanted was a proper pro streeter, a car that was still recognisable as an XY but built like a race car everywhere else.” And no pro streeter would be caught dead without the obligatory big-and-little wheel combo, Owen opting for a set of highly polished 15x3.5 and 15x10 Center Line Auto Drags wrapped in M/T Sportsman rubber.
While you might be thinking that this was a multi-year build, Mr Webb and his small, invaluable crew knuckled down and got the whole shooting match finished in an incredibly hectic 16 months. That’s mighty fast for a car of this quality.
Owen sold WILD THING towards the end of 1988, but thanks to the car’s considerable success, Chic Henry approached him about joining the judging team for Summernats 3. Owen accepted the invitation, and the rest, as they say, is history.