Front Loaded

John Saad’s XY falcon street car is a 1300hp mountain- motored monster!

- Craig Parker

JOHN Saad wanted a streetable car that had 1000hp naturally aspirated. “No blowers, no turbos,” he says. And that’s exactly what FAT XY is. With an engine bay filled to the brink with a massive 673ci Sonny Leonard, hemi-headed big block Ford, this gorgeous black XY GT tribute exceeded John’s requirements with a bona fide 1354 98-octane-friendly horses. If you think 1354hp is stout, you’ll be blown away by the fact that John actually had the engine detuned to make that power.

US-based Pro Stock/Pro Mod gurus Sonny’s Racing Engines originally built the Hemiheaded mountain motor for an Aussie drag racer who was looking to run sixes on C16. Unfortunately, the enormous mill was never fitted to a car and sat about languishing. John’s brother George was aware of its existence, and approached the owner about selling it. Although it wasn’t actually for sale at the time, a deal was struck.

Unfortunately, with its alloy rods, sky-high compression and Mount Everest cam, the angry full-race engine was never going to be happy on the street. So it was packed into a crate and shipped back across the Pacific, to Sonny’s shop in Lynchburg, Virginia. They stripped and completely rebuilt it with different rods, pistons and a more streetable version of Sonny’s special 60mm camshafts.