STORAGE WARS

CHRIS MURPHY'S XW UTE SPENT YEARS BEING USED AS A STORAGE CLOSET UNTIL HIS WIFE GAVE HIM A GENTLE PUSH IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

- STORY STEVE JURSKIS

THINK back to the last time you packed up and moved house. You probably found all sorts of long-forgotten odds and sods in dusty corners of the shed and swore to yourself you'd never move again. Well, spare a thought for Chris Murphy, who dragged this XW ute from place to place for years, rolling it out of one dusty shed and into another. And all that time, it was primarily used as storage space, until he finally began turning it into the 600hp Windsor-powered stunner it is now.

Chris picked up this XW years prior when he was working with his old man as a roofer. The pair were quoting a job at the ute owner's house, and offered the bloke mates’ rates if the X-Dub could form part of the payment. A deal was struck, and the ute was safely tucked away in the Murphy family shed. However, apart from some occasional banter with his dad as to which of them it actually belonged to, Chris never managed to put his plans for the ute into action. The vision was always there, with Chris having a pretty clear sense of what the XW should become; he just needed a bit of a shove in the right direction. That came seven years ago, when Chris's wife, Cindy, stepped in. Sick of seeing the forlorn XW in the shed taking up more space than it offered in terms of storage, and sensing its untapped potential (or perhaps eyeing the rapidly rising value of barn dust), Cindy encouraged Chris to either get started on it or get rid of it.