LEMON ZEST

HAVING LONG PARTED WITH HIS FIRST YELLOW XY FALCON, MAT ‘GUDGE’ BUDAJ DECIDED TO BUILD ANOTHER – THIS TIME WITH FEWER DOORS

- TAS McMILLAN

MAT ‘Gudge’ Budaj remembers how it all started: “When I was 15, I pitted for Manuel Galea, who raced an RX-4 with a 400ci small-block. His brother had a plain yellow XY.”

That teenage XY vision made such an impression on Gudge that he ended up building his own yellow sedan with a GT interior, Center Lines and an avgas-slurping 351 Clevo with closed-chamber 4Vs and 12.5:1 comp.

In the early 2000s, Gudge parted out the car and sold it off, but the itch to build another never left. When a friend mentioned an XY ute he’d seen rusting quietly out the back of a panel beater’s in Werribee, Gudge thought he’d have another crack at it.

“It was a Ford parts delivery car, and it was pretty rough!” he says of the now-splendid ute you see here. The lower sections of the quarters had been replaced shoddily and covered with bog, but there was more nastiness still to be discovered. The shell was handed to Geoff from Street Tech Fabrications to be fitted with mini-tubs and a new tray floor, but two days later he called Gudge with the bad news. “It ended up staying with Geoff for 300 hours!” he says. “He replaced the lower sections of the quarters, wheelarches, floorpan, tray floor and radiator support.”

Along with repairing the damage, Geoff moved the chassis rails and springs in to make room for the 12.5in-wide Mickey Thompsons, added the mini-tubs, mounted the diff, deleted the battery tray and made the all-steel reverse cowl.