LION TAMER

FAT RUBBER, SLAMMED STANCE AND A 500RWHP ASPIRATED SMALL-BLOCK CHEV MAKE THIS HQ COUPE A KILLER CRUISER

- IAIN KELLY

SOME people know how to build a certain make and model of car, and Dave Guilfoyle is one of those blokes. His Whipple-blown, LS-swapped VL Calais and his wife Jodie’s LX hatch have both been stunners, along with a laundry list of other cool rides they’ve enjoyed, but Dave has an uncanny knack for building righteously tough and clean HQ Monaro coupes.

Feast your peepers on this Cyan Blue example and delight in the way he’s incorporated all the cool factory styling Aussies love about Holden’s iconic 70s muscle car. And then check the way he’s dialled up the aggro through fat Weld rollers, and that detailed, corn syrup-chugging, solidroller 421ci small-block under the bonnet.

Dave’s other HQ, his Purr-Pull coupe MRGM8, was featured on the cover of our December 2015 issue with a show-finish blown 502 big-block, and then on the cover of SM LSX Tuner #6 after he flicked the BBC for a Magnuson 2300-inflated 427ci LSX. For the blue car, however, there was to be no forced induction.

“I wanted this one a little different to MRGM8, but with a similar theme,” says Dave. “MRGM8 has the blown E85 427 LSX, and this one has the angry E85 aspirated small-block. It’s good to have the best of both worlds!”

While it is awesome to say you own two HQ Monaro coupes, it took Dave giving up a treasured member of the Guilfoyle fleet to bring the blue two-door home.

“A mate bought the coupe a few months before I got it,” Dave says. “He sent the car up to me a few weeks later and said: ‘If you want to buy it, then buy it. If not, finish it off to sell for me.’ I could see it was a quality two-door, but it needed to be finished off right.