Sleepers

Damien Boyce Turbo Barra-Powered Xt Fairmont.

- Andrew Broadley

IF YOU ever needed proof that Ford’s venerable Barra six-cylinder engine has reached cult status, Damien Boyce’s gloriously stealthy XT Fairmont is it. Before the Barra arrived on the scene, the flagship performance engines for most Ford fans were carby-fed Cleveland and Windsor V8s. There have been EFI Windsors, quad-cam 5.4L Boss motors and even factory supercharged Coyotes in the years since, but none of these have been embraced by Aussie enthusiasts to the same level as GM’s LS series, for example. But the Blue Oval’s answer to the LS is well and truly here in the shape of the Barra inline six, and they’re now being stuffed into everything, including Holdens.

Damien’s Fairmont represents a bit of a changing of the guard from the Windsors and Clevos of old to the new-age, DOHC four-litre, EFI turbo six-pots. You see, when he first built the car he equipped it with a screamer of a Clevo that powered it to 11.8-second quarters on the motor and into the 10s with a 100-shot. It had a reverse-cowl scoop and a set of Convo Pros for a bit of Pro Street attitude, and was by all accounts a good thing. But it wasn’t perfect.