The Velardi Family Garage

Welcome to the Velardi Family garage. Frank, Tony and myself have been into cars all of our lives. Like many of you we grew up in an average family, in an average suburb but still managed to own and build above average cars.

Frank isn’t a stranger to high performance cars. Since his teenage years he’s owned everything from ex rally Datsun 1600’s, a Pontiac Parisienne, replica XY GT’s and a Genuine Reef Green XW GT to name a few.

He has owned this ‘67 Ford Mustang Deluxe since 1997, picking it up in Sydney’s West for the bargain price of $11,250.

It was right hand drive and registered and although the Vermillion Red paint was severely faded, there was no rust.

It became his daily driver for a while and then was pulled off the road for a repaint and tidy up.

Being a panel beater by trade is handy when you own a classic car that needs some repairs!

Then the performance bug bit and so a 6/71 supercharger was purchased and a 347ci Windsor was built to bolt it to. The rest of the driveline was also rebuilt to suit.

It has ventured over to Sydney Dragway a few times where it has run a best of 11.1@120mph.

It isn’t the quickest Mustang around, but considering it gets driven all over Sydney without fail it’s definitely one of the most seen!

Frank has often thought about selling the Mustang to move onto another project, but his wife Antoniette along with his three boys (Domenic, Gianni and Rocco), love cruising in the car so much he knows he just can’t do it. Who knows maybe one day one of the kids will be lucky enough to own it...

My first car was a ‘84 Toyota Corolla CSX. It served me well in my teens to and from school and then onto university. I then moved onto a six cylinder ’66 Mustang Coupe as a daily driver as a Scientist. Yeah I know, beauty and brains!

I left science as I needed a change, moving into the car magazine industry and to become the editor of Street Fords magazine.

Over this time I have seen all kinds of Fords come and go through the magazine (around 550), with many of them giving me inspiration and ideas for my own cars.

My most recent build is Project Wild Violence, a twin turbo 451ci Windsor stuffed into a K code XY Fairmont. It should make around 1200hp thanks to those 67mm Precision turbos and Haltech EFI. Noted engine builders Trick & Mansweto Racing are screwing the engine together at the moment.

The plans are to finish the car by the end of the year and to get it out and on the street where it will be driven regularly. Having access now to a great garage that I can work on my car in with my brothers and plenty of room is a Godsend.

As you can see in the video we have plenty of room to work with but between myself and my brothers, I'm sure it won't take too long for us to fill it up!

My wife Rosa isn’t really into cars although she tries to support the habit as much as she can. She thought it was all said and done when I finished the XW, but you guys know that we car guys just cannot stand still!

My daughter Chiara is a down-right rev-head! With the car seat strapped into my old XW she always yelled out ‘faster Dad faster’. Just months after she was born, I couldn’t resist buying her a ’32 Ford Roadster pedal car.

Only recently she is making the most of it (and so am I!), taking it for a pedal most days. She always asks when the ‘purple’ car (Project Wild Violence) will be finished, and always checks if I’m going to put a car seat in the back for her...

Tony is the youngest of the three brothers and single if any of you girls want him (Mum’s request!) Just as the saying goes, the youngest is definitely the most spoilt although as he is a fully qualified spray painter, we have to be nice to our little brother!

Tony has always loved Mazda Rotaries and even before he had his L plates, he was already scheming his way towards owning a Mazda 1300 Sedan that he could drop a rotor in. Eventually he found a primo one owner 1300 and went ahead and converted it to 12A rotary power, 4speed and a locked diff.

Tony moved onto another Mazda, this time an RX-3 sedan. He modified it heavily including powering it with a race prepped 13B bridge port with EFI and nitrous! With the RX-3 sold off Tony then moved onto the XW Falcon pictured here.

He bought this off me for a steal (I told you he was spoilt!) as a roller as the 393ci Cleveland engine was sold off prior. The XW has been featured in Street Fords and Xtreme Fords under Project XW. It has been rebuilt front to back, top to bottom. It’s Diamond White in colour with factory style XWGT interior, including dash fascia, steering wheel and console.

That’s not all I left behind from him either, with a stack of Auto meter gauges nestled behind the 4in reverse cowl Alfa Motorsport Fibreglass bonnet. I was even nice enough to leave him my nitrous system and a Currie Enterprises chromoly Ford 9in diff with 35 spline axles and Detroit locker.

Engine plans are well underway, with an RC Performance Engines built 398ci CHI alloy 4V headed Cleveland with EFI. It was ‘broken in’ on the dyno recently and has shown 615hp and 530lb.ft with a carby and single plane manifold on just one pull.

The DC&O manifold is now on which should see it make around 650-680hp once fully tuned with the Motec M84 ECU. He plans on cruising the streets regularly and enjoying a blast down the quarter mile every now and then...

My brothers and I maintain and modify these cars mainly in house. We have now started to offer this knowledge and expertise to customers.

Recently they have completed the nut and bolt transformation/restoration of an XY Fairmont into an accurate XY GT replica, and have a few Genuine GT’s lined up for restoration as well.

If you’d like to have a chat to them about your muscle car, whether it be a Ford Holden or Chrysler don’t hesitate to contact me - [email protected]