VIDEO: Matt James' Blown 1600HP Ford Fairlane 'COMPACT'

If you’ve ever been around the burnout scene, you’d know how much time, effort and dedication it takes to compete in pro burnouts in just one car. Last weekend, West Aussie burnout star Matt James brought not one, but two top end burnout cars to party at Burson Auto Parts Motorvation 37.

It’s not the first time either, with Matt placing first and second in the Burnout Masters at Street Machine Summernats 31 in his UNWANTED Holden Ute and his Ford Fairlane COMPACT respectively. All eyes were on the return of COMPACT this weekend after it had a few years off the pad.

We caught up with Matt in the pits on Saturday who was busy wrenching on COMPACT with his team in preparation for the pro burnout qualifiers later that night. What sits before you, is a top-end show car with a killer House of Kolor black and gold pearl, paint picked by none other than our very own Owen Webb. 

The interior is as trick as they come, with a custom roll cage, trimmed seats, racepak dash and more. It’s a real show car style interior, so having that in an all out tyre shredder is simply wild.

After a mechanical failure (oil line at Motorvation 35 a few years ago) Matt parked COMPACT for the time being to focus on a few other things,including his other burnout machine, UNWANTED. Motorvation 37 was the first real outing for the refreshed build, sporting a 340ci Small Block Chev combo from Blown Motorsports, topped off with a brand new Littlefield 8/71 Supercharger pumping over thirty-pounds of boost into the motor.

The mega engine combo is paired up to a Powerglide two-speed transmission done by local company Shift Transmissions in Perth, with a sheet metal nine-inch differential up the back. It’s no surprise here that this is Matt’s favourite car of the lot, and the noise it makes when on song is spectacular.

We also spoke to Matt about UNWANTED, the car he drove to Burnout Masters glory. You’d be forgiven if you thought this was anything but a true top-end car (that frankly most of us would dream of), but to Matt, well he just loves pinning the throttle and thrashing this thing. This thing really gets down to party, revving up to a cracking 8500rpm on full noise, and Matt reckons it can go even further.

Matt has a few other projects on the go, talking to us about his drift LS-powered Nissan 180SX, as well as his intentions to start running some laps down the quarter mile. His workshop and team at UNWANTED Automotive are pumping out plenty of top-end cars over west, and we can’t wait to see what else is in store from the crew!

Check out our chat with Matt below! And be sure to subscribe to the Performance Garage YouTube channel.

PG TECH CHECK:
Name: Matt James
Car: Ford Fairlane
Engine Combo: Small Block Chev + Littlefield 8/71 Supercharger
Diff: Sheet metal nine-inch
Paint: House of Kolor Black/Gold