DREAM THEATRE

FANTASIES SOMETIMES COME TRUE, AS THIS NEAR-1000HP LC TORANA PROVES

- IAIN KELLY

FINDING your dream car as a cherry example locked away in dry storage for nearly 35 years is a fantasy every street machiner has had. But for Nick Ursino, who'd wanted a two-door Torana since he was a kid, it was how this epic 980rwhp monster came to be. "I used to have a four-door LH Torana," he says of the beauty that we featured in Street Machine LSX Tuner in 2015. "But one day my mate was over and I told him I was after a two-door LC. Amazingly, he said, 'I know someone with one in a shed."

Fortuitously, the LC was just five minutes from Nick's house and had been sitting in that garage since 1985. "I made a deal with him that day and picked it up that weekend," he says.

You don't need 20:20 vision to see that the time-capsule two-door Torana didn't stay stock. 

"It's basically a three-quarter chassis car," laughs Nick. "The whole idea was to make it look like a standard GTR Torana dropped on a fat set of wheels and slammed really low. It now has a full chassis, the floor has been raised 100mm to tuck everything up high, all new floors, the firewall has been stepped and smoothed, the rails are beefed up, it's got a full 'cage, and it has a rear clip."

This heavy-duty work was done at Metal Mavericks, where the LC had initially gone for a nip and tuck. But one conversation quickly brought those plans undone. "It went to Metal Mavericks to just do mini-tubs and the LS," Nick says. "Then Daniel reminded me I wanted one on big tyres and on the ground, so that was that." Hydra Blast Restorations kicked the build off by removing all the old paint, before the stock floors, firewall, and front and rear ends were cut out. Nick then dummyfitted the engine and began fabbing out the engine bay at home, before Metal Mavericks took over for the heavy-duty welding work. And from there, it went into Nick's dad's shed for the next two years.