Commercial Appeal

With a background in tough old-school streeters, Victoria’s Mark Attard applied some rock-solid traditional tricks to his HSV Maloo build

- Glenn Torrens

It takes guts to chop into an expensive late-model car, though it’s perhaps slightly less intimidating than taking a grinder to a traditional old-school rig. But when it comes to the ‘early-girl versus plastic fantastic’ debate, Victorian Mark Attard has a foot in both camps. He was brought up on old-school street machines, and he’s now putting those traditional skills and style into his millennial-era HSV VE Maloo.

“I’ve had a few cars. When I was about 16, I went for spin in an XA Falcon GT. It was a low11s car, and I was hooked!” Mark explains. “I had a little LJ Torana; that was the one that got me started into cars, but it was nothing too crazy. My first real tough Streeter was an HJ Premier. I raced it at Calder. So I love my old school cars, but the Maloo was never meant to be like this.”

The ute actually started off as a daily driver, bought as a late-model second-hander that was driven to work, but it didn’t stay standard for long. “It had an LS3 that we twin-turbocharged,” Mark says. “But the motor got hurt, so in went, a ProCharged 427, and then that broke, so things got serious. It was just supposed to be a tidy-up, but you know how it happens: a few drinks in the garage with the boys and now we have this! It just gets out of control.”

Having been involved with plenty of cool old-school rides, Mark has an eye for traditional street machine detailing, so he knew what had to be done to make the Maloo a standout. But it took some convincing before he was willing to go all-out.