PRESENT & CORRECT

IF THERE was an award for Son of the Year, surely Steve Santos would be right up there in the running. After all, how many other people out there have built a car as a birthday present for their dad? There’s nothing like a deadline to get you motivated, and Steve’s was just four months away: his dad’s 70th birthday.

“I was initially building an EJ wagon for him,” Steve explains, “but once I got into it, I started to like the car myself, and it was becoming too much of an engine combo for him. So I thought, ‘Bugger it, I’m keeping this.’ So, I finished the EJ and literally had four months until his 70th.”

The new plan was to find an AP5 Valiant, as Steve’s dad would always reminisce about the one he had as a young bloke. Due to the very short build time, Steve