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DARRYL ‘HERB’ INGHAM
1970 FORD RANCHERO GT
Hi Herb, that’s a really neat ute! What is it, and
how long have you had it?
Hey guys, thanks! It’s a 1970 Ranchero GT, and I
got it about three-and-a-half years ago. The GTO
was off the road, and I was having withdrawals — I
needed something to fill that gap for the time
being. I was looking at El Caminos and whatnot,
[and] a mate of mine, Paul Randall, said to check
this out. I always liked the shape, that year
especially, and I thought it would be cool to have
a ute for carting axles and diffs and all that stuff.
For readers who might not know, what exactly is
your GTO?
Well, it’s a 1966 Pontiac GTO — post car, tubbed
and caged. I bought it about six years ago. It had
a 455, bored out to a 464ci, and all the running
gear on it was getting pretty tired, but the body
was still very nice. So I thought, if I’m gonna
do it, I’m gonna go all out. It’s now got a 535ci
fuel-injected Butler Performance–built engine in
it, all roller, dynoed, and blueprinted. Everything
from the radiator right past the diff is pretty much
brand new. It’s being built by Larry Kerridge in
the Waikato [Larry’s 10-second Pontiac GTO was
featured in NZV8 Issue No. 101] and Stephen
Foulds — they’re good bastards!
You’re obviously not tied to any particular brand?
Nah, I’ll own whatever’s cool.
Whereabouts did you get the Ranchero?
It was from West Auckland; he was a young dude
— a top bloke. He’d always wanted one, and he
bought it over in the States with his girlfriend.
They drove it around for a couple of months. He
brought it over with him, but then he wanted to
do his OE, so he had to sell it.
Cool! So, what’s it running?
It’s a 351 [Cleveland], stock block. It had a
few bottom-end issues from drag racing —
typical Ford sump, shallow sump — so I put
a Canton sump on it, and that was a good
excuse to do the bottom end. It’s got ARP
rod studs and a new oil pump, hydraulic
roller cam, and CHI alloy heads. It was dyno
tuned at C&M Performance — they took the
double pumper [carb] off and put the vacuum
secondary on, and it made an extra 10hp. It’s a
fantastic street motor.It sounds really tough — that’s not a factory
exhaust, is it?
Nah, that was all Chris at Woolf Mufflers. My
mate ‘Nasty Rash’, told me to go see him. Chris
said to change it all, so he chucked the new
set-up on — I’d take every car to him! I like my
cars loud — I want to hear them, and I want
you to hear me coming!Sounds like plain sailing so far!
Oh, it’s had the torque converter out a few
times. It’s running an AOD [transmission], and
had the standard lock-up converter, but with
that cam in it, it wasn’t good. I didn’t like it
at all. Kaspa Transmissions put one in, about
2800[rpm], and it’s good. It’s got 4.11s [diff
gears] in it, but I can cruise down the motorway
at 60mph at around 2500rpm.Did you do all that engine stuff yourself, or did
you have a hand getting the right gear?
I started talking to Mike Bari at Next Level
Automotive — he knows his stuff, very capable
— and then I just started going to him for
everything; doing bits and pieces and shootingthe shit! He understood me — what I was doing
with the car, and what I wanted from it. After
we put the heads on, we had a bit of a misfire
issue, tried a few things, and he said that he’d
come back into the shop on Saturday morning
specially for it. We farted around for a bit, and
got it sorted.You mentioned something about drag racing
before — you’ve taken it down the strip?
It has been drag raced; I’ve never drag raced it
myself. The guy who had it ran a solid 14.2 with
a buggered cam and the old heads. On paper,
it would do a very low 13; might even get into
the 12s.Do you have any inclination to give it a try?
Yup! I’ve always been tempted to. It’s a really,
really strong car. It’s built well.Is there anything left for you to do to it, or are
you happy?
Probably the thing I’d do next is put in a seat
you sit in rather than on. It’s got the standard
bench seat, and you tend to sit on it, not in it.
Now that the suspension’s a bit firmer, you tend
to bounce a few times after you’ve been over
a bump.It must be good to have a solid base, as it
stops you from getting carried away! We’ve
seen what goes on when that happens!
Yeah, well, I bought the car to do nothing —
just to sit in and drive.Hey, compared to the GTO, you might as well
have done nothing to this one! Thanks for the
chat, Herb!(^18) themotorhood.com