John Willard’s new supercharged Anglia is a very unique deal in Australia in this age, however they are still a common sight in the UK, and somewhere Willard hopes to race in the future.
Ford Anglias weren’t a rare sight on Australian drag strips over the early racing decades, but they don’t feature in many new builds these days. Chassis builder Willard of Flatout Services has had an affection with the make for a long time – some may remember his wild Super Sedan Anglia Van streeter in Sydney a few years back – so John and his son Doug decided to tackle a dream build.
John and Doug were planning to build a blown HQ as their dedicated race car, but plans soon changed when John’s caught eye of what was going on over in the UK.
“We started on a HQ build but had a good offer on it,” said John.
“I had been watching a build on an Anglia Van being built for Mick Taylor in England for a class called Outlaw Anglia, they race heads up and have 30 or so cars and it looks like a lot of fun.”
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Falling for the class, he decided to forgo the HQ with son’s Doug blessing and follow his passion for the Anglia with the goal of racing overseas.
“I’m going over later this year to watch a couple of their events and spend some time with some of the racers. I’m hoping to eventually get the car over there to race them,” he said.
“Most Australian drag racers dream of racing in the US, but to take the car to England and race against 30 Anglias would be a dream come true for me. As you probably know I’m an Anglia nut – this is my third one. I spoke to my son Doug about it and he said that he thinks driving a Hemi powered Anglia would be like driving a Nitro Funny Car, so we accepted the offer on the HQ and ordered a fibreglass Oulaw Anglia body from Colin Millar in Scotland.”
Since then Willard has been busy building the Anglia van when not working on customer cars that include the likes of Brett Gillespie’s 1934 Pro Slammer.
“The body arrived in January 2017 – the shipping cost more than the body – and we have worked most Sundays on it since then,” he said.
“Apart from some small changes to the rear guards (carried out by Doug) to allow for the 34.5” slicks and grafting the cowling to the front clip, the body is unchanged.
“The car is basically at rolling stage with a seat, steering, pedals and fuel tank.”
John says the car is ultimately for his some Doug, but he will be keen to have a few passes too.
The build has a 101″ chromoly 25-1 G chassis, with a four link and floater sheetmetal rear-end housing built in-house by Flatout Services. Once finished it will be powered by a BAE Hemi with Brad 5 heads and Littlefield 14/71 blower to be tuned by Brett Gillespie, with the horsepower delivered to ground via a three speed Lencodrive.
John also would like to give special mention to Neil Webb, who has put in almost as many hours as he has.
