It is sometimes said that one should never underestimate a man with a plan, time on his hands and a beer in his hand.
This was the case with retired Townsville ex-serviceman Murray Sutherland, who was gazing out into his backyard one day at a mate's Holden Commodore ute quietly rusting away in the long grass.
"I rang my mate up and asked him what he wanted to do with his ute and he said I could do what I liked with it," Mr Sutherland said.
"So that's when a plan started to come together to build something really different."
And so the "Tweety" 4WD project was created.
Mr Sutherland obtained a V8 manual short wheelbase Ford Maverick 4WD and then set about grafting the Commodore body onto the chassis.
"We had to lose some of the body length somewhere so we cut down the Commodore's cargo tub to about half its size, stitched it all back together again and painted it bright yellow," he said.
"Tweety", as the car is known, turns heads everywhere it goes but Mr Sutherland openly admits that with such a short wheelbase and little weight it doesn't offer a pleasant ride quality.
"I towed it down from Townsville to Canberra; there's no way I would drive that far in it; it's so bouncy it would do my back in," he admitted.
Shane "Tappy" Tapscott, from the Central Coast, came up with a similar grafted-on 4WD idea but for his project instead chose a two-door Monaro bodyshell plonked on top of a Nissan Patrol chassis and drivetrain.
"I've always loved the Holden Monaro shape and style, and I also like driving off-road so I figured, why not combine both," he said.
"A lot of people were appalled that I would take such a collectable car and do this to it.
"So I have to reassure them that the bodyshell was lifted off an unregisterable write-off, which makes them feel a little better."
The Monaro 4WD gets a solid workout on the beaches near his home and with 160 litres of fuel capacity, has a very long range.
"It sounds and smell and feels like a Monaro," he said. "But it still drives like a dirty old Patrol."
Both cars can be seen cruising around Summernats at Exhibition Park.
