THE first episode of our Holden versus Ford $2K Carnage Challenge drops tomorrow! We’ll give you the full rundown on it then, but in short, we have Scott Taylor leading a team with a ratty AU XR6, up against Brenden ‘Bubba’ Medlyn’s team in a VT V8 Calais.

Both cars were bought cheap from GraysOnline and the teams will have just $2000 to play with and see who can build the quickest car. But before any mods begin, we put both cars on the dyno and then took them out to Calder Park Raceway to establish our baselines.

Keen to get the jump on Bubba and collect bragging rights from the first race meeting, Scotty and Zane from Maxx Performance treated the AU to a few zero-budget mods. It is all very nostalgic for anyone who was playing with these cars in the late 1990s and early 2000s – but even so, the results are impressive. Will it be enough to keep the Falcon ahead of Bubba’s Calais? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

Big thanks to our Carnage sponsors who make this all possible, including Valvoline, Ryobi, Hare & Forbes Machinery House and GraysOnline.