THIS BA Falcon XR6 Turbo is Maria Passos’s first car, acquired when she was 18, and since then it has seen continual development to get to its current form: Australia’s quickest street-driven XR6 Turbo across the quarter-mile. It has gone from a respectable 10-second car seven years ago to now running consistent low eights, on the verge of its first seven-second pass and becoming the only street-driven XR6 Turbo in the country to do it.

At the heart of Maria’s Falcon is Ford’s legendary Barra six, albeit built by Dion Amato at Dyno-Mite Performance with a 3.7-litre de-stroked billet crank, I-beam rods and JE pistons. The head has also been CNC-ported by Dyno-Mite and houses solid-roller camshafts.

A Garrett GTX55 turbo sits on a unique CES exhaust manifold, and the fuel of choice is E85, supplied by a dual-pump system and controlled through a Haltech Elite 2500 ECU. The motor is backed by a Preston Automatics Powerglide, TCE converter and custom carbonfibre tailshaft.

Maria’s Falcon retains independent rear suspension, albeit beefed up by Dyno-Mite to handle the 1600hp engine package. It sits on 15×10-inch rear wheels fitted with 275 radial tyres, and Maria races the car in full street trim weighing a porky 4175lb with air con, ABS brakes and full airbags – plus a six-point ’cage by Lauria Motorsport.

We last saw Maria out racing at Grudge Kings at Sydney Dragway a few weeks ago, where she ran a PB of 8.25@171mph – a street XR6 Turbo record at the time. Maria then entered the Brisbane Jamboree last weekend and ran a string of consistent low eight-second passes before running another PB of 8.18@171mph – again the quickest street-driven XR6 Turbo in the world. Will Maria be the first to run a seven-second pass in an XR6 Turbo streeter?