Mick Fabar has gone Zero’d to hero with both green and muscle car fans with his latest custom project. A focus on the future – and what his son will be building and driving when he is 16 – led Fabar to craft a 1967 Ford XR Falcon with a zero carbon footprint.
That footprint comes down to smart thinking and extensive use of recycled parts. Every panel, nut and bolt was recycled as the NSW hot-rod builder maximised performance while minimising his environmental impact. The Zero’d Falcon is rightfully one of the stars of the 2012 Australian International Motor Show and showcases how the custom crowd can still build a performance car that isn’t seen as a mobile platform of conspicuous consumption.
Fabar turned to biotechnology for the engine powering his latest creation and is running a biodiesel V8 that fulfils the muscle-car credos while still being a green machine. “I wanted to create a street machine that had ideally a zero effect on the environment in its design, construction and when being driven,” he says.
“I did some research into biodiesel fuels and figured we should put that into a car and see what horsepower we could get. It really didn’t cost any more to build this car; it just required applying some basic principles.’’ As a result, propulsion comes from a 7.3-litre For Powerstroke turbo V8 generating 450kW that runs on outof- the-pump B20 biodiesel.
An Allison four-speed auto transmission powers Zero’d and the combination means the hi-performance V8 generates around 70 per cent less emissions than an equivalent petrol-powered car. The rubbers and glass are among the few new items on the car, along with a radiator and intercooler that had to be custom-built.
Even the tyres were sourced from rubber that doesn’t use distillate aromatic extract oils, while the paint base was also made from low-emission material. Custom car builders are known for going to extremes – for Fabar this meant sourcing eco-friendly gas for the traditional oxy-acetalene gear and having the workshop powered by wind and solar power.
Planning for the Zero’d required almost a year of research but the build itself took only seven months and Bond University in Queensland documented every step of the process to verify the production team had a zero carbon footprint.
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