It's Bruce Thomas's pride and joy.
The motoring enthusiast says for three years he spent eight hours every weekend restoring his 1972 Ford Falcon XY ute.
"It's just for looking good and cruising. That's all," he said.
Mr Thomas said the iconic vehicle was a rusty mess when he acquired it, but, with the help of a few mates, he had gone to "the nth degree" to get it into tip-top shape.
"If something's not right, you've got to redo it again," he said.
"You rub the fingerprints off your fingers just trying to get it smooth."
Mr Thomas was one of 1,043 entrants at this year's Red CentreNATS in Alice Springs, where revheads from across the country gathered for the annual festival celebrating all things automotive.
Now in its eighth year, the festival welcomed more than 10,000 attendees over the weekend, with the street parade of modified vehicles cruising through town again proving a show stopper.
Red CentreNATS director Andy Lopez said the festival had enjoyed significant growth over the years, and he held high hopes for the future of the event.
"When we did our first Red CentreNATS back in 2015 we had 300 entrants. We've had well over 1,000 entrants this year," he said.
"Into the future, we're going to see bigger, quality racing, more burnouts, more cruising, and hopefully the town expanding to grow to fit the demand of the people who come here.
"You just can't get a room in Alice Springs from about three months out from this event."
Program turned up a gear with new inclusions
The program grew this September with the inclusion of the travelling Mulletfest competition, as well as a round of the Top Fuel Championship, welcoming some of the fastest cars in existence to the Red Centre dragway.
In another first for the festival, more than 20 Indigenous school students and community members have connected to restore and decorate a collection of iconic vehicles.
Some students travelled hundreds of kilometres from Central Australian communities surrounding Alice Springs to be a part of the Rusted Gems project.
Project coordinator Owen Webb said the participants had gotten creative in their work.
"In Papunya, they dragged an old Valiant station wagon out of the bush, and the group out there have been working hard on it," he said.
"I've also got six different kids from six different communities, and they've designed a wrap that represents their community and their totems.
"It gives them that real inclusion, and now they can point out which community they come from."
Mr Webb said being part of the project made him feel like "the luckiest guy in the world".
"The automotive industry is a great industry, and this gives me the opportunity to give back," he said.
"These young Indigenous guys are so talented, and I can't believe how clever they are.
"I'd love to be a part of honing some of those skills and hopefully getting them employment in really good jobs or starting their own workshops."
Thrills and spills at high speeds
A flash of wet weather on Thursday night prompted organisers to shift a drag-racing qualifier to the following day, but it wasn't enough to put the brakes on the event.
Top Fuel driver Peter Xiberras said it was a mammoth task to get his car ready before every race.
"The engine gets stripped down to a bare block and a rotating crank shaft, and we rebuild it with new or reconditioned rods, pistons, cylinder heads, blowers," he said.
"It's the whole thing, and we do that every single round."
Mr Xiberras said motoring enthusiasts had a need for speed that brought them back for more every year.
"It's the noise, the speed, it's the amount of horsepower that we can throw down and how fast we can go from A to B," he said.
The festival has already opened for entrants for the 2023 event, which is set to return to the Red Centre for the Father's Day weekend.
