“Are you serious? This is a prank…you’re joking!” Perth-based Ford nut Colin Dickinson took a lot of convincing when staffer Phil Walker rang to break the news – he’d won Project HO. It took a good ten minutes to convince the mine safety officer that, yes, he really had won our biggest-ever project.

Hand-built bolt-by-bolt by the good folk at Grand Tourer in Melbourne, the $100,000 GT-HO tribute scored a huge following, with entries pushing the 100,000 mark. We followed the build over six months, after which we cut supercar legend John Bowe loose in the bright red machine. He reckoned it was the best HO he’d ever driven – high praise.

And now, finally, after we’d dragged it half way around the country for countless shows, it was leaving home for the last time. Phil, who had effectively adopted the car by now was both upset and relieved. Upset because he finally had to part with ‘his’ HO. Relieved because it was going to a good home.

In fact, it’s hard to imagine a better home for this car. Colin already had three old Fords in the shed, including two sedans and a ute, and was just starting to hunt around for an XY. He’s been reading and collecting Unique Cars magazine pretty much from day one and had entered every competition going, without scoring so much as a cracker. Now he’d hit the jackpot.

To say he was excited would be understatement of the week. Phil soon got used to fielding the daily call from Colin, asking how his baby was progressing and when it would arrive in Perth. Soon, Colin, soon.

We organised the fastest enclosed truck we could find for the 3400km haul across the continent and jumped on a plane to meet it over there.

Standing out the front of the winner’s house were a bunch of his friends, on hand to share the joy and (we suspect) ready to apply first aid in the very likely event that he keeled over from the excitement.

Have you ever tried to photograph someone who spends the entire day hopping from one foot to the other? That’s what we were dealing with. Though he had followed every episode of our development, and had even collected the entire series of stories and laminated them, Colin was genuinely gobsmacked by the car’s presentation.

As if that wasn’t enough, Bowe gave the winner a quick call to congratulate him and confirm just how good the car really is.

“I’m the luckiest bloke alive,” was one of the more coherent things Colin said, and it was a delight to see his friends (also Ford nuts) genuinely happy for him.

So what’s he going to do with Project HO? “Keep it till I die,” was the conclusion at that night’s barbecue, which may have involved the odd celebratory ale. Judging by fact he was polishing it within an hour of first clapping eyes on the thing, and spent the evening ducking into the garage every 15 minutes to check it was real, we’re inclined to believe him…

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