Peter Bannister competes in a 1992 model Ford Maverick, affectionately call “The Mav”.

He and Navigator Josh Flynn were last seen competing at round 1 of the 2016 COMEUP Xtreme Winch Challenge series, but due to a few issues on Friday night and Saturday, could only manage to finish 7th outright.

The Mav has a Ford badge on it, but is essentially a Nissan Patrol after Ford rebadged the model for sale in Australia back in the 90’s. And just to make sure there is no affiliation to any particular car badge, Pete has chosen a 5.7 litre Holden Commodore engine as the power plant. To make it perform better than the standard donk, he has replaced the Camshaft with a bigger version and installed higher compression pistons.

Getting the power to the wheels is a Nissan GQ Patrol automatic transmission with a few modifications to ensure that it can perform well as a winch truck. As with most winch trucks, it uses the Nissan Patrol GU differentials with 4.6 ratios. On the steering side, The Mav also uses the GU steering box with Superior Engineering steering arms. Giving the truck lift is the 4 inch Dobinson springs and shocks in the front. A 3 link custom suspension set-up in the rear gets the back-end up off the ground and the Profender remote reservoir shocks make sure the bumps are all smoothed out. Pete is using the Allied Savanna 16×8 alloy bead lock rims and, like many other trucks like his, has the 37 inch Maxxis Trepador tyres underfoot.

And speaking of it being a Winch Truck, the ability to get up those cliff walls comes from a Warn high-mount winch with an air free-spool mechanism. It has twin bowmotor motors with 60 percent reduction ratio gears. The team are sponsored by Bursons Tamworth and ARB Tamworth. The video above is from Round 1 of the COMEUP XWC stages 4-8.