Bill Santuccione
Also known as Sanch, Sandshoes or Satchmo, Bill came to Lot 6 as employee No. 1 to find all the new plant and equipment needed to run a successful racing team – this turned out to be correct – the only item that had even been turned on was the light switch. Bill arrived from Repco-Brabham as an “engine man” prior to which he had been working in the Ford Prototype Engine Test Laboratories in Geelong. Over the race periods engine builds, tests and developments were Bill’s activities with the odd sojourn to the Asian Pacific region to support Big Al’s next foray into Corporate motor racing down under.
After leaving Lot 6 and Ford Asia Pacific Bill found his foot caught in private enterprise, known as Duval Motor Sport Australia where he still resides.
Duvall Motorsport Australia Pty Ltd is owned and operated by Bill Santuccione in the Melbourne suburb of Braeside and provides a range of services for enthusiasts interested in high performance, motor sport and driveline upgrades. Bill has a background as a mechanical engineer and the team at Duvall Motorsport treat everything as an engineering project.
Bill has been involved in the industry for over forty years and the experience gained in working for a number of major vendors during that time has evolved into Duvall Motorsport s current offerings to its customers. It all started at Repco Brabham building high performance engines and culminated in him being the Manager of the Dynometer Engine Test Programs back in the day when the team won two World Championships.
After leaving Repco Brabham the first business venture was Racecraft Engineering with a charter to build competitive race engines for Ford in the early seventies. This entailed engine research and development on the original GTHO engines between 1970 and 1972 when the marketing mindset was win on Sunday, sell on Monday. With success on local racetracks the call came to help Ford take a dominant position on race tracks in Asia Pacific and Bill soon found himself spending time in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore supporting their racing efforts under Al Turner. This led to the appointment as Racing Programs Manager for Asia Pacific and being heavily involved in the series production race plans.
Howard Marsden, then the Ford Racing Manager wanted Bill back in Australia to focus on the local series production Touring Car Championship. The racing department at Ford Australia was known as the Special Vehicles division and the second business venture evolved into Special Vehicles Engineering. The main charter of the business was to build race engines and develop blueprint specifications to keep Ford on the winners podium. During this time Bill had some involvement with Allan Moffat when he was campaigning his Boss Mustang on tracks across the country.
After many years supporting Ford racing programs Duvall Motorsport was formed. The company has been trading for fifteen years and the team specialise in total vehicle development management. Outside of paint and panel, you can take your car there and they will project manage the entire process to your specification.
The core business offering is still hand built, blue printed performance engines and this accounts for around forty percent of the business activity. The other sixty percent comes from driveline upgrades to harness the increase in horsepower including suspension work, brakes, electrical, cooling, roll cages, differentials, body strengthening and interiors.
The team at Duvall Motorsport is made up of four full time staff and two contractors and Bill is hands on in the business. The modern workshop has five bays, a lift, an area for additional cars and a dyno facility that allows them to fully tune a car to meet their exacting standards. The shop offers full TIG, MIG, OXY and ARC welding facilities, a distributor calibrating machine and all the equipment and tools necessary to perform the services they provide.
A lot of cars that come through the workshop are engineered to tarmac rally specifications and are street driven and rallied. Six pot calipers, large vented rotors, four wheel disk brakes, coil overs and steering racks are just some of the customer requests fulfilled on a regular basis. The team also does a high degree of tuning on cars that are not built by them. This normally involves tuning carburettors, fuel injection and distributor calibration for maximum performance on the dyno. Tailored turbo charging is another area that their expertise is in high demand and no matter what your performance route is naturally aspirated or otherwise, they can provide a solution backed by years of experience and knowledge.
The company runs on a simple philosophy the badge on the vehicle is irrelevant and they guarantee clients will get what they came for in terms of results.
There has been a vast array of classic and modern cars pass through the workshop including BMW 6 Series, Pontiacs, GTR drift cars, Mustangs, local Fords, Silvia and many more. They have built a number of Boss Mustangs as salt lake racers and an engine that holds a world water speed record in the Flying Mile 6 litre category.
If you are serious about performance and would like to upgrade your classic to go, handle and stop as well as or better than a modern car you can call Duvall Motorsport or drop by the workshop to understand how they can help you between the hours of 8.00am to 8.00pm Monday to Friday and 10.00am to 6.00pm on Saturday.
