Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2021 i Street Machine

LOCATED on Brisbane’s south side next to Archerfield Airport, Archerfield Drift Park has been a treasured location for fans of the sidewinding sport for 15 years. Run by former Aussie Drift Champion Luke Fink, the Park sits on a parcel of land adjacent to (and leased from) the historic Archerfield Speedway. Now it is facing a forced closure. “Archerfield Speedway has been in its location for 50-60 years, and we’ve been drifting here for 15 years,” Luke says. “Brisbane City Council told the Speedway, not us, that there should never have been drifting allowed on this land because in 1974 the land was zoned as a car park and a squash court. Their argument is that we can’t run drifting on that land because the Speedway needs that land to…

THE FOCUS OF THE BUILD WAS TO MAKE IT 100 PER CENT HT MONARO BUT MODERNISED AND UPDATED, WITHOUT LOSING THE FLAVOUR AND STYLE TAKING an iconic Aussie classic car and enhancing it while simultaneously retaining the essence of its style is a Herculean task. It requires a balanced eye, plenty of grey matter, huge amounts of talent and drive, and a big pair of stones. Melbourne’s Dean Rickard knew this when he started the genre-shifting build of his HT Monaro back in 2016. It’s a car so finely detailed and thoroughly reengineered that it threatens to redefine what we consider a street car. The beautiful finish means it can slay at shows, but it is built to be driven long distances like a pro tourer, and yet it looks…

I’VE HAD TORANAS SINCE I WAS 16, AND I’M 45 NOW. WITHOUT EXAGGERATING, I’VE OWNED TWO OR THREE HUNDRED OF THEM! FOR over half a century, the Holden Torana has captivated the hearts and minds of Aussie revheads like almost nothing else. And like many of his generation, Adam Nagy’s love affair with Holden’s gutsy little giant-killer can be traced back decades. “I’ve had Toranas and HQs since I was 16, and I’m 45 now,” he says. “Without exaggerating, I’ve owned two or three hundred of them!” One highlight of Adam’s back catalogue was a Holden 355-powered LJ Torana he campaigned in the mid-90s, which reliably put down mid-10s on pump juice and survives to this day in Queensland. “My partner Kim didn’t appreciate doing a few hoops and a…

WHEN I FIRST GOT THE BT1, MY MATE AND I TURNED THE BOOST RIGHT UP, AND WITHIN A MONTH I’D HURT THE MOTOR. WE THEN REBUILT THE MOTOR IN MY PARENTS’ DRIVEWAY AT EIGHTEEN years old, Huss Ayache cut his teeth on this VL Commodore BT1 turbo – and with a want for big power came a steep learning curve on how to get it. Now, another 18 years later, he has developed the know-how and gathered the right people around him to build this ex-police chaser into a hardcore (yet classy) potential-eight-second weapon. With over 1000hp on tap, this VL has only just touched on what it can do. “We didn’t expect to run a nine on its first trip out; we just went to the track to set…

DAY ONE WILLOWBANK RACEWAY WHILE 2020 has wiped out plenty of sporting events, nothing could keep the hardcore Street Machine Drag Challenge fans down, with 129 entrants turning up to try their hand at Drag Challenge Weekend 2020 in Queensland. Despite border restriction shenanigans preventing Victorians from making the trip north, there were still plenty of stout cars at Willowbank Raceway on Friday 27 November for Day One of Australia’s greatest street-car competition. The day started off cool and overcast, but the sun soon appeared, and by the time racing started shortly after 1pm, the Willowbank tar was cooking. The bakinghot weather played havoc with some of the quicker forced-induction cars, as they struggled to put the power down, but others seemed to revel in the heat. Topping the day’s…

WHILE Australia is slowly but surely climbing out of the coronavirus pandemic, things haven’t quite returned to normal. Sadly, uncertainty around travel restrictions and crowd limits has led to the postponement of Street Machine Summernats 34. But fear not – the ’Nats gang have dreamed up an all-new event on the traditional weekend of Summernats, and it’s shaping up to be so much more than just a consolation show. The first-ever Summernats Slam kicks off on 8 January at Sydney Dragway, promising three days chock-full of burnouts, drag racing, epic show ’n’ shine beasts and plenty more. A who’s who of drag racing and burnout big hitters have thrown their hats in the ring to duke it out for $30,000 in cash and prizes, and we can’t wait to see…

KYLIE Langley and I first met at the Drag Racing Tri-Series competition around 10 years ago, where she was piloting hubby Paul’s tough HX sedan. It was clear that Kylie had petrol running through her veins, though her calm demeanour and friendly smile never hinted at what a fierce and consistent racer she is. Her own beloved Panther Mica, iron lion-powered VS Berlina is a tidy unit, but Kylie hasn’t had any qualms in punting it down the strip. What got you into drag racing? Paul and I would go to AIR and watch the drags, and around 1997 we finally decided to head out and have some fun ourselves. Paul raced first, and I soon followed. I’ve loved cars ever since I was a little kid; one of my…

MATT Hourigan wanted a stout smallblock Ford for his ’71 Mercury Comet street car, and the 347ci Windsor he’s ended up with shouldn’t disappoint. The ProCharged little-block was built by Tim Gruber of Queanbeyan Engine Service and finished off at Phil Kerjean’s Fuelworx in Wollongong, and it sports plenty of good gear. The Dart Sportsman Windsor-pattern block swings 347 cubes using an Eagle 4340 crank, CP pistons and Eagle H-beam rods with 2000-grade bolts, while a Crow hydraulic-roller boogiestick and Morel tie-bar lifters round out the short motor combo. It has been specced out at a pump unleaded-friendly 9.2:1 comp, which should leave plenty of pop straight off the throttle. Up top, Yella Terra Platinum-series rockers bolt to AFR’s hot-sauce Renegade five-axis CNC-machined cylinder heads. While the engine was originally…

ALMOST as soon as the news arrived that Victorian street machiner Peter Hansen was enjoying a hard-fought win over VicRoads with the return of his WEPN number plates (see Broadcast, p. 5), it was the turn of NSW Roads & Maritime Services (RMS) to bat for Team Fun Police. Well-known street machiner Stephen Sherry has been denied the number plate GRN4DE by the RMS. Stephen has owned his Sting Red LJ Torana since 1986, but the blown 383ci small-block has been swapped out for a tamer street-spec 307ci Chev so he could engineer and register the car for the first time in decades. “I’ve owned the car for 34 years and it has had four or five rebuilds, but it was never registered, so I used the show plates GRNADE,”…

FORD seems set to return to a classic pushrod V8, with a monstrous 6.8-litre donk all but confirmed for production at the company’s Windsor engine plant. While it’s likely to first appear under the bonnet of a truck, many are hoping for it to reach the new-gen Mustang. When news of the old-fashioned motor broke in November, you had plenty to say on Facebook. Liam Cotterill – Pushrod again? Let’s step back 20 years in time, why don’t we? Yibby Avel – And in another 20 years it’ll be cheap enough to throw in a Commodore. Enoch Bailey – With bores and strokes that big, something has to be given up to reduce the overall package size. Also, you don’t need to wring the thing out to a billion rpm, so…

THE BRIEF WAS TO BUILD A FAST, GOOD-HANDLING AND WELL-SORTED STREET CAR THAT JOHNNO COULD BEAT LIKE A TRIBAL DRUM FORD’S Mark 1 Escort is a legend of motorsport across rallying, touring cars and even drag racing, thanks to its tiny size, generous engine bay and rear-drive layout. As a fan of four-banger Fords from a tender age, John Dennis knew this all too well, but it took him a while to get around to building the righteous turbo pro touring Esky you see on the pages before you. “I’ve been a small-Ford guy since I was a kid,” says the Sydneysider. “Years ago my uncle had a Ford Squire van with a GT Cortina motor in it, and we used to play in that as kids. I had always…

WITH ALL OF THE PLASTIC THROWN IN THE BIN, THE COILS RELOCATED TO UNDER THE ENGINE, AND THE ADDITION OF A TUNNEL RAM, TERRY HAS CREATED A VERY HANDSOME-LOOKING DONK TERRY Pyle reckons everyone paints their hot rods either red, black or purple, so he was just trying to be different by building a white one. He admits it took some convincing to bring the painter around to his way of thinking, but he got there in the end, and he couldn’t be happier. If you’re wondering, this particular hue is off the new Mustangs and is called Oxford White. “When I bought the chassis and body, I told them I was going to paint it white and they said: ‘Terry, you never see a white hot rod.’ I said:…

SELLING a 10-second XY Falcon is never an easy thing to do. “You’ll regret it. You’ll regret it. You’ll regret it,” Steve Roussis’s wife Ourania told him. She was right. “I sold it to a local guy, and within months I was saying: ‘Shit, I shouldn’t have sold it!’” Steve admits. But his eldest son, Dean, had a solution. “He said: ‘Dad, my mate’s got one; he never drives it. Do you want to have a look at it?’” The replacement 1970 XY, Spring Frost in colour, shortly arrived at Casa de Roussis and the family started throwing ideas around. “It was me, my wife and my three kids – we speak as a family. We discussed things like what colour we would paint the XY. That’s how we got…

SUMMERNATS 16 in 2003 was a massive one, with legendary names like Hadfield, Fitzpatrick, Ostric, Course, Lawry and Grima dominating that year’s Elite awards. However, Benny Gatt’s incredible custom Lincoln Zephyr beat them all out for the coveted People’s Choice gong. “I won Top Custom, took out second Special Effects Paint and made it into the Top 20, but winning People’s Choice was very special,” Benny says today. “It means the most to me because the entrants and spectators vote for it; it’s one of my favourite trophies.” Over the past 17 years, this radical, belly-scraping custom has picked up a host of tinware and has been to just about every corner of the country – even on a boat over to Tassie. It also caught legendary US customiser George…

WHEN it comes to real street cars, there are not many that can hold a candle to the screaming small block-powered Capri of Nathan Ghosn. With more than 50,000km under its belt in the past few years, including every Drag Challenge event except for this year’s recent Drag Challenge Weekend (due to COVID border restrictions) and a ton of nine-second passes on a 235 tyre, this pump-gas mauler is as tough as they come. “I’ve always been a Capri guy,” Nathan says. “This is the fourth one I’ve owned after a couple of four-bangers and later a V6, which I had to sell years ago to buy a house and do the family thing. When I bought this car about 12 years ago, the plan was just to fit a…

RAY HEIDRICH VK COMMODORE “MY VK pretty much started my interest in cars. My old man bought me this when I was 14 for $200. It was a bog-stock Executive SL with a 202 and Trimatic, completely original and clean. Over a few years, before I had my licence, I taught myself how to work on it. I pulled things apart and modified the engine a little. I had it on the road for a few years until the engine started using more oil than fuel, and then it sat in my parents’ shed for a couple of years. I was just going to respray the engine bay and chuck an injected 5.0-litre in to get it back on the road, but at the time the LS-swap craze was starting…

EVER wondered what would happen if you filled the Mad Max universe with horny teenagers? Dead End Drive-In offers all the answers. Australian exploitation legend Brian Trenchard-Smith (the brains behind BMX Bandits, Turkey Shoot and The Man From Hong Kong) took the helm for this muddled piece of dystopian action cinema, with a script loosely based on a short story by Peter Carey. Stuck delivering hot dogs in a Morris van, Jimmy ‘Crabs’ Rossini (Ned Manning) strives to emulate his tow-truck driver brother Frank (Wallabies loose head prop Ollie Hall). Driving an F100 wrapped in protective steel bars, Frank battles other towies and marauding looters for precious car parts in a society teetering toward social and economic collapse. Crabs lusts after Frank’s beloved ’56 Chevrolet, and pilfers the immaculate two-door…

TAKING up the tools more than 50 years ago, Dave Hart has pretty much done it all when it comes to customising cars. Mechanic, painter, ’beater and graphic artist, he has designed, built, beaten and painted countless cars, vans and bikes, and he’s still building them today. Dave has a rare blend of vision and skill, which he has applied in a variety of arenas throughout his life. While he has done his fair share of your typical ’32-34 hot rods, he isn’t afraid to tackle unusual makes and models, and he can put seemingly mismatched stuff together with the best of them. He has also painted surfboards for world champions, created crazy T-shirts for his club mates, and fixed choppers for the Hells Angels! He’s a founder member of…

THE picturesque drive to Springmount Raceway from the coastal city of Cairns features beautiful beaches, tropical rainforests and winding mountain roads. Yet on Saturday 21 November, it was the journey’s end that provided the best scenery: a mammoth burnout pad and a line-up of wild skid cars ready to cover it in rubber, nestled among the rolling hills just outside Mareeba. Tropical Meltdown 7 was on, and Far North Queenslanders had come to battle it out for one Burnout Masters ticket and a kitty of cold, hard cash. Coronavirus restrictions saw the usual three-day skid-fest slimmed down to a single day of action. Gates opened at 8am as the competitors rolled in for scrutineering. Practice skids started at 10, with promoter Kev Davis christening the pad in his VZ ute,…

HOWARD Astill is, without question, one of the all-time greats of Aussie street machining. Howard has spent decades on the tools building countless top-shelf show cars, both for himself and for customers. He has won just about everything there is to win, including our own Street Machine of the Year in 1995, and Street Machine Summernats Grand Champion in 1991, 1992 and 1997. He’s also won the Master Craftsman award and is a Rare Spares Legend, so he’s about as highly decorated as they come. Howard got his start in the sport in the late 70s, and he’s still hard at work as a one-man band in his Astill Designs home workshop, churning out high-end builds for customers at an impressive rate of knots. But with two interesting and very…

ROB Veitch built this belly-scraping, LS-powered 1959 Chev Apache pick-up as a spectacular tribute to his late father, Barry. Yet its creation generated so much more, with quality people banding together to craft a superior ride and fostering friendships and mutual respect in the process. It all started with a cheeky purchase by Barry. “Dad was a car guy, and after he got cancer, he would sit and buy things online,” Rob says. “I visited one day and he had this glint in his eye, and admitted to buying an Apache from Bakersfield in the USA. It was sight-unseen, and he had no idea how to get it to Australia! We figured that out, and it landed 18 months prior to him passing away. The Apache is all we’d talk…

ONE of Australia’s quickest street cars, Daniel Szabolics’s HQ Monaro, is about to get a new heart as Dan and his accomplice, Frank Marchese of Dandy Engines, chase mid-sixes with the 4016lb, 275 radial-shod brute. Propelled by a walloping 632ci big-block Chev packing twin 94mm Precision Pro Mod snails, the Monaro made headlines last year by rattling off Drag Challenge’s quickest and fastest pass with a 7.35@197mph. It later went 7.01@202mph on what Dan described as a “soft” amount of boost. They never really got a chance to explore the limits of that near-11-litre combo. Dan received an offer that was too good to refuse, so he moved the motor on and decided to work with Frank to build something even more serious. “When we had the chance to build…

IT WON’T ROTATE THE WORLD, BUT HOPEFULLY IT’LL DO A 12.3-SECOND PASS – AT LEAST IT SHOULD ON PAPER AFTER a successful tilt at the 2019 Street Machine Drag Challenge in his Plymouth Duster (SM, Jul ’20), Anthony Raschella was amped to play in his new ’67 Chevelle Malibu at this year’s Drag Challenge Weekend in Queensland. But the biggest hurdle was always going to be getting to the Sunshine State from Anthony’s home in Adelaide. “With all of the COVID restrictions, we were seriously looking at heading up to Tennant Creek and then into Queensland via the highway to Mt Isa or through the Strzelecki Track,” Anthony said when we spoke to him a few weeks out from the event. “But now it looks like we can go up…