Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2025 i Street Machine

LOCATED just outside Shepparton in Kialla, Victoria, the Museum of Vehicle Evolution (MOVE) has played host to a ripper rotating collection of automobiles since it re-opened in late 2021, and next month, it will be home to the Art in Motion exhibition, featuring plenty of familiar Street Machine names. Kicking off the weekend of 13-14 September, Art in Motion runs for six weeks until the end of October. The brains behind the exhibition is Chris Pace of Pace’s Paint Shop in Mackay, Queensland, who wanted to showcase our industry’s artistic talent to the wider public. “After speaking with others about what it is we do in this industry, it was clear that a lot of people felt undervalued in regard to the artistic and creative aspects of their work and…

LOS Angeles hot rod girl Faith (Faith Granger) is on a fuel-finding mission in a Minnesota backwater when she meets old duck Joann (Pat McNeely). Faith learns that Joann’s hubby recently passed and left her with a shed full of vintage metal that she needs to offload (we should all be so lucky). While branching off from Joann’s official garage tour, Faith stumbles upon her ultimate barn-find, a hot-rodded ’32 roadster – her dream car. She immediately cuts a deal with Joann for both the ’32 and a trailer to tow it home. Back in LA, Faith soon has the ’32 cruising the streets and doing the rounds at shows. An eagle-eyed punter spots the car’s ‘Deuce of Spades’ steering wheel emblem and tells Faith he recalls the car from…

ONE of the most talked-about cars from this year’s Meguiar’s MotorEx – both at the event and online afterwards – was Mitchel Hawkins’s mould-busting VR ClubSport tribute. It didn’t just challenge styling conventions – it brazenly defied them. Known to be a bit of an antagonist, Mitchel sought to ruffle some feathers with his VR and give street machiners some inspiration for the next era of tough street cars. “I was tired of seeing the same old stuff on every build,” he says. While he’d had some tough cars when he was younger, Mitch had sold them all to build his business and set up his family, so he was itching to get back into things. “I convinced my wife that I should spend $60,000 building a tough street car…

WE’LL admit it; we raised an eyebrow when Johnny Habib and his No-Prep Racers Australia (NPRA) crew announced their War in the Sticks event at Wilby Motorsport Park’s quiet, grassroots eighth-mile track in northern Victoria. Don’t get us wrong – Wilby is an awesome track and the staff there are one of the best-drilled crews in the country, but the thought of big-tyre, sub-five-second cars hurtling down Wilby’s narrow, grass-lined track had us all a bit nervous. But for the racers themselves, that was half the thrill. “I loved seeing the videos from War in the Woods that they do in the States, so I wanted to bring some of that here,” Johnny explains. “I stopped in at Wilby and was blown away with how they go about it; their…

SOUTH Western Sydney’s car culture is famous all over the country, with an over-representation of chrome-bumpered muscle cars hiding in garages throughout the Wollondilly Shire. Visit any pub in the region and you’re bound to find a carpark full of toughies, their rear screens littered with stickers of famous go-fast parts. You’ll inevitably bump into a bloke in a fading Street Machine shirt and overhear beer-fuelled yarns about cars being built in garages that may never see the light of day. Pick the right pub on the right day and you might even see Tristan Ockers’s famous MINCER Capri cruising the Shire or pulling into a local watering hole. It was arguably Tristan and the Thirlmere Fryers Car Club that put the region on the map for Street Machine readers…

OLD cars that have managed to survive everything the decades could throw at them are worthy of all our admiration. One such car has been under the custodianship of a South Australian family for 59 years now, and has recently re-emerged as a beautifully built street machine. Ralph and Antonia Belperio’s’66 VC Valiant has been a family fixture since it rolled out of the dealer’s lot, though its path to the award-winning streeter you see on these pages involves a three-decade-long slumber. “The Valiant was delivered new by Motors Limited in Gilbert Street, Adelaide, to my father-in-law Gennaro Piacquadio on 22 July 1966,” says Ralph. “It was used as his daily driver and workhorse for 22 years until September 1988, when the old slant-six had become a bit tired and…

CROWNING GLORY KUSTOM BITZ 1967 TOYOTA CROWN UTE “I’M RON Smith from Kustom Bitz in Croydon, Victoria, and this is Lou Papa’s 1967 Crown ute, which I’ve been building for the past eight or so years. Lou loves his Toyotas, but when he first got this ute, nobody would touch it, as they reckoned it was too far gone. I told him to cut the rusty floors out, get it acid-dipped and I’d fix it from there. He wanted a cruiser he could drive and slam on the ground at events, so it’s been re-engineered for an airbag system with a generic independent front end, and a three-link 9in diff with a Watt’s link in the back. Because it’s such a rare car and needed lots of rust repair, I…

BILL Kaglatzis from BK Race Engines might be better known for the outstanding results he has achieved with his small-block Ford-based combos, but he’s got a real soft spot for Holden’s homegrown bent eight, too. “I’ve really grown to like them, because so many people make a mess of them,” Bill says. “I reckon if you can master building a Chrysler and a Holden, you can pretty much handle most V8s. “We did the engine in Stuart Vale’s HB Torana back in the day – a nitrous combo that went 7.98@168mph with cast heads and a factory block nearly 20 years ago. That was the first Holden-powered sedan into the sevens, and we’ve done a bunch of street and circuit Holdens since. We’re looking for eights naturally aspirated with this…

THE mid-engined, current-generation C8 Corvette has been the most radical reinvention yet of General Motors’s long-running sports car, and now the company has turned everything up to 11 with the recently unveiled ZR1X. As the badge suggests, the ZR1X is basically a pissed-off ZR1. But where the ZR1 is a rear-wheel-drive, ICE-only car, the new ZR1X is all-wheel-drive and employs the ZR1’s twin-turbo, flat-plane-crank, 5.5-litre LT7 V8 in tandem with the hybrid electric system from the E-Ray C8 to make a combined 1250hp (932kW). The new car’s LT7 makes the same 1064hp (793kW) it did in the ZR1, sending its grunt through an eight-speed, dual-clutch transmission to the rear wheels only. The front wheels are driven by the E-Ray-derived hybrid electric motor but with power bumped up to 186hp (139kW)…

EMAIL your missives to gday@streetmachine.com.au. Keep it short and sweet! > LETTER OF THE MONTH RIGHT ON Q HEY guys, I’m trying to track down an Expression Session from my youth. Pretty sure it was titled Q-Rod and was an HQ Tonner with the front sheet metal gone, replaced with a ’32 Ford-esque nosecone. I’m trying to track it down so when I get asked for the 6000th time what’s happening with the cab and chassis in my backyard, I can show ’em! Piers Anspach, email G’DAY Piers, thanks for writing in. The Expression Session design you’re after was indeed called Q-Rod (pictured), a hot rod-styled HQ Tonner rendered by Ryan Carter, which appeared in our March 2009 issue. – Broads REBEL YELL G’DAY legends, received the July mag today…

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PRO car culture street cars whip people of all walks of life into a frenzy. Born in the 1980s from an outlaw mindset to build race cars wearing road tags, the boundary-pushing shenanigans of the early pro street scene inevitably led to engineering restrictions as the powers that be attempted to keep a lid on things. But, just like the fascination for motorcycle clubs or chaotic rock stars, Joe and Jolene Public are still drawn to the illicit side of today. And when someone builds a pro street rig out of an Aussie muscle car as iconic as an HK Monaro, it tends to make punters go full test pattern. Leigh Vella’s’68 HK GTS is not one for the chalk-mark aficionados and rivet-counters, and it’s all the more awesome for…

YOU’VE gotta love a high-end street machine that’s built to be driven hard – stone guard on its undercarriage instead of two-pack; chrome doodads and polished doohickeys replaced by quality engineering to handle bulk power. There are many such vehicles being built in suburban sheds and garages as we speak, but to end up with a rowdy, road-going, tar-burning example as nice as Richie Vergara’s’39 Ford pick-up, you’d need to enlist a top custom car-building shop like Image Vehicle Manufacturing. WHEN YOU OWN A V10 LAMBO, YOUR SHENANIGANS SLED NEEDS TO BE HOTTER THAN A STOLEN PITCHFORK ON A SUMMER’S DAY IN HADES The wizards at Image have turned Richie’s Ford into something the Sydneysider can jump in and have a ball with, yet it’s also stunning, powerful, and impeccably…

OVER time, washing your car with a hose can cause corrosion in body joins and-hard-to-dry areas, and that’s particularly problematic for older cars. The solution is rinseless washing – a practical method for safe and effective car cleaning without the need to flood panels with water. When carried out correctly, rinseless washing minimises water intrusion and drastically reduces the risk of scratching and rust, all while leaving a slick, streak-free finish. Chrome-bumper, high-end and show cars can all benefit greatly from the method, and it’s also perfect for those who live in water-restricted areas or apartments, or have garages without proper drainage. For daily drivers and more modern vehicles, snow foam and-two-bucket washing can be suitable, but for older cars, especially those that don’t get a bigbuild-up of contamination and…

To have your product featured here, call Kim Simonsen on 0439 422 285 or email kim.simonsen@streetmachine.com.au. 01 TO DIE FOR IF YOU’RE ready to do some metal shaping, you need a dimple die set in your arsenal, just like this nine-piece set from Hare & Forbes. All pieces are manufactured from high-strength chrome-molybdenum steel and are specifically designed to create flared holes to help strengthen metal sheets while also reducing weight, making them particularly useful in automotive, aviation, and off-road applications. Simply drill the recommended hole size in the metal you want to dimple, and then you can use basic hand tools or a workshop press to do the work. The kit contains dies in ½in, ¾in, 1in, 1¼in, 1½in, 1¾in, 2in, 2¼in and 3in sizes, and you also get…

MAKE no mistake, Nathan Boyle has a hankering for fast Fords – especially early Aussie Falcons. Initially, he satisfied that hunger with a nasty XP ute, complete with big tubs and an angry, nitrous-sniffing, 347ci Windsor. Unfortunately, it was just slightly illegal and was eventually put off the road for good. After pulling the XP’s engine and gearbox and selling off the roller, Nathan began pondering what to do with the ute’s staunch driveline. As luck would have it, a mate of his had an ‘I’ll do it one day’ XR Falcon 500 project he was willing to part with. “My thoughts were that this model came with a V8, so I’d give it quick tidy-up and drop the XP’s running gear into it,” Nathan says. While in pretty good…

UPON COMPLETION OF THE EH REBUILD, BOB’S WIFE MAUREEN SUGGESTED, “HOW ABOUT WE FINISH THE HOT ROD?” AFFECTIONATELY known as ‘Grumpy’ – which is more to do with the demeanour of his cars than his personal temperament – Bob Grambau didn’t get the memo that you’re meant to take it easy in retirement. Following a complete revamp of his iconic EH Holden (SM, Apr-May’82 and Oct-Nov’87) in 2015, Bob claimed he was hanging up his boots for good. Soon enough, however, the 73-year-old revhead was soon in the thick of a new build: the stunning, elite-level’34 Ford you see on these pages. But the car that started it all for Bob is his EH Holden, also known as GRUMPY. With its tough-as-nails, tunnel-rammed small-block, impressive quarter-mile times and show-stopping presentation,…

THERE aren’t too many XP coupes cruising the streets these days, let alone toughies with tasty paint and cranky engines. But Tarone Palmer’s hardtop is one such example, and even though it took the best part of four years to build, the results speak for themselves. Tarone grew up around Shepparton, one of Straya’s premier wellsprings of burnout cars, show-stoppers and tough streeters. “I always liked XPs growing up – not the four-doors, just the coupes,” he says. “I had the chance to buy one when I was younger but had to pass at the time. Then one of my mates saw this one for sale on Facebook in Melbourne, and after another mate checked it out for me, I ended up buying it.” TARONE WANTED THE DRIVING EXPERIENCE TO…

BEC ROBINSON > MOE, VICTORIA PASSIONATE about speed whether she’s on two or four wheels, Bec Robinson is a gearhead from way back. So, when offered a ride of her brother Ken’s salt-ready bike at Lake Gairdner’s DLRA Speed Week, she didn’t hesitate to jump aboard. Salt fever hit, and Bec has now taken out five Aussie records in a handful of bike classes. But her pride and joy is undoubtedly her recently completed 1971 VH Charger. Tell us about your first crack at the salt. I didn’t have any riding gear, so I borrowed Ken’s leathers and boots, which were all too big for me. His 2008 Suzuki Hayabusa was very heavy, but it raced straight; I love that bike! I raced in the MPS-G 1350 class, but first…

YOU might be a bit sick of the #LSTheWorld craze, but when you hear stories like what Grant Pegler has achieved with an unopened LS and a pair of turbos in his LX Torana hatchback, even the best lawyer would struggle to form an argument against the merits of the ubiquitous Bowtie mill. “I haven’t even pulled the heads off; it’s still running the original head gaskets,” says Grant of the Torry’s stout L98. “All we’ve done is remove the timing cover for the camshaft swap and the rocker covers for the upgraded valvetrain, and bolted the manifolds and the rest to the outside of it.” That’s all the assistance the mill received in order to cop boost from a pair of Garrett G25-660 hairdryers. The push for a turbo…

WANT your pride and joy featured in the mag? Just send some photos of your car (minimum file size 2MB each) and a few details of what went into the build to readerscars@streetmachine.com.au. MELANIE McLEOD 2004 DAIHATSU COPEN “TYNIE is my 2004 Daihatsu Copen, a car I purchased to be my new daily driver at the start of this year. I saw Mighty Car Mods had one in their Christmas special video, and I had no idea what it was, but as soon as I saw theirs, I wanted one! I found this one down in Melbourne with low kilometres a few weeks later, and I’ve loved it ever since. For those that don’t know, the Copen is a Japanese Kei car, so it only has a 660cc, turbocharged four-cylinder…

Email your favourite funnies to gday@streetmachine.com.au. > GAG OF THE MONTH THE MAGIC FLUTE AN ADVENTURER is exploring a dense jungle, when suddenly, a giant snake attacks him. The man doesn’t have any weapon with which to defend himself, so in his panic, he desperately starts playing his flute. To his surprise, the snake stops attacking him and falls asleep. Breathing a sigh of relief, the adventurer continues through the jungle, but soon a gorilla spots him and starts running at him. As it had worked so well with the snake, the adventurer tries his flute trick again, and sure enough, the gorilla calms down and leaves him be. The adventurer has progressed a little further through the jungle when an angrylooking tiger leaps out of the bushes and begins…