Innehållsförteckning för January 2025 från Custom Car

Registration is now open for the half-century anniversary season opener, Wheels Day 50. Passes are available for single-car exhibits, club stands and traders, and the application process is simple. Just visit the Wheels Day website, upload your details and the nice people at Surrey Street Rodders will do the rest. The date is Good Friday, 18 April, the venue is Newbury Showground, Thatcham RG18 9QZ, and SSR has planned great things which promise to be a nice surprise for all who attend. Single-car passes will be allocated during the first week of March, and club stand passes a month before that. That gives unsuccessful club stand applicants a full four weeks to apply for single-car passes. Club stands are restricted to a maximum of 20 cars on each stand, with…

Europe’s drag racing elite headed to Santa Pod in September for the FIA European Finals – the event that decides the destination of the international Top Fuel, Top Methanol, Pro Modified and Pro Stock championships. As always, there’s a lot more going on besides, including the Nitro and Nostalgia Funny Car Cups and, on this occasion, a Transatlantic fuel altereds showdown between Nick Davies’ Havoc and Randy Bradford’s Topolino for the Ron Hope Memorial Trophy. The weather never quite knew what it was doing, but while the odd shower did come along to cause trouble there was no repeat of the downpours which blighted a number of events at Santa Pod this year. The first day of qualifying was held up in the morning when a fluid spill from Ashley…

PROGRESS REPORT: PART 1 In a visit to Gardiner Fabrications back in our December ’21 issue, we pictured Trevor ‘Digger’ Gardiner’s own project, a ’78 Ford D series. We mentioned the plan was for an altitude adjustment with a Z’d chassis and air ride. Since our visit, Trevor has been able to find time, in between the jobs that help keep the wolf from the door, to move the project forward. Understandably, progress hasn’t been at a frantic pace, but it has been steady and the classic truck now looks quite a bit different from when we visited Digger’s workshop a while back. As our visit was some time ago, we have some catching up to do – so this feature details the work Trevor did in the early stages. I…

01792 650 933 www.BRENTACRE.co.uk CUSTOM CARS | CLASSICS | HOT RODS DECEMBER 2024 28 All American Cruise In. Ace Café, London. www.acecafe.com 28 Cold Turkey Run. Peterborough to Cromer, Norfolk. Facebook: Bod Here 29 Huddersfield Auto/Retro Jumble. Brook Street, Huddersfield. www.phoenixfairs.jimdo.com JANUARY 2025 1 Hot Rod Night. Ace Café, London. www.acecafe.com 5 New Year Autojumble. White-webbs Museum of Transport, Enfield. www.whitewebbsmuseum.co.uk 19 Huddersfield Auto/Retro Jumble. Brook Street, Huddersfield. www.phoenixfairs.jimdo.com 19 Krispy Kreme Cruise. Krispy Kreme, Shannon Corner, New Malden, Surrey. Facebook: Krispy Kreme Cruise Surrey 21 VW Air-Cooled Night. Ace Café, London. www.acecafe.com 26 ‘Normous Newark Autojumble Newark Showground, Newark, Notts. www.newarkautojumble.co.uk 30 All American Cruise In. Ace Café, London. www.acecafe.com FEBRUARY 2025 5 Hot Rod Night. Ace Café, London. www.acecafe.com 16 Krispy Kreme Cruise. Krispy Kreme, Shannon Corner, New…

Roaring Retro Race Retro returns to Stoneleigh Park, Coventry on 21-23 February. The show brings together thousands of fans, drivers, traders and enthusiasts covering all disciplines of competition cars. Exhibits include iconic race cars and specialist exhibitors, with several motorsport legends adding to the mix. There will be a dedicated indoor autojumble hall, and outdoors there will be live rally car action and the British Historic Kart Club has its own dedicated track. www.raceretro.com Rustic and pristine The NEC Birmingham is the venue for the Classic Car and Restoration Show on 21-23 March. With over 1300 cars on display, 160 club stands and 250 traders, the show offers everything from rustic gems through to resto projects and pristine classics. Mixed in with the displays will be live workshops, auction action…

If you own an American car in the UK, chances are at some point you’ve come into contact with Bill MacDermid. His two businesses, Topspeed Automotive and CM Frost American Autoparts Ltd, have been supplying stock and performance parts for US cars and racecars in this country for more than half a century now. You might also have crossed paths with Bill through his involvement with Street Eliminator. He ran the first eight-second pass in the class, way back in 1997 when SE was organised and sponsored by CC. Or you might just have enjoyed watching his rapid yellow Procharged Camaro tearing up the strip at Santa Pod. Either way, it’s safe to say Bill has seen it, done it and bought (and sells) the T-shirts. What we weren’t so…

Like scores of other future car guys, it was the introduction of Mattel’s Hot Wheels die cast range in the late 1960s that ignited my passion for all things automotive – in particular the American car scene. At that time, I was a youngster growing up in a small Yorkshire coastal village, absorbed in the space race and America’s mission to land a man on the moon by the end of that decade. To us kids, the Spectraflame colours, five-spoke ‘mag’ wheels, fat redline tires and Zoomie exhaust pipes of these new die-cast cars from the US were a revelation compared to both the Matchbox models of the day and the anaemic full-size cars we saw driving around the local streets. The biggest difference, though, was that Hot Wheels ‘rolled’…

In our March ’13 issue, we ran a progress report feature entitled ‘All couped up,’ penned by Pete Whiteside. The focus was a ’40 Willys coupe – only it wasn’t a coupe at all back then, but the owner had ambitions that it would be one day. It was an ambitious project being undertaken by Steve Roberts, with considerable help from his partner in crime Chris Hay. Just as today, coupes were worth a lot more money back then and Steve had settled on buying an Argentinian import 4-door sedan from Wayne Streams as a cheaper option. Whether it proved to be a more economical option come the completion of the build was a question I chose not to ask at the outset. It was no secret that Steve really…

Event: Mopar Euro Nationals Date: 9-11 August Venue: Santa Pod We love the Mopar Euro Nationals, and the 2024 running of the event was another great weekend. Okay, so it saw all the weather, from pouring rain stopping play on track on the Friday to glorious sunshine on the Sunday, but this is England. The show must go on, and it certainly did. With winter now well and truly upon us, here’s a little ray of sunshine in the way of a look back at some of the cars that caught our eye off track at this year’s event.…

2024 has seen a significant milestone, as it marked the 60th anniversary of the first ever drag races in this country. To all intents, the 1964 six-event First British International Drag Festival series is seen as the kick-off point for the sport in Europe. With much publicity, and boasting top rank American drivers, the six events showcased the sport in spectacular fashion in front of huge crowds at the various airfield sites, between September 19 and October 4. Organised by the newly formed British Drag Racing Association and sponsored by The People newspaper, it would take some years for that spectacular showcase series to be surpassed – as there was, not surprisingly, a huge gulf between the few local competitors and their experienced American visitors. For the record, the first…