Innehållsförteckning för No 184 September 2020 från NZV8

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve said this on these pages: one of the best things about being in this role is the people that you meet along the way. Who I’m normally referring to when I say this are the feature car owners, workshop owners and staff, or similar. But it’s all too easy for me to take an external focus, when some of that credit also should be pointed towards the team of people who help put this magazine together each month. Some of those contributors have been with the magazine for just over a decade ago, and I’m also proud to call many of them good friends. Kevin Shaw joined the team by writing his first feature car article back in Issue No. 62…

If there’s one thing we can possibly agree on it’s the fallacy of seven-day builds that many US car programmes portray. Case in point: the Foose series that went for years telling us you can bang out a quality finish just in time for an unsuspecting victim to break down in tears. Those builds, if they are to be believed, are astounding. However, TV can be deceiving and a quick ‘whatever happened to …?’ internet search regularly shows up a sorry tale of what became … Anyway, while we’ll attempt to agree that sevenday builds can happen, the result is sometimes less than desirable. Yes, while the TV may be saying it happens, there’s also a bunch of realist car builders over there who work a more believable pitch. One…

EMAIL YOUR INFO TO EDITOR@V8.CO.NZ WHO’S THE BOSS? Unfortunately, I’m an altered boy who married into a doorslammer family,” laughs Kane Douche. “I was never gonna be allowed to buy another altered over a door car, so here we are.” What he’s referring to is a tough-looking 1955 Chev doorslammer that was initially built by his brother-in-law Bob Tynan for his father in law, Kiwi legend Chris Tynan. The car was sold by Chris to Trevor Smith, then on to Mike ‘The Caretaker’ Reid, and now on to Kane. All going to plan, the car will be throwing down those legendary half-track burnouts once more come next season. Motorvation is set to come from a 511ci Keith Black Hemi with BAE5 heads from O’Rourke Motorsports in Brisbane. This will be…

Taste is a strange thing. It varies greatly from person to person, but though it’s as unique and individual as the person it is prescribed to, both good and bad extremes are almost universal. We’re under no illusion that all of the many vehicles featured in this mag will push your buttons, but the ones that don’t do it for you, personally, will speak to a bunch of other readers. Building a car is ultimately a matter of taste, and how others receive it is very much the same. Lucky, then, that Brendan Everett is a man we can probably all agree is blessed with a fine sense of taste. You don’t have to know much about cars, or American custom culture, to know that his ’54 Chev Bel Air…

PLAN, PLAN, PLAN. If you’re going it alone, at least talk to the right tradies so that you’re not heading down the wrong path from the beginning. The last thing you want is to have to pay someone to fix your mistakes, so do the talking at the beginning. When we are managing a complete restoration, my perfect starting point is a car that’s still complete, so we can assess the overall soundness, starting with panel fit. If we smell a rat at that point, we will measure and, if need be, repair underbody structure. We will build from the chassis up, leaving most bolt-on parts (doors, guards, bonnet, etc.) until last. Make sure your foundation is solid, and you can trust the processes that follow. In a perfect world,…

I’ve built or rebuilt several cars, and at the moment I’m building a ’40 Ford Pickup. I’ve probably built them all wrong, but, in theory, it should be done from ground up. Start with the chassis, then engine, get everything fitted before moving on to the interior. It’s important to build your chassis around what wheels you’ll use, or make sure you’ve done your maths right so that you can get the size you’re after. If you get it wrong, you’ll pay the price for it later. Paint should be one of the last things you do, along with upholstery. I try to get lots of things done at the same time, like sending my engine away to be rebuilt while the final bodywork is being done, as it speeds…

Covid-19 did the impossible, silencing every rumbling V8 in the nation and leaving the motorways deserted, still and quiet, in a state of eeriness and emptiness. For some, a collection of dust would settle on the bonnets; for others it was an opportunity to work away in the garage to distract their attention from the contaminated outside world. Weeks passed, and finally people could open the garage doors with a strange, surreal sense of freedom. During these weeks, Blair Holmes had an idea quietly germinating: a weekend away with the boys to get me, Kevin Brooke, out of home and on the road. I’ve owned my GTS for near-on three years, and Blair was planning one of its first decent road trips and offering me a distraction from the day-to-day…

At a time when almost every modern car on the road looks to have been cut from the same cloth, it’s hard to imagine a time when designers had total freedom. Of course, that freedom came at the expense of trivial things like aerodynamics, fuel economy, and safety … but still. Of all the cars sold new in New Zealand, there are few that command as much road presence, or road space, as the Pontiac Laurentian. This issue’s cover car owner, Tony Middlemiss, knows that full well, as, besides his retinasearing Torana, he also holds the keys to a ’68 version, a model chosen as it’s the most aggressive looking of the Laurentians. While it’s already lightly modified, at the moment the car is much milder than the Torana, but,…

PREPARATION When you want to start welding stainless steel, there are a few points of the TIG process that are very important in order to maintain stainless steel’s corrosion resistance and strength. As with MIG welding, stainless distortion is a problem, so minimizing heat input is a priority. Choosing the correct TIG filler rod is also similar to the process with MIG. Some people actually use MIG wire as a TIG filler. When welding 300-series stainless, keep to the simple fillers — I would suggest 316LSi. Joint preparation is more important when welding stainless steel than when welding mild steel, mostly because of distortion. Bracing, strong backs, or heat sinks are all good options, so try to make room for one of these options when choosing a joint prep. A…

FORM AND FUNCTION Stand out from the crowd on your daily commute with this rear-window spoiler and weather shield (monsoon) combo for VE and VF Commodore sedans. The tinted plastic shields and spoiler are easy to install for any DIY’er and give you the added protection from rain and sun. Wagon monsoon kits are also available separately. Mention us (NZV8) and get the kit for $395 delivered. Contact Rare Spares NZ on 03-3665982, or check out www.rarespares.co.nz. HOUSE’N’ 1000HP Rated to take up to 1000hp, these modular nine-inch housing kits feature an alloy centre cast with extra ribbing, drain and filler bungs, and allowance for a top-mount location if you’re planning to run a third link. The 25x3-inch steel axle tubes bolt on via an eight-bolt flange and will accept…

As you will have seen in this issue, there’s a lot that can be learnt from the pros when it comes to building a car the right way. While the article focused on what step should be performed in what order, we’ve previously run a bunch of articles on what each step of the build requires. To make life easy, we’ve uploaded a bunch of these to themotorhood.com. If you’re interested in what it takes to complete a high-end paint job, jump on to the site and search ‘proper paint preparation’. If chrome plating is more your thing, search ‘the shining’.…

DODGE UNVEILS TRIPLE-THREAT FOR 2021 It’s been a write-off of a year, and if you didn’t already have enough reasons to kick 2020’s ass to the curb, Dodge has just given you three more: a 807hp Challenger, 797hp Redeye, and a single-year 710hp Hellcat-powered Durango. The offering makes Dodge the only American company to have three 700hp+ vehicles under the same roof. The Challenger SRT will be in a new Super Stock variant, based on the Redeye, putting out 807hp. It runs 10.50s at 131mph straight out of the factory, reaching 60mph in just 3.3 seconds. To aid in these feats, it’s been given 315-wide Nitto drag radials that are wrapped around lightweight wheels, and the LSD gearing is shorter at 3.09:1 from the standard 2.62:1. Track Mode allows for…

WHAT’S UNDER CONSTRUCTION AROUND THE COUNTRY MEGA VB We’re stoked to be seeing more and more tough Commodores in the build, and the VB belonging to Josh Barry is up there with the best. Being built at Choppers Auto Body Shop, the VB has recently had a custom rear clip fabricated to allow the body to sit low over a set of 20x11-inch Simmons wheels. The nine-inch diff hanging off a custom four-link is set to get a workout thanks to Josh’s chosen power plant, a forged LSA. As if the LSA wasn’t good enough in its factory guise, the engine has been built to produce 800hp. With this in mind, six-pot Wilwoods have been fitted up front along with four-pots at the rear. At the time of writing, the…

Imagine being young again and knowing everything you know now. Think of how different you would have handled things, and how much pain and drama you would have saved yourself. Or, when we’re talking about building cars, think about how different you would go about your build and how much money, time, and heartache, you’d have saved doing it the right way the first time around. We see it in almost every issue of NZV8 — a car owner who got the process of building their vehicle a bit mixed up. But it doesn’t need to be this way. We have some of the best car builders in the world right here in New Zealand, and, lucky for you, they were happy to sit down with us to share some…

Multiple NZV8 feature-car builders Liz Stewart and Ryan Gracie have been through more builds than most, and when asked for their thoughts they stated: “When building a car, you should already have an idea or an impact that you want to achieve with your build, whether it is to create a clean dailydriver or a statement build, the desired outcome should already be planned or mapped out.” Bodywork is the first consideration — any rust repairs or body mods, these need to be completed before any other component. So, if tubbing, pick your wheel size and build. Don’t choose your wheels and build your car around those — wheels date very quickly, so should be one of the last items chosen for your build to complete it. Paint colour and…

When it comes to someone building a new project, I like to be involved from the start. The reason I say this is that most people don’t think about exactly how things are going to fit into the interior. For example, when building a roadster, it is very helpful to have some framing inside behind the seat for support for the panels, also for the kick panels. What about where the wiring will run down inside the body? There is lots to think about when building a car: What engine will I put into it, transmission, diff, what colour will I paint it, what’s the interior going to look like? For me, it’s all in the detail to make the finished vehicle stand out — that includes the interior. If…

Car guys around the world live for, dream of, and seek the elusive unicorn; the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; the one that got away; the barn find. Whether you are into British cars, Yank tanks, Aussie muscle, or even old Jappas, people seek that old car slotted away in a shed, garage, or barn, waiting to be discovered, coveted, and acquired. This week, we saw a new posting on YouTube of a one-of-a-kind barn find, a 1959 Corvette discovered in a suburban garage in Georgia. It was put there in 1960 by its one and only owner, now deceased, and the access was blocked by overgrown trees. It was a time capsule of what a near-new Corvette looks like if left to its own devices…

Nothing makes a car pop more than a custom paint job that stands out in the show field on a sunny day. Spray painters of custom paint tend to use a mixture of pearl, candy, and metallic paint to produce wild and unique effects in their paint jobs. If you’re thinking about any type of custom paint for your next project, you are probably looking at one of these types of paint for the finish and wondering what the differences are between them. We’ve decided to break it down simply following. Just remember that, while it may be easy to understand the differences, applying these effects can take a bit of skill even for professionals; custom paint jobs can take years of trial and error to get right! WHAT IS…

This tough 1937 Chev gasser was completed in the spare time of a bunch of mates after they first helped finish fellow club member Jock McGilvray’s 1948 Chevrolet pickup when he became too ill to complete it. Sadly, Jock passed away in November last year but not before he was able to drive the pickup a handful of times thanks to the team’s hard work. That work wasn’t un-rewarded though, as Ophy explains: “Jock told me, ‘That motor has to stay with the car, and you boys have fun with it’. I’ve always owned the car, but, before he passed away, Jock came and saw me and said that [that] motor is staying with it. In a way, he did give it to me, but then, in a way, it’s…

LEE SMITH 1976 HOLDEN TORANA We’d never seen anything like it before, and we’ve never seen anything like it since. Yep, Lee Smith’s 1976 Torana sedan was a step outside the box, and that’s exactly why it landed itself on our cover a decade ago. As the owner and operator of a custom paint shop, Lee found the Torana’s panels to be the perfect canvas on which to demonstrate his skill. However, as impressive as the three-tone paintwork was, it was actually the interior that caught our attention. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with a standard Torana interior, Lee changed things up by adding a 1990s Toyota dashboard to it. Rather than keep it subtle by leaving it black, the dash, along with the rest of the interior, was retrimmed…

IF YOU HAVE A COOL DAILY-DRIVER AND WOULD LIKE TO SEE IT APPEAR IN DAILY GRIND, EMAIL EDITOR@V8.CO.NZ Hi, Mike. We’ve never seen a car that looks quite like this before — what exactly is it? It’s a 1997 Lincoln Mark VIII. The Mark VIIIs were made between 1993 and 1998 only; genuine rear-wheel-drive sports coupes. This one is the LSC version with the best spec: genuine twin exhaust, sway bar upgrade, and a 3.27:1 final drive. The Mark-series cars since 1956 all had the traditional Lincoln square shape, but when they got to the Mark VIII, there was a radical redesign and the new version was really well received in the States. Reviews of the day raved about them, and they are still highly regarded by those who know.…

Wind the clock back eight years to 2012. Someone called Gotye, with a little bit of help from a girl from Hamilton called Kimbra, was a music sensation and released a chart-topping song called Somebody That I Used to Know. Sanitarium announced to the country that it was unable to make any more Marmite for the foreseeable future due to damage to the Christchurch factory caused by the previous year’s monster earthquake. New Zealanders collectively chewed their way through 640 tons of the bitter ‘axle-grease-like’ spread every year with their morning coffee, thus coining the term ‘Marmageddon’. That year also saw the biggest change in the nation’s road rules in 35 years. The boffins in Wellington scrapped the ‘give way to the right’ rule. New Zealanders were dragged kicking and…

Most of us started our love affair with V8s with tyres rotating on tarmac, but Adam Wilton started with hulls hitting water. A man with a passion for fast boats and LS engines, Adam started working for a North Island boatbuilding business at 18 years old, building small and large boats, ranging from fishing boats to touring boats to jet and race machines. Of course, the inevitable happened; a couple of years later, he had built a boat for himself in his spare time — not just a little fishing dinghy but a 5.3m jetboat powered by a Lexus V8. A string of personal boats followed with jet-ski engines, a Nissan V6 turbo, a ZZ383 Chev crate engine, and even a brand-new supercharged 3.8 Buick V6 that Adam spotted one…

Being a farm boy all his life, John ‘JD’ Shepherd never really knew much about cars. This all changed at the young and impressionable age of 17, when his brother-in-law took him on a “mystery trip” to the Hawke’s Bay and a place called ‘Thunderpark’. It was here that John got bitten by the drag racing bug bad — really, really bad! John says that it was a day that, “Would change my life forever, as it did for a lot of us experiencing Thunderpark for the first time”, during the golden days of drag racing in New Zealand. It also happened to be the year that ‘The Phoenix’ and ‘LA Hooker’ from the US were touring the country. What a year to pop your drag racing cherry! A couple…

When a client approaches us at NXT LVL Automotive with a build, we start by getting a feel for what they want to do to their vehicle. Right from the beginning, you need to set out an end goal, or result as to how it should look, drive and what sort of power they’re after, etc. Then, as a series of requirements they want from this build, i.e, cruiser, street/strip, muscle car, restoration, etc. We generally throw a few realistic ideas about and discuss the financial input. This part is very important to ensure that the customer and we are on the same page. We all want twin-turbos, massive brakes, supercar suspension, and trick exotic leather interior … OK, maybe not everyone, but it’s easy to get carried away and…

So, you’ve decided to build a car! After no doubt several conversations, emails, and meetings, we are ready to get underway. I have an idea of what you think you want, and am ready to turn some spanners. Assuming that the car is rolling and complete, we will first check bumpers, all chrome and stainless trim and mouldings, and panel gaps for alignment and damage. Is the glass in, and are the regulators working, is the glass chipped or scratched? Is the interior staying stock and being retrimmed or is it custom? Do we need to make anything prior to upholstery, dash fascias and simple stuff, through to full-length centre consoles? What gauges do we need and what type are we using? Are we having air conditioning? Once all of…

The beginning of any build that comes into CSR [Custom Street Rides] ‘before even laying a tool on it’ is establishing a theme and what sort of desired finished result is required. Having this determined first and foremost gives us the right vision moving forward, whether it’s restomod, concourse, pro street, or pro touring. This theme would define what type of engine, running gear, wheel combination, stance, and interior would be best suited. From here, we’d carry out a complete condition assessment. It doesn’t matter if the car is fully complete and legal or has been disassembled for 20 years — everything needs to be assessed prior. This also goes for parts that come fitted to or with the vehicle that won’t necessarily go back on once we have finished…

The name ‘Shelby’ is synonymous with high-performance Fords and has been since the mid ’60s when Carroll Shelby’s AC Cobras were the stuff of legends, as was his involvement with the GT40s. However, it was the Shelby Mustangs that launched the Shelby brand into the mainstream automotive world 55 years ago. Spawned in the era of the muscle car, the 1964 Mustangs were the first of the mid-sized sporty and well-handling — for the era — performance cars. Targeted at young people, they were the ‘I’ve got to have it’, ‘I need one now’ icon of the time. Other manufacturers soon followed with the Camaro, Firebird, Challenger, and Barracuda, but the Mustang was the first — hence the term ‘pony car’. It was no surprise then, given Carroll Shelby’s involvement…

TOTAL COMMITMENT Clarke Hopkins and his Torana should need no introduction — the car-and-driver combo have been seen in NZV8 countless times over the last decade due to competing in Enzed Central Muscle Cars. In fact, Clarke hasn’t missed a season of CMC ever since the car debuted. Despite the build quality and horsepower in the class having skyrocketed in that time, thanks to how well built the car was by Heads Racing Supplies originally, it’s remained at the pointy end of the field, with minimal updates being required. The only big change in the car’s history was the engine package that was slotted in a few seasons back to replace the 308-based set-up that was pushed to its limits. The new motor was based on an Australian-made Torque-Power Little…