Innehållsförteckning för No 202 March 2022 från NZV8

Kiwi driver Liam Lawson has put to rest any doubts that the Rodin-built FZED single-seater is the fastest race-car in New-Zealand following a demonstration run during a lunchtime break at Highlands Motorsport Park. Liam, who holds the official lap record there of 1:29.910, which he set during his TRS debut back in 2019, absolutely smashed it, going five seconds quicker, at 1:23.75, in the Rodin — although his achievement will not enter the record books, as lap records can be set only in official races. This is the second time the car has been seen on a public track in New Zealand and it certainly did not disappoint those in attendance, including Liam. “Turn three — the massive sort of sweeper with the wall around the outside — in there…

EMAIL YOUR INFO TO: EDITOR@V8.CO.NZ All these events are subject to New Zealand — or the particular region — moving into at least Orange under the traffic light system. None of these can operate under red. We suggest you check with organisers before attending. Lolife Burnout Comp 12 March Napa Auto Parts Dragway, Meremere 10am spectator gates open; 1pm burnouts begin $20 entry; children under the age of 13 years, gold coin donation Lolife Promotions, in association with Ruthless Entertainment, presents Lolife Burnout Comp. Held by some of the best in the tyre-killing game, so expect some heavy hitters to be in attendance. A total of 40 cars will be hitting the pad and going to war over a massive $10K prize pool. Please note: there is no EFTPOS, so…

The name Wild Bunch sums up the cars and people that make up the class — a class that, thanks to the promotion work of Ryan Sheldon, is becoming the place to race. Tony Marsh is one racer who has made the transition to the class behind the wheel of his Ford Maverick. While the 6.9-second-minimum ET of the class is a long way from the 4-second passes of the Marsh Family top fuel dragster, Tony’s not exactly taking things lightly. At the Wild Bunch Wars event at Masterton Motorplex in early January, Tony decided to open it up and see what the 475ci Brad Anderson Hemi was capable of. The result: a jaw-dropping 6.59 at 194.77mph! That places the car in the zone of the current Top Doorslammer field,…

Robert Ihle’s been toying away with his 1965 Mustang for so long it’s hard to remember a time without it. One of his early outings in the car, to the then Champion Dragway, saw performance lower than expected, and a friendly chap called Dave Moyle came over to see if he could lend a hand. Their relationship has continued to this day, and Dave has played a key part in the car’s evolution, not just as the engine builder but also as tuner and general go-to guy. Until recently, the car was running a 408ci engine package that ran into the mid 10s naturally aspirated. Although it was equipped with a nitrous oxide system, Robert laughs that it never seemed to all come together when on the giggle gas. Over…

To say that racing is in his blood would be an understatement. The son of drag racing-mad parents, from the time Bronson Dunne was in nappies he was trackside soaking up the quarter-mile action. If that wasn’t enough to set him on a path to quarter-mile obsession, it was almost a guaranteed fact when at the age of six his parents strapped him into a junior dragster. Two decades later Bronson has just completed the build of his first door car. What happened in the two decades between has been a serious amount of racing-life experience, which goes a good way to explaining how a 26-year-old was able to screw together such a serious weapon of a slammer. After racing juniors for nine seasons, a then-teenage Bronson started crewing, first…

1965 CHEVROLET CHEVELLE @SULLYS65CHEVELLE The restomod scene is still blowing up, and with builds like this Chevelle it is easy to see why. Starting with a Roadster Shop Spec chassis the stance, handling, and brakes were all taken care of with one purchase. The frame was then loaded with a Don Hardy LSX-based engine, making over 700hp from its 440ci displacement. Tremec supplied the six-speed transmission, before Forgeline were called on for the OE1 wheels that got wrapped in Nitto 555 rubber. What an insane street machine. 1968 CHEVROLET C10 @BAD_BOWTIE Engaging Jason from VanNatta Fabrication for your C10 build is the way to get a surefire winner, and Sean certainly hit the jackpot with this one. As with all truck builds, getting that stance sorted is the first task,…

Iremember growing up in hot rodding on the back of my dad’s Model A roadster pickup. There were a handful of guys who enjoyed traditional hot rodding of the 1940s and 1950s at the time. As I learnt more of the history, my appreciation for it all really diversified, from the 1930s — early days of hot rodding — right through to the 1980s. I have also been in the most fortunate position to meet, and, in some cases, become friends with some truly special people in the hobby both here and overseas. As time passes, we have lost a lot of great people in hot rodding — the likes of Pete Chapouris, Art Chrisman, ‘Lil John’ Buttera, the Pierson brothers, and, more locally, Pete Dore, Lenny Jones, Bob Armstrong,…

When the team at Steve’s engines put their pro-charged F1 up for sale at Beach Hop 2019, they didn’t quite expect the level of interested buyers it garnered. Once the truck sold under the hammer that weekend, there were more than a few guys left feeling disappointed that they didn’t seal the deal. This gave Steve Walker the idea to build more, and he kept in touch with some of the prospective buyers.In Jan 2021 he found the necessary donor parts, a cab, doors and rear guards, in the Waikato and at the same time another Hilux chassis just like the first build, also conveniently located in the Waikato. Once back in the shop he got on the phone to one of the bidders who was all for it, so…

When he isn’t out shooting cars for us, Rixsta Sammons can be found on the tools at Customs Body Shop, which given he is in the trade, explains why his VX Commodore sports such a nice paint job. But while the exterior finish is top notch, under the bonnet was a different story. With a clutch issue and a few oil leaks to tend to, that was enough of an excuse (or maybe it was a slow day at work) to rip the tunnel rammed LS1 from the bay. The plan over the coming months is to completely transform the engine bay. This will include shaving and smoothing the firewall and guards, as well as a serious amount of deleting. Basically, if it’s not super critical to making it run…

CHECK THEMOTORHOOD.COM FOR REGULAR NEWS UPDATES It’s been a long road, but Greg Murphy’s ‘69 Charger — first featured in bare metal back in issue 73, and dubbed ‘CAPTIV’ due to the lockdowns that greatly slowed its progress — has finally been completed at USA big gun, Ringbrothers. The project began at Auckland workshop Moselle Panel and Paint. In 2019, it was shipped to the US, where an estimated 4000 man-hours went into completing the build. The Ring brothers were extremely complimentary about the work Moselle’s did, stating they didn’t need to touch any of it. As with all Ringbrothers projects, the list of custom parts is extensive, from small touches likethe one-off indicators and extended sills to the custom CNC’d supercharger top on the Hellcat-sourced 707hp 6.2-litre Hemi to…

Resort-style racetracks for the rich are nothing new in other parts of the world, and we too have a taste of that style of business model being implemented at both Highlands Motorsport Park and Hamptons Downs. However, the region is now set to get its first completely private race resort. Located just outside Perth, the 3000-acre Club Moolia will feature a 4.1-kilometre circuit up to 12 metres wide and boasting 17 corners. It’s also able to be split into two tracks. The resort also features private villas set on a trackside lagoon, tennis courts, a clubhouse, and garages. Interest has been massive; the two lower tiers of membership have already sold out and only the big-boy Conglomerate membership is still available. That package offers 120 hours of track time a…

UPPED YOUR GO? NOW, UP YOUR STOP! If your late-model Commodore has had a power increase, then it should also get the brake upgrade to match. Genuine GM-spec Brembo four-pot and six-pot caliper Big Brake upgrades are now in stock at XAir Performance. Suitable for VT–VF Commodores, these kits come complete with ceramic dustless pads and slotted/cross-drilled zinc-coated rotors, and are available in silver and yellow, with other colours available upon order. Priced from $2190. Visit www.xairperformance.co.nz or call 0800 924 792 for more details. DOOR POCKETS Originally offered only in Brock and SLE models, card pockets are a great addition to any VB to VL Commodore restoration. These genuine Holden Restoration Parts door pockets fit the front and rear (and left and right) in VB to VL, and VN…

The year 1982 was a major ‘grow up’ year for me — and man, I really needed to. I’d turned 21, become married with a ready-made family of two, had my own rug rat on the way, had a house with a mortgage, and a business with a mortgage. Nothing like all that shit dripping off your shoulders to make you wake up and take a look at yourself. I’d already figured that renting a shop was always going to be a dead end — of course, as you become older and wiser you become aware of the tax advantages associated with renting a shop, but I was neither older or wiser then — so in 1982, while running Stewart’s Auto-painting in Castlecliff’s Hinau Street, I borrowed up big and…

Dion Crook is one of a handful of second-generation drag racers who are beginning to make a big name for themselves. His front engine dragster ‘The Siren’, which we featured back in Issue No.193, has continued to turn heads on and off the track. The big news is that at Masterton Motorplex on 16 January the car smashed the magical 200mph and six-second barriers. Although the car had run a 7.22 at 195.81mph the day before, not even Dion was prepared for the 6.97 at 201.10 mph that flashed up on the timing boards. Fellow second-generation racer, Jason Robertson — son of former funny car racer Neil Robertson — also wowed the Masterton crowds recently with the debut of his El Chapo Altered. With the Robertson team splitting themselves between…

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In this column, as you are probably already aware, we like to take a look at the more unusual side of automotive history. The oddballs, the failures, the revered, and the misfits are what we love to share with you all. And if we had to choose one particular time and place that proved the most fertile of grounds for this sort of quarry, it’d have to be Detroit in the mid to late fifties. It was the time of the birth of the concept car, it was when car shows became a part of American life, and it represented an absolute explosion of creativity, lateral thinking, and big ideas — not all of them necessarily good ones, by the way. We’ve already looked at a couple of standouts from…

Browsing cars for sale online is not a foreign pastime to many car people, and Levin’s Paul Berkahn is no exception. For some unexplained reason, a rather sorry-looking, beat-up 1964 Falcon Sprint caught his eye one night. At first glance it appeared pretty rough, but the harder he looked, the two-door Falcon appeared to be not as bad as he’d first thought. It had very little rust and was really only sporting the usual battle scars you’d expect a 50-plus-year-old car to collect over time. Looking past the bumps and bruises that Paul could see on the surface, he could see the Falcon had huge potential, so just like that he bought it, sight unseen. Paul says he’s “always liked the ’60s muscle era, very raw and a very developing…

There may have been lots of side effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, but one we never saw coming was multi-championship-winning driverDean Perkins pulling the pin on CMC racing. Having competed in the class for many years, and having won multiple championships along the way, he’s certainly done the hard yards. Dean’s much-loved, much-modified XD Falcon is now up for grabs, complete and ready to race. Better still, it’s just come off the back of a massive rebuild that should in theory have the car in peak condition. Included in that rebuild was a complete new roll cage along with new seats, wiring, and Lexan windows. With Dean known as a proud Roush Yates customer, not too surprisingly the Falcon has a freshly rebuilt 393ci Roush Yates engine package good for…

Having owned and driven hot rods his entire life — none of which would have fallen under the category of show rod — Aaron Grieve decided it was high time he built something a little more refined, or, more to the point, something with gloss paint. What he had in mind was not a show rod, but a custom — a ’30s tail dragger with paint and metal work so spectacular it would be more art work than motor vehicle. Six years later, that’s exactly what he’s produced. Even at the outset there was a very defined direction for the build and that started with the base vehicle itself. Not content with a run-of-the-mill Ford or Chev coupé of the era — no, sir — Aaron wanted something unique, casting…

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Anyone who doubts car collecting is a serious sport for millionaires must not read the news; every month we seem to be reporting on eye-watering amounts being paid for classic and rare machines. Last month an insane milestone was reached, with the first auction ever to net more than US$200 million. Yip, you read that right! Mecum’s Kissimmee auction reached a total of US$217 million in sales, surpassing the previous record of $176 million. Of the 2954 cars sold over the course of the high-profile event, 13 cracked the seven-figure mark. The single highest price netted was US$3.75 million for the ‘Flying Mustang’ Shelby. However, the car that had everyone talking — in our circles, anyway — was the iconic Bob Hirohata ’51 Merc custom, which was built in ’52…

For the third season running Covid-19 has played a role in the way the Repco Supercars championship has played out, this time before the season has even got under way. The championship was scheduled to kick off on the streets of Newcastle, a street circuit not raced on in two years, but it will now kick off under lights in Sydney that same weekend. “Given the continuing evolving and unpredictable Covid situation, it has become too challenging to stage a complex multi-faceted event on the streets of Newcastle for tens of thousands of race fans in March,” Supercars CEO Shane Howard explained. Supercars has not wiped Newcastle off the calendar completely, instead it’s been put on hold, and will likely be the season ender as it was in 2017, ’18,…

When we first featured Shane Ryland’s rapid street legal Torana back in 2017, we commented that nothing stayed the same forever. Little did we know how accurate that statement would be in relation to the Torana. At the time it had run a PB of 8.77 at 157.69mph, which was seriously moving for a relatively basic and old — in terms of when it was built — car. Sadly, it was performance beyond what the mild steel back-halved chassis was realistically capable of taming, and eventually things went bad … After the car bounced off Napa Dragway’s concrete wall, Shane was left with a choice. Should he rebuild it and continue its evolution — an evolution that began when it was first tubbed in the 1990s — or slow the…

“Scary as hell” is how Mark Nutsford expects the driving experience of his T-bucket project to be, and, looking at it, we’d say that’s likely an accurate prediction. The car has been in the build for six years, with the plan being to have it as a street-legal race car. It has been built on chassis rails crafted by Southland’s Drew Gallog to incorporate a 113-inch wheelbase. That longer than usual wheelbase is as essential for helping to keep the car pointing in the same direction as it is for fitting all the engine componentry in behind the grille. The engine itself is a GM 572ci crate engine purchased locally, but currently being rebuilt by fellow Taranaki horsepower enthusiast Jeff Dobson.“There’s not much left of the original engine,” states Mark,…

Steve ‘Cowboy’ Carlsen blames the medication he was on from a shoulder operation as the reason he splashed out and purchased Mark Bardsley’s Top Doorslammer Camaro last year, but we think it’s likely more to do with his drag racing addiction. The move came after he had fitted a 521ci BAE Hemi to his ‘Old School’ Falcon and set about performing some chassis work to make it point somewhat in the right direction. With the car knocking on the door of low sevens it was ahead of where the mild steel chassis was legally allowed to be. So, with this in mind Steve and ever patient wife Rox, looked at various options before deciding they loved the Falcon so much, the best option was to take a fibreglass mould off…

Now, I have been waiting a long time to write this column. As I write, it’s 6.30am and I’m sitting in the race trailer the morning after we have completed testing in the new Aeroflow Performance Products big show funny car. In my columns over the past few months I have detailed some of the differences between an outlaw funny car and a big show funny car; put simply, the outlaw nitro funny car has about 4000 horsepower while the big show funny car has about 10,000 horsepower. Now as far as I’m concerned a nitro funny car is the pinnacle of drag racing — they are fast, they are wild, and they are just awesome. To drive a big show funny car was always that end dream; it’s the…

When setting out to build a ’32 Ford coupe in some kind of traditional vein, one can get caught up in the hype of current times and build something that ends up very cookie cutter in appearance to the next ‘traditional rod’ but it doesn’t have to be that way; you can keep the build respectful to hot rodding roots while stepping outside the box and building something people will remember long after leaving the show. This is exactly what ‘The Colonel’ is all about — a touch of Salt Lake racer, with some European speedster cues, but built predominantly for the road. The body will be a steel ’32 remake from Brookville and will be sectioned 2 inches, channelled 2.5-inches, and the rear wheel arch line lifted up 5…

To debut any type of drag car successfully is not just about the numbers you leave with that first day; it is just as much about removing all the doubt that lay in the back of your mind the days and weeks preceding said debut — oh, and not looking silly in front of damn near everyone you know, and a boatload of people you don’t. Add to the mix — and that’s a story I will get to — that magic word ‘nitro’ and everything ratchets up 10 notches as the eyes watching are now more focused, more critical, and more numerous. Before we get to the actual debut of the Nitrohoon ’57 Chevy funny car, let’s take a few steps back — to coin a cheesy phrase –…

Camping in a paddock for a few days under the scorching summer sun is a Kiwi summer way of life. Kicking back on some questionable folding chair seemingly on its last legs while you sip something cold and slap on another round of snags on the BBQ – ahhh, what a life. While most of these paddocks back on to sandy beaches with rolling waves, for this particular weekend of January it was replaced with rolling thunder as cars slowly idled through the Kumeu showgrounds headed for their campsite or show spot. It’s been this way since knocking on 30 years and it’s a pilgrimage made by thousands each year, even if this year’s running was somewhat affected by the current mandates event organisers must adhere to. Like always, the…

Being son of a gasser builder (we featured his dad’s VALGAS back in issue 99), it’s easy to see where son Kurt got his influence for thinking outside the box from. Kurt started with an old custom ‘55 FJ, which was built 30 years prior by Dave Garry. The FJ had a 5-inch chop and sat on a custom chassis and was small block powered. With the intention of running alongside dad in the vintagegasser ranks, the rear end has been reworked with a ladder bar and panhard configuration and a new set of large tubs. Up front is a ‘55 Dodge truck axle. Powering the gasser is a 460 big block backed by a C6. Making sure Kurt has plenty to do, a lighting rod shifter from Kilduff Customs…