Innehållsförteckning för April 2017 från Street Machine

‘WILL travel for right car’ has taken on a whole new meaning for Sunshine Coast local Brock Mahoney. After finishing his show-stomping red XC coupe IN ENVY (SM, Sep ’14), Brock was keen for a project that took on more of a ‘street’ role but had genuine sports lineage – namely an XB John Goss Special. “My dad Kevin bought the red XC brand new in ’77, but nearly traded it on a blue John Goss Special not long after,” Brock explains. “So there’s a family connection there, but I just love them regardless. My only stipulation was that it had to be the Apollo Blue version and not the Emerald Fire green; it made the pickings even slimmer, but I just prefer the blue option.” So Brock put out…

NOT ONLY WAS I BEATING EVERYBODY, BUT I WAS POWERSKIDDING PAST THEM WITH THICK CLOUDS OF SMOKE. IT FELT GOOD – UNTIL I BLEW THE TOP LOADER XY FALCONS are something of a tradition for the Mokdassi brothers. The family all share a profound appreciation for the Blue Oval, but although Simon Mokdassi now owns one of the finest examples in all the land in XYKING, he strayed from the pack with his first build. “Before I built the XY, I was into luxury cars,” he explains. “My first decent car was a BMW M3 known as CANDYMAN. I kept it for two years, then stripped it to a shell and sent the body to Queen Street Customs for candy red paint. I redid the interior in white leather, fitted…

THERE ARE QUITE A FEW CARS I’VE ONLY EVER SEEN AT THE POKER RUN; IT WAS THE TYPE OF EVENT THAT ATTRACTED ALL MAKES, MODELS AND TYPES BIG Al’s Poker Run was a Perth institution. Before events like Cars & Coffee and mass gatherings at service centres, the Poker Run was attracting 6-700 cars and then taking them on a meandering cruise through the Perth metropolitan area. There are quite a few cars I’ve only ever seen at the Poker Run; it was the type of event that attracted people from all walks of life and cars of all makes, models and types. Sadly, event linchpin Al Erdman passed away last year due to complications following a heart operation. It was a shock to all of us who knew him…

MARK Navacchi knows the exact origins of this fine ’66 VC Valiant. The keys were handed directly to him in 2005 by his grandfather, who bought the Val new. “Nonno gave me the keys as my graduation present. He was so proud of me for seeing school through,” Mark says. Nonno – Danilo Zuccon – worked at the Chrysler factory in Tonsley Park, South Australia, where he was a mechanic-cum-foreman, and the sky-blue/white-roof VC was his daily driver, even sporting a tow bar and tow mirrors bolted to the front fenders. “He’d drive the car to his holiday home in Cape Jervis towing a boat, with a trailer behind that! How he got away with it, I have no idea,” laughs Frank Navacchi, Mark’s dad and Danilo’s son-in-law. “Everyone nagged…

THE CAR WAS SECTIONED WITH A TAPER FROM FRONT TO REAR: FIVE INCHES IN THE FRONT, DROPPING TO 2.5 INCHES IN THE REAR VINTAGE race cars are currently one of the hottest items in the US car scene, and the attraction largely comes down to the fact that each car is a unique piece of history. This has led plenty of wealthy Americans to build their own version of history – like Seattle’s Bruce Leven and his radical ’51 Ford spinner called GT51, which blew everyone away at SEMA 2016. “This car started out as a dream and a rendering, with the design based around a heavily modified, vintage race car-inspired 1951 Ford coupe,” Bruce says. “Starting with a complete car that had an older restoration, Wicked Fabrication in Washington…

THE REST OF MY FAMILY THINK I’M CRAZY BUT THEY RECKON IT’S COOL THAT AS A TEENAGE GIRL I’M BUILDING A CAR WITH MY DAD LANA O’Neill isn’t your stock-standard 16-year-old gal. Nup, she’s usually found in the shed with her dad Bill, covered in grinding dust and weld splatters. She’s been wielding the tools on her own sweet ’27 T roadster, a build that she started when she was just 12! How’d you get to be building a rad T? As a kid I had a miniature 1932 go-kart that was purple with flames, which I sold to Daniel and Sandra Horne (Iron Maiden SM, Oct ’16) for their daughter. With that money, Dad found me a steel 1927 T-model roadster body at the 2012 Croydon swap meet. What…

THE LIME-GREEN ’32 FORD SITTING ALL A-GLIMMER ON THE ROOF IS HARD TO MISS; AS AN EYE-CATCHER, IT WORKS A TREAT IF YOU’RE out for a cruise along Queensland’s Bruce Highway between Cooroy and Gympie, at a spot called Kybong you’ll come across Matilda the kangaroo, the iconic mechanical star of the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games. You can’t miss old Matilda; she is 13m tall, after all. But not too far down the road from winking Matilda there’s another sight that’s hard to miss: a schmick lime-green ’32 Ford sitting all a-glimmer on a roof. Whoa, better pull over and have a peek. Then it makes sense – the sharp ’32 sits above Hell Town Hotrods, home to rodder Adam Martin and his team. “The ’32 is a fibreglass body…

> GAG OF THE MONTH OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS A PIRATE walked into a bar and the bartender said: “Hey, I haven’t seen you in a while. What happened? You look pretty terrible.” “Arr, what do ye mean, matey?” the pirate snarled. “I be fine.” “Well, what about the wooden leg?” the bartender asked. “You didn’t have that before.” “Arr, we be in a battle, and I be hit with a cannonball,” the pirate replied. “But I be fine now.” “Well, okay, but what about that hook? What happened to your hand?” “Arr, well, we be in another battle, y’see. I be boardin’ a ship and gettin’ into a swordfight. I get me hand cut off, and I be fitted with this ’ere hook. But I be fine, really.” “Well, what about…

THE classic car auction scene has been going off lately, with some big prices being recorded for classic Aussie muscle cars. Up in Queensland, Lloyds has been running a monthly auction that always features some highly desirable iron – as well as the odd former Street Machine feature car. In February, the crew saw a HDT VK Group A sell for $121,000. A low-mile VN Group A fetched $88,000, while a mint VL Group A Plus Pak – the one with the Energy Polariser – was close behind at $84,500. In terms of chrome-bumper Holdens, an LJ GTR XU-1 Torana got a top bid of $110,000 and then went to negotiation, while three SL/R 5000s all scored bids around the $60K mark. There were some bargains to be had too,…

24-26 MAR, ADELAIDE, SA Adelaide Chrysler Festival, Adelaide District. Visit www.cccsa.net.au or contact 0412 426 360. 25 MAR, KIAMA, NSW Camsday Family Fun Day, Kiama Showground, Bong Bong St. Contact 0409 084 419. 25 MAR, STAWELL, VIC Stawell $6K Burnout Comp, 131 Burrong Basin Rd. Call Ben 0438 043 132. 25 MAR, PORT MACQUARIE, NSW Hastings Old Holdens Show ’n’ Shine, Westport Park. Contact 0416 194 684. 25 MAR, PLYMPTON, SA Hot Rod & Kustom Showdown 2017, Highway Hotel, Anzac Highway. Contact Ray 0419 774 588. 25 MAR, NANANGO, QLD Nanango Power Up Car Show ’n’ Shine & Swap Meet, Nanango Sports Field, Burnett Street. Contact Lola 0408 774 629. 26 MAR, DEVONPORT, TAS Devonport Motor Show, Devonport Roadhouse Park, Victoria Pde. Contact Rod 0418 811 171. 26 MAR, KOROIT,…

CHRIS Marks epitomises the homegrown, hands-on car-building philosophy. After cutting his teeth building BMXs and motorbikes as a young bloke, it was natural that Chris would progress into the car scene. Years spent tinkering in the shed has armed him with proficient paint, panel and mechanical skills, all thanks to a willingness to get in there and just have a crack. Armed with a wicked sense of humour, it’s not surprising to learn that Chris has had plenty of fun along the way too. Here are some of the rides that have marked his journey. Part two next issue! 01: CHRIS paid $300 for this EK wagon back in 1991. “I was 18 and it was my first car,” he says. “I loved the widies on the back and the…

IT STARTED RAINING AND IT HAD THE BFG T/A TYRES ON IT. EVERYONE SAYS HOW BAD THEY ARE – NOW, AFTER I CRASHED IT! IT WOULD be fair to say that Eddy Jausnik has HK Monaro blood running through his veins. His grandma bought one in 1972 from its original owner, then passed it on to Eddy’s uncle, followed by his older brother, until he finally got his hands on it in the late 90s and spent 10 years fixing it up. Sadly, the gorgeous machine you see on these pages is not that car; it got messed up pretty bad in a traffic accident. “It’s pretty upsetting,” Eddy says. “It started raining and I had the BFG T/A tyres on it. Everyone says how bad they are – now,…

IT LOOKED LIKE A 60S CRUISER. THEN I GOT TO THE ENGINE BAY AND HAD ONE OF THOSE ‘HOLY SHIT!’ MOMENTS: THERE WAS A BEAUTIFULLY DETAILED TWIN-TURBO WINDSOR I DON’T know about you guys and girls, but whenever I see an old ute done up I automatically walk over for a closer look. I’m always curious to see how well these ageing workhorses have held up after so many years of use – and quite often abuse. More often than not a peek in the tray area gives you a pretty good indication as to how many bales of hay, engine blocks and lumps of wood the old girl has carted in her life. That’s pretty much what went through my head when I spied Jono Clark’s XP ute at…

THE OUTDOOR AREA SHOWED EVERYTHING FROM AUSSIE MUSCLE AND CONCOURS-CONDITION CLASSICS TO BESPOKE HOT RODS AND CUSTOM MOTORCYCLES IF YOU ever needed proof that the Aussie show car scene is thriving, you need only look at the hugely successful events put on by Elvis Barbieri and the team at Showcars Melbourne. In 2011 Elvis realised that there was a gap in the market for a well-organised, family-friendly show that he and his friends could go to. So he started one. “I originally started the show because I had a lot of friends that wanted to show off their cars in a safe and controlled environment,” he explained. “The event was such a success that it has become an annual show, and it has just grown beyond belief.” The annual Showcars…

WE DON’T have actual figures to back it up, but it’s fairly safe to say that the sport of burnouts is the fastest-growing motorsport pursuit in Australia. At a time when many fine racing disciplines are struggling to maintain car counts, sponsorship dollars and spectator interest, burnouts is bucking that trend big-time. The growth of the sport over the past three decades has been exponential, with everything from entrant numbers to engine sizes to attendance figures getting bigger year on year. And just as no one back in the early days could have foreseen how massive this was going to become, it’s anyone’s guess as to when this rising popularity will plateau. Ross Heasley of MRBADQ fame sums things up well when he says: “The competition continues to step up.…

BUILDING a sleeper means finding the most innocuous-looking ride on the street and then giving it oodles of horsepower, and we reckon there’s nothing more invisible than a taxi. They are everywhere, but unless you’re actually looking for one to get you home, it’s a good chance your brain is telling your eyes to ignore it. Which means a taxi could make the perfect sleeper. We have been aching to do our own Roadkill-style web series for ages, and while we were kicking around ideas for it one day, I said: “What we should do is buy an old Falcon taxi and turbo it.” Editor Telfo liked the idea so much he jumped on Gumtree and started looking at taxi prices. At the time taxis were both cheap and plentiful,…

ROAD rage has long been an unfortunate part of our everyday road-going life. But instances of it seem to have ramped up lately – or maybe it’s just the advent of dash cams, smartphone video and social media spreading it to the masses that makes it feel that way. Either way, the intensity of such encounters seems to have progressed at times to physical violence and the willingness to use cars as weapons in lieu of fisticuffs. I’ve had a few road rage experiences in my time – never anything serious mind you, usually just situations solved with a combination of choice words, finger signs and relay-melting use of the car horn. In recent years I’ve decided it’s best to live and let live; supposed maturity on my part and…

PEOPLE HAVE SUGGESTED DROPPING A V8 IN AND BOLTING CENTER LINES TO IT, BUT EVERYONE DOES THAT WE SPOTTED 17-year-old Jonas Stankevicius and his ’67 HR Special when we caught up with his dad, Glenn, to have a chinwag about all things Conditional Rego in SA (SM, Feb ’17). So we figured, why not have a yarn to Jonas too? “I REMEMBER wandering into the shed back when I was four or five years old, and seeing Dad working on the motor of his FE Holden sedan. I watched him for a bit before trying to do anything that I could to help out – and I’ve constantly been bugging him to work on cars ever since!. My favourite memory is Dad taking me for drives in the FE; it…

MANAGING JUST FINE, THANKS: The ECU is a bit different to what we normally see. Trent is using an Emtron KV8 engine management system. It’s an Australian-made ECU popular with drift, rally and circuit-track cars and it controls eight 1000cc injectors as well as the drive-by-wire actuator for the eight 65mm throttlebodies NASCAR gets looked down upon by many because the cars just ‘drive around in circles’, but the truth is the engines are cutting-edge considering the limitations put upon them. Until the start of 2012, all NASCAR engines sported a single four-barrel carby and made close to 900hp while sitting on 9000rpm all day long. So we’re talking some seriously tough mills. Every now and again the rules change, which renders a whole series of engines obsolete by NASCAR…

IT WENT 1.030 TO THE 60-FOOT AND THE FRONT WHEELS WERE STILL A FOOT IN THE AIR. IT WAS GONE IN JUST 10 short years, Michelle Davies has rapidly ascended the Aussie drag racing ranks. Starting out in Super Sedan in 2007, she ran a bottom nine on her first ever trip down the quarter-mile, and the bug bit hard. After building a new Hemi-powered Torana hatch for Outlaw 10.5 (SM, Aug ’12), the wins came thick and fast for Shelly, and she went on to become the quickest and fastest female on the planet on a 10.5-inch tyre. But the Torana had reached its absolute developmental limit, and following lengthy discussion with her husband (not to mention engine builder and crew chief) Gareth, the difficult decision was made to…

BREAKDOWN VEHICLES: 1970 Pontiac Trans Am, 1968 Dodge Charger, 1969 Ford Mustang, 1973 De Tomaso Pantera, 1975 Chevrolet Blazer, 1976 Chevrolet Corvette C3, 1968 Chevrolet Sportsvan, 1969 Lincoln Continental MkIII, Husqvarna 390, 1964 Dodge Polara 500 STARS: David Carradine, Bill McKinney, Veronica Hamel, Archie Hahn, Stanley Clay, Mary Woronov, James Keach, Robert Carradine, Belinda Balaski, Dick Miller DIRECTOR: Paul Bartel ACTION: Some nicely timed stunt work oozes that classic 70s car action we all love, however it is overshadowed by a strange and rather morbid climactic freeway pile-up PLOT: A has-been race car driver looking to claw his way back to the top joins a bunch of misfits on an anything-goes illegal cross-country race that sports a hefty first prize AVAILABLE: YouTube HOT on the heels of his uber-successful TV…

ELECTRIC DREAMS ON streetmachine.com.au we recently ran a yarn about our mates at Wheels who put an all-electric Tesla Model S P100D on a flash Maha dyno. Despite its whisper-quiet performance, this thing is the quickest-accelerating production car available in the world today, capable of the 0-100km/h sprint in 2.7 seconds. The best of the dyno runs resulted in 394kW (528hp) at the treads and a staggering 1394Nm (1028lb-ft) of torque. So what do you reckon – would you forgo the sound and fury of a bent-eight in favour of a near-silent electric car with this much grunt? Russ Jb – I would bloody love a Tesla; they are tough in their own right. Yes you don’t get the sound and rawness, but you do get a completely different torque…

XTREME POWERFEST CATERS PRIMARILY FOR THE DRIVERS. PETER GRMUSA’S AIM WAS TO PROVIDE THE NEXT GENERATION OF BURNOUT DEVOTEES A SANCTUARY AWAY FROM THE STREETS SINCE burnout competitions began their rise to dominance in the modified car scene, there has been a notable shift away from promoter-run events to those put on by the competitors themselves. These grassroots-style shows have given enthusiasts opportunities to be creative on the pad like never before, and are all about celebrating the soul and passion of burnout culture rather than trying to make big dollars. Peter Grmusa’s Xtreme Powerfest is the latest shining light in this regard. Now in its fourth year, Xtreme Powerfest has quietly grown from humble beginnings into a must-do event for burnout drivers. The venue – the Driver Education Centre…

AHEAPOFFORMER(ANDFUTURE!) STREET MACHINE FEATURE CARS WERE ON HAND, AS THE EVENT ATTRACTS THE TOUGHIES THE annual Kiwanis Club Of Geelong All Ford Day took place on 19 February at the Deakin University Geelong campus, and featured over 1200 of the Blue Oval’s finest, along with club displays and appearances by racing legends Dick Johnson, Allan Moffat, John Bowe and Fred Gibson. A heap of former (and future!) Street Machine feature cars were on hand too, as the event attracts the toughies, as well as the nut-and-bolt restorations. Enjoy!…

IT WAS NOW OR NEVER. WE WERE GOING TO GIVE IT ONE MORE BUILD AND GIVE IT OUR ALL. JOE SAID TO ME: ‘LET’S GO FOR STREET MACHINE OF THE YEAR,’ AND WE GOT BUSY I’M PREACHING to the converted here when I say a car is more than mere transport from A to B. Many take on a persona of their own, becoming an entrenched member of the family or a time capsule to one’s journey through life. For some, cars signify an even deeper attachment, a testament to love and respect for family and friends. When we featured this tough-arse blue HQ Statesman back in 1986, brothers Joe and Tanny Spiteri were just two young blokes making waves, combining their talents to build a high-end show ’n’ go…

NICE PANEL AND PAINT WON’T MAKE IT GO QUICKER. PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS ASKING WHEN I’M GOING TO RESPRAY IT, BUT I THINK THE MONEY IS BETTER SPENT ON MAKING IT FASTER RAT ROD, patina, barn-find. Few words in the car lovers’ vernacular have been abused and cheapened more than these three. So it’s a relief – no, a Christmas miracle – to come across a fresh and legitimate application for at least one of these terms: patina. “Nice panel and paint won’t make it go quicker,” says Geelong’s Jesse Boothroyd, owner and builder of this deceptively crusty-looking eight-second HZ Kingswood. “People are always asking when I’m going to respray it, but it looks bad-arse as-is, and I think the money is better spent on making it faster.” You can’t argue…

I’VE been working at Street Machine for almost two years now, and in that time I’ve become obsessed with drag racing. In my previous life, I was all about the corners, enjoying a few track days here and there in my girly Mazda MX-5 daily driver. But since clocking on at SMand taking a few trips to Calder Park, I’ve undergone a transformation from the magazine’s resident hairdresser to an avowed disciple of old-school, straight-line speed. In 2015 I experienced my first Street Machine Drag Challenge – five tracks, five days, awesome racing and great camaraderie; it was one of the best weeks of the year. I soon decided that I needed to build a fast street car and do Drag Challenge myself. Having never had a project car –…

01 LS SWAP THE WORLD WHEN you’re tackling an engine conversion, nothing is more frustrating than when stuff hits on other stuff. The team at Castlemaine Rod Shop knows this, so they have designed and built an oil pan specifically for slotting LS engines into HK, HT and HG Holdens. The pan fits LS1, LS2 and LS3 engines, and is designed for cars with standard steering (as opposed to a rack-and-pinion conversion). It comes supplied with an oil pick-up tube, gasket, and all bolts and hardware required to attach it to your donk. For more information contact CRS on (03) 5472 2853 or visit www.rodshop.com.au. 02 HIGHLY SPRUNG FITTING aftermarket coil-overs to HQ-WB Holdens has not always been a straightforward proposition, but with this beaut new bolt-in solution from LRS,…

IN A veritable sea of Toranas and Capris, Wollongong lad Drew Friend’s Mitsubishi Galant stood out like the proverbial at Powercruise 66. Finished in the days prior to Street Machine Summernats 30, the car made the Elite Top 60, and picked up an encouragement award to boot. Out on the track at Powercruise, however, Drew needed very little encouragement. He beat up on the little Galant like he hated it all weekend, and the car just seemed to take it in its stride. Powercruise is an event that’s tough on cars at the very best of times, so it was an impressive feat for such a fresh build. The 5.7-litre LS1 V8 has been slotted in so neatly that it almost looks like a factory fitment, but firewall and trans…

ROB POULTON 1974 HOLDEN HQ KINGSWOOD “FROM the day I was born, I was handed my first Hot Wheels car from Dad and I’ve been hooked ever since. Having built a couple of earlier-model Commodores in the past, the old-school cool got me bad so I started the build on this HQ. I bought the car for about five grand and I knew it was the ultimate canvas for a killer streeter. The small-block 383 pumps out about 550hp, and features a Comp cam, Scat rotating parts and AFR cylinder heads, with an Edelbrock intake. Pacemaker headers give off a sweet and throaty note that turns a lot of heads. The three-speed Turbo 350 is awesome for cruising, while the nine-inch performs as it should when it has to take…