Innehållsförteckning för July 2017 från Street Machine

A BEVY of distinguished international guests, along with a great atmosphere and 168 kick-arse hot rods and street machines made the 2017 Hot Rod & Custom Auto Expo at Rosehill Racecourse a beaut way to spend the Mothers’ Day weekend. Jimmy Shine, Charley Hutton, Tom Kelly, Sabina Kelley and legendary car crafter Gene Winfield were all front and centre to meet and greet fans, sign autographs and perform demonstrations. Indeed, Sydneysider Dave Pagano was lucky enough to have Winfield perform one of his world-famous roof chops on his ’54 Chevy coupe on the Melomotive trade stand. Dave met Melomotive’s Peter Lamb when he bought some parts from him via Facebook, and the pair got talking about their mutual appreciation of vintage race boats. “Peter spotted my ’54 Chevy and told…

IT MAKES OVER 800HP AND RUNS IN THE NINES, WHILE STILL RETAINING A NATURALLY ASPIRATED, PUMP-FUEL SMALL-BLOCK CHEV THESE days people cringe when Troy Vugs tells them he paid just $4200 for this genuine HG GTS Monaro. But that was 21 years ago, and those were different days. In the 90s, if you were to suggest that pristine examples of these cars would one day command prices north of $300,000 at auction, you’d have been carted off in a straitjacket. Troy was wise to secure his HG GTS before prices got out of hand, and he’s spent the ensuing two-and-a-bit decades cruising, racing and relentlessly wrenching on it. It’s been through a number of rebuilds to get to where it is today, and it’s to be admired for a number…

THE CLEAN-UP STARTED WITH THE BODY AND WITHINTWO WEEKS THE ‘OKAY’ EXTERIOR HAD BECOME ACOMPLETELY STRIPPED SHELL I LOVE stories about people building cars who manage to just duck and weave the challenges and take it all in their stride. This willingness to get out and have a crack impresses the shit out of me, especially when they employ homespun ingenuity and any means at their disposal. Case in point is Glenn Rewell and the build of his 1966 Plymouth Barracuda. Check the pics – is the paint of the quality you’d expect from a backyard spray booth? How about the interior; would you have thought that YouTube was instrumental in Glenn completing the trim? I think not. Okay, this may not be Glenn’s first skid around the block –…

PRESENTING the Sidchrome Project Car for 2017! It has been a pretty cool series so far, starting with an awesome bay-window Kombi in 2015, built by the kids at Chisholm TAFE and the gurus at the Australian VW Performance Centre. Next came a Coyote-powered Cobra replica, created from scratch by George Vidovic and his team from Python Vehicles Australia. Both cars were given away to a couple of lucky Sidchrome customers, and now they’re at it again! This time, the Sidchrome team have turned their attention to a ’69 Mach 1 Mustang, and joined forces with Charlie Schwerkolt’s Team 18 Supercar crew to manage the build from start to finish. The starting point is a dead-stock Mach 1, recently arrived in Australia after spending the past couple of decades apparently…

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THE WAY the modern Holden Monaro came about is a story that sure as hell doesn’t need telling again. But just in case you’ve been under a rock since the turn of the century, the basic design was the result of a handful of Holden workers back in the late 90s who gave up beer and footy time to stay after hours and sketch up a two-door version of the then-current VT Commodore. Holden chief stylist, Mike Simcoe, was in on it, but the GM brass were deliberately left out of the picture. Thing was, when Simcoe and the lads stepped back to look at the finished article, it was so damn sexy, they just knew it had to be smuggled onto the Holden stand at the 1998 Sydney Motor…

01 FLASH IN THE PAN AEROFLOW’S oil pans for LS conversions boast a new stamped steel construction with extra-oil-capacity wings. These wings allow for extra oil without affecting ground clearance, which helps maintain constant oil temperatures for improved reliability. LS-series pans are also fitted with a trap door, which keeps oil at the pick-up during hard acceleration and braking. Available to suit LS-series Chev into Holden HQ-WB, 1968-72 Nova, 1965-72 Chevelle and 1967-69 Camaro, and may also be compatible with additional rear-sump applications (check dimensions for clearance). Pick-up sold separately. For more information visit www.aeroflowperformance.com or call Rocket on (02) 8825 1900. 02 TERMINATOR IDEAL for engine conversions, Haltech’s Elite 2500 LS Terminated Harness ECU Kits provide a simple wiring solution. The harness is made to suit a specific engine…

THERE SHOULD BE AROUND 260-280HP AT THE TYRES, SO SHANE RECKONS A LOW 13 SHOULD BEON THE CARDS FOR a relatively young man of 36 years, Shane Willmott sure has crammed a lot of cool cars into his life, starting off with an HR Holden powered by a 186 stroked out to 221 cubes and boosted with a turbocharger off a Mazda! There’s a piece of that HR on his 1JZ-powered HT Holden ute – the FOOLSGOLD plates: “The HR had a chamois-coloured interior and metallic gold paint,” he says. “It was the original colour but I took out the fine metallic and put a coarse one in when I repainted it. I never got rid of the plate and put it on the ute when I was driving it…

THE ACDelco Monaro Slammer car had a little extra heat in the tyres at Sydney Dragway on 27 May, with Miss Summernats 30, Jazmyne Wardell, taking a ride down the quarter with driver Mark Belleri. “I absolutely loved it,” Jazmyne gushed after her experience. “That was so much fun; such an adrenaline rush. I can see why Mark does this all the time.” Car owner Maurice Fabietti and the team were out making a few test hits ahead of the June Winternationals at Willowbank, the final round of the 400 Thunder Pro Slammer Series, in which Belleri held a 39-point lead over nearest rival Gary Phillips. “It’s always great to get a newbie on board to gauge their excitement and their fear,” Maurice said. “I love seeing the look on…

24-25 JUN, LAIDLEY, QLD Chrome & Clutter, Laidley Township. Contact Eagle Rock Café (07) 5465 1099. 25 JUN, COFFS HARBOUR, NSW 2017 Show ’n’ Shine For Blood Cancer, Coffs Harbour Leagues Club. Contact Jason 0417 676 990. 25 JUN, CASTLE HILL, NSW Rattle & Hum Car Show, Castle Hill RSL. Contact (02) 8858 4800. 01 JUL, HEATHCOTE, VIC Street Outlaws Syd vs Melb, Heathcote Park Raceway. Contact streetoutlaws@outlook.com.au. 01 JUL, PRESTON, VIC Northern Gal’s Saturday Night Fever, Homemaker Centre McDonald’s. Contact Northern Gal on Facebook. 01 JUL, COWES, VIC ShelbyFest, Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit. Visit cobracarclubvic.org.au. 02 JUL, KURWONGBAH, QLD All American Independence Day, Lakeside Park Raceway. Visit qldraceways.com.au. 02 JUL, MALENY, QLD Muscle On The Mountain, Maleny Showgrounds. Contact 0409 489 777. 02 JUL, BERRY, NSW Team Shoalhaven’s…

IF IT has wheels, then it’s likely Rob Upton is a fan. Cutting his teeth on track bicycles and custom vans as a young bloke, Rob has spent the ensuing decades honing his passions for both pedal power and cool cars. His interest in bikes has seen him compete at an international level, while his love for four wheels was nurtured through a hands-on childhood. Here are a few rides from Rob’s past; we’ll take a look at his current collection next issue! 01: WHEN your birthday is the same date as Christmas Day, it’s inevitable that you’ll score some great combo presents, and for a three-year-old Rob it was this sweet pedal car. “I loved that thing and clocked up some serious miles in it,” he remembers. “It was…

EVENT HORIZON AS SOMEONE who’s building a car with a clutch, I agree with Nikk MacRae’s letter (SM, Jun ’17) regarding the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational (right). It would be fantastic if there was something similar here. I’ll be entering Geelong Revival and I’m checking out Victorian hillclimb events, but apart from that there doesn’t seem much around. I enjoy reading about events such as Drag Week and looking at the cars that have been built for it, but they don’t really tick the boxes for me. My Firebird is being built to be a pro touring/track day car, with Shane Withers at Valigrunt Performance in charge of the build. I’ve had it for over 20 years and it’s on the second rebuild. The engine is a Pontiac 455…

I WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING NEW, AND MY BROTHER JIM SUGGESTED I BUY HIS XC AND GET IT BACK ON THE ROAD. I COULDN’T BELIEVE HE WAS WILLING TO SELL IT; THE CAR WAS LIKE FAMILY TO HIM WHEN you consider that this achingly nice XC Fairmont coupe first appeared in Street Machine waaaay back in September 1994, it’s incredible that people still fondly remember it. “Everywhere I go, people recognise the car,” owner Danny Papa says. “They say: ‘That’s the car from Street Machine.’” Once you’ve fetched that particular issue from your perfectly collated SM collection, you’ll notice the spec box lists an owner with a very similar name: Jim Papa. Jim is Danny’s older brother, and Danny bought the car off him two years ago. “I’d sold my…

IT’S BEEN IN MY FAMILY SINCE I WAS A KID. MY EARLIEST CHILDHOOD MEMORIES ARE OF ME, MY DAD AND THIS UTE AT THE VICTORIAN HOT ROD SHOWS CHRIS Borg’s dad Mario had a lot of cars – “GTs, hot rods, stuff like that,” Chris says – but it was the FJ ute that always stuck in his mind. “It’s just the curves, the shape and that tilt front,” he says. Thumbing the remote in his hand, the roller door in front of us clatters slowly skyward. It makes painfully slow progress; after almost three decades, I just can’t wait to see this machine again – part historic show car, part modern streeter. Ducking down, first I spy a 20-inch Showwheel, then a rolled rear pan. The smoothed tailgate is…

THE often maligned four-pot-powered Holden Sunbird has long been regarded as the poor cousin of the Torana family, but Patrick Gill’s example is about as cool as they come. Many a Sunbird has been ‘converted’ to six- and eight-cylinder Torana trim over the years, but instead, Patrick decided to rock the nanna-spec Sunbudgie theme loud and proud, right down to the venetian blind, bumper over-riders and pensioner peak. With Weld big-and-littles and 255-wide Mickey Thompson drag radials, it might be a bit of a stretch to call the car a true sleeper, but the contrast of the modern pro street wheel-and-tyre combo against the old-school styling and factory-fresh body and paint works far better than it has any right to. A MEGA-HORSEPOWER NISSAN RB30 WITH A SIZEABLE TURBO IN A…

YOU COULD BUY OLD SHOW VANS FOR NEXT TO NOTHING BACK IN THE 90S BECAUSE NO ONE WANTED THEM. THAT WAS JUST FINE BY ME! BRETT Birch loves custom vans built in the 70s and 80s. “There is nothing else like them,” he enthuses. “When it comes to cars they are the ultimate form of self-expression.” Brett is the proud owner of one of the classics of the era: a custom Bedford van dubbed The Beast. And he’s got plenty of prior form. As a former custodian of iconic Australian show vans The Judge, Checkmate and Street Legal, he has a deep-seated passion for the historical aspect of custom vanning, which stems from being right in the thick of the action at a young and impressionable age. “I got…

IT’S been a busy few months here at Street Machine as we turn our 2010 FG Falcon taxi from high-mileage cruiser to quarter-mile bruiser. The build is all part of our new video series Carnage, and the Turbo Taxi is the first of what we hope will be many exciting projects. For those checking out the Turbo Taxi for the first time, the plan is pretty simple: Take an original high-mileage taxi and make it run 10-second quarters while keeping it running on LPG. Over the years there have been a few people who have repurposed old taxis in this fashion, but they’ve all been converted back to unleaded or E85, as most deem it too hard to get the performance out of LPG. So the very first person we…

THE BODY MODS INCLUDE A SMOOTHED TAILGATE, FULL-LENGTH BUMPER, MINI-TUBS AND A FULL-CUSTOM INTERIOR. THE STANDARD 1.8L ENGINE WILL SOON BE SWAPPED WITH A 3.9L INJECTED ROVER V8 RITA Khose and her husband Stan have been involved in the car scene for many years, supplying custom-sized billet wheels to a large proportion of WA street machiners through their Hicraft Wheelmodz business. Together they’ve amassed quite a collection of cool cars – 26 at last count – but this Gemini wagon is definitely a standout amongst them. How did you meet Stan? I met my husband at his tyre and wheel store to purchase tyres for my Laser. Was that your first car? No, my first car was a Mini Clubman, but since then I’ve owned three Geminis, a Ford LTD,…

BREAKDOWN VEHICLES: 1973 Pontiac Grand Ville, 1973 Pontiac Ventura, 1972 Dodge Polara, 1966 Lincoln Continental, 1972 Lincoln Continental, 1966 Ford Fairlane 500, 1967 Chevrolet Step-Van, 1968 Chevrolet Impala STARS: Roy Scheider, Victor Arnold, Jerry Leon, Ken Kercheval, Tony Lo Bianco, Richard Lynch, Bill Hickman DIRECTOR: Philip D’Antoni ACTION: Famous for an edgy and aggressive high-speed chase where two Pontiacs and a handful of police Dodges are pushed to their limits as they bump and grind through New York City streets PLOT: A crafty police snitch pitches a special New York detective squad against a group of mob kingpins as part of a high-stakes kidnapping scheme AVAILABLE: YouTube GRITTY American cop movies were a staple of the late 60s and early 70s, and The Seven-Ups was the last of a classic…

GOLD PLATED WE RAN a story on streetmachine.com.au about how NSW number plate 29 fetched $745,000 at a recent Shannons Auction. As well as giving us an excuse to run a bunch of pics of some of the more outrageous Aussie burnout-car plates, the story has us asking: Would you pay nearly 750 grand for a piece of pressed tin? Michael Gannon – Well, that’s one way to launder some drug money. Anthony Mouhtaris – $750K for a piece of sheet metal that costed two dollars to make? This planet is doomed. Stephen Egan – ‘Costed’? Yes, this planet is doomed. Andrew Teesdale – I don’t get it. What’s special about the number 29? Marty Sutton – These plates aren’t customs but are original plates. Low numbers always pull a…

THE EVENT TAKES US BACK TO THE VERY SOURCE OF HOT RODDING : SOUPING UP SIMPLE ENGINES USING SIMPLE TECHNOLOGY HE NSW mid-north coast is nature’s wonderland ; endless unspoilt beaches fringed by fertile farming country and majestic The weather is mild and the locals are friendly . But one Saturday in early May , it got even bette , when Rattle Trap arrived in all its noisy , colourful glory and put on a show that will forever be remembered by everyone who was there . Wh Andrew McClelland mentioned to me a few years ago that he was planning a beach-racing event closely modelled on The Race Of Gentlemen (TROG ) in the US , I told him he had two chances – Buckley’s and none. The fun…

IT’S CLEAR THAT THE KIWIS HAVE A BIG PASSION FOR BURNOUTS, WITH PEOPLE SPENDING EVER-INCREASING AMOUNTS OF DOUGH ON THEIR SKID RIGS NEW Zealand’s Muscle Car Madness is one of the biggest and craziest car events on the Kiwi automotive calendar. It’s held each year in the small town of Rangiora, just outside Christchurch, and like Street Machine Summernats, heaps of people camp on site. There’s a massive show ’n’ shine that this year attracted more than 1500 of the coolest custom and muscle cars in New Zealand, as well as a cruise route and a burnout competition. Burnouts in New Zealand are getting bigger and better every year. People are spending ever-increasing amounts of dough on their skid rigs and it’s clear that the Kiwis have a big…

FORD’S GTHO Phase III was undoubtedly the King of the Hill for Aussie muscle cars back in the day, commanding a fearsome legend – with price tags to match – pretty much since it first rolled off the Broadmeadows lines. They haven’t got any cheaper in the four decades since, so plenty of people have chosen to build their own tribute to the Blue Oval’s most famous four-door supercar. But Melburnian Ray Zarb decided to inject even more attitude into his. From humble beginnings as a neat GT replica, Ray has evolved his car through several builds into the 500hp, mini-tubbed monster it is today. The beauty of this car, however, is that it pays homage to the original JG33-plated GTs and HOs, hiding many of its modifications so well…

THE SCENERY IS UNREAL, BUT WE DIDN’T COME FOR THE LANDSCAPE – WE CAME TO SEE SOME ANGRY CARS TEARING IT UP ON THE BLACKTOP THE second running of Northern Nats at Springmount Raceway, near Cairns, went off! The 2017 event was like a mini-Summernats held in the tropics, combining burnouts, powerskids, drag racing, a dyno competition and a show ’n’ shine, so there was something for everyone. This year 350 cars entered – around 100 more than last year – and 10,000 spectators came to soak up the high-octane action! Springmount Raceway is located about an hour inland from Cairns. The drive out is crazy; from the sea, through rainforest and then up into the dry mountainous tablelands, it’s like going through three different continents in an hour. The…

TONACIA LONG 1969 HT HOLDEN PREMIER “MY GREAT grandfather had the first Holden dealership in Cloncurry, so Holdens have been in the family for a long time. Before the Premier I had a onetonner, but it wasn’t big enough for the family, so I sold it to buy the HT as a cruiser. I’m its third owner and I’ve had it for about eight years now. It was 100 per cent original when I bought it, but the 186 wasn’t going to cut it, so we put in a 383ci small-block Chev, Turbo 350 transmission and a nine-inch diff. It had to go fast but I wanted to focus on torque, which is what we built the motor for. It’s a great cruiser with plenty of grunt that’s awesome to…

GAG OF THE MONTH SWEEPING STATEMENT A SAILOR was caught AWOL as he tried to sneak on board his ship at 3am. The chief petty officer said to the errant sailor: “As punishment, take this broom and sweep every link on this anchor chain by morning, or it’s the brig for you!” So the sailor picked up the broom and started to sweep the chain. Just then, a tern landed on the broom handle. The sailor yelled at the bird to leave, but it didn’t. So he grabbed the tern off the broom handle and tossed it into the air. The bird flew off, only to return and alight once again on the broom handle. The sailor went through the same routine all over again, with the same result. He…