Innehållsförteckning för July 2015 från Street Machine

AUTOMOTIVE TAFE courses seem to have come a long way since we were lads. The Street Machine team has visited some awesome facilities of late, including Motorsports Training Australia in Wodonga, the Automotive Centre of Excellence in Melbourne and now the Chisholm Institute in Dandenong. The kids at the Chisholm Institute who are studying their Certificate III in Vehicle Body Repair and Light Vehicle Refinishing are currently in the throes of a cool project: giving new life to a very tired ’71 Kombi for Sidchrome. “The Kombi was fitted with a Dormobile pop-top roof and was imported from England a few years ago” Dan Keyse from Sidchrome says. “It’s the rarest of the bay-windows, with the low front headlights, oval tail-lights and the moon vents. We thought it would be…

THERE are plenty of mind-blowing things to do in the USA if you’re a car-head, but the annual Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show in Las Vegas has to be near the top of the list. Held at the Las Vegas Convention Centre, 3-6 November, it is a stunning opportunity to see the best and brightest in the modified car industry, all in one place. This year we’ve teamed up with the guys from Ticket2Ride Global Adventures to put on three package tours of the show. The primo version is a 14-day deal that also includes the NHRA Nationals in Vegas and the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational. There are a couple of nine-day options if you are pressed for time, and you can dial-in some other fun stuff, including…

LETTER OF THE MONTH MUST BE MAD AFTER reading your article on Fury Road (SM, May ’15), I will be watching the movie, but I couldn’t believe it when I read that they scrapped all the cars used in the film because it was too expensive to ship them back from Cape Town. All because they had a wet season in Australia and couldn’t film here. I realise they are working to budgets and timelines but to move all these cars to Namibia and then Cape Town must have cost a lot of money anyway, and in my mind it should have stayed in Australia – it is an Australian movie after all. Surely if they had have made it public what they planned to do to these cars, someone…

WITH little more than a cam and heads swap, a bolt-on supercharger kit and a drink of pump E85, the LS3 in Luke Grima’s LX Torana has powered the car to a string of 9.5-second quarter-mile passes. It has managed this with a minimum of fuss, on a standard bottom end and in full street trim, breathing through a full exhaust system and rolling on modestly sized radial tyres. The build was project-managed to a T and took just seven months from go to whoa The neatly packaged Magnuson blower set-up slots in under a two-inch reverse-cowl scoop, and the combo boasts clockwork reliability. With its sensible 3200rpm stall converter and 3.55:1 final drive ratio, it’s perfectly streetable, too. As far as quick, genuinely drivable, legally registered street cars go,…

THERE is a clear advantage to being a second-gen car nut. Having a dad who is just as into cars as you are sure beats having one that keeps asking you: “Why are you spending all your money on that heap of shit?” Gary Zahra is one of the lucky ones: his dad has a bunch of cars in the shed. Admittedly, they’re not all running, but his passion and determination to build the best car he can has been passed down to his offspring. The result is this stunning ’64 Chevy C10, unveiled at Summernats 2015. The story begins when Gary headed to the US for a holiday with his girlfriend. “We ended up searching through many Goodguys shows and swap meets, waking up at 4am so I was…

IF YOU like cruising, you could do worse than hang out with James Crawford – he loves it. At first glance you might think his HG looks a bit showy for the street, but twin bench seats and a boot-mounted Esky are testament to this tough streeter’s cruising pedigree. James is a chippy from Mooroopna in northern Victoria, and this is his first project car. He’s understandably “pretty happy” with how it all came out; as is often the case with builds, things were never meant to get this serious. “The original plan was to get an old cruiser and have a nice engine in it” James says. “I always wanted an HG or an EH. We looked at a few Prems and then this Kingswood came along and it…

THE humble Holden Gemini turns 40 this year. Not quite an import, but never accepted as a truly Aussie Holden, the Gemini has nonetheless left an indelible mark on this country’s automotive landscape. They’ve been bought, sold, fixed, broken, modified, scrapped, raced and hooned by generations of Aussies. Quite a few Street Machine feature cars have been built from them, including a Summernats Grand Champion, with plenty more seeing action on drag strips, race tracks and burnout pads around the country. Although they never came with a six or eight from the factory, Geminis are more Aussie than you may think, having been built at Holden’s Acacia Ridge factory in Brisbane, using a high proportion of local content. 226,319 of the suckers were built there in total. The Gemini nabbed…

IT WAS the home stretch for our giveaway HQ GTS tribute car; the grand finale, the sauce on our meat pie. But it wasn’t quite time to celebrate yet; the guys from Top Torque in Melbourne still had to put our 355ci Holden V8 donk together. Successful engine-building is like building a house; you need a good foundation. The more care taken during preparation and machining, the smoother the assembly process will be. With our engine build, Top Torque was responsible for the whole show, from the machining right through to the assembly. Once the engine was completed, it was off to the dynamometer at Little’s Competition Services for confirmation that all was well. Getting all the parts together, machining the bits, assembling the engine and then fitting the finished…

01 HEAD CASE AEROFLOW’S 176cc small-block Chrysler cylinder heads are designed for entry-level street performance engines, and the 77cc chambers make good power between idle and 6500rpm. Made from A356 cast aluminium, these complete heads include larger-than-stock 1.46in-diameter valve springs with dampers to handle up to 0.580in maximum valve lift. The heads are also available for B/B Chrysler, S/B Chevy and S/B Ford. Call Rocket on (02) 8825 1900. 02 FUEL SPRING CLEANING IMPROVE the quality of your rig’s fuel with Rislone’s Petrol Fuel System Treatment. The liquid will lubricate, remove contaminants, reduce spark knock and prevent fuel from going bad. It’ll also increase power, performance and mileage. The treatment is safe to use with oxygen sensors and catalytic converters and it works in all turbo and directed-injected petrol engines.…

SAMANTHA TRELOAR, PERTH, WA SAMANTHA Treloar couldn’t escape the hot rod scene during her formative years. Her entire family lived and breathed to tinker with moving metal. So when this ’57 Buick Special landed on Aussie soil, Samantha snapped it up, flaming paintjob and all. How did you get into cars? Growing up I was surrounded by cars and my family restoring all sorts of vehicles. My pop, the late Peter Zeck, built a lot of cars that still turn up at hot rod shows all over Perth, which is a lasting reminder of his work. My dad always had a project on the go, too; instead of playing with hair and make-up like other girls, I was helping him in the garage. My older brothers thought I was annoying,…

NO DOUBT about it, there’s something in the water down Thirlmere way. If there’s a town with a higher concentration of balls-out Pro Street cars per capita, we’d like to see it. Pete Robins is lucky enough to call the place home, and as we pull up a pew in his character-filled man-cave, he slides a stubby across the bar and casually regales us with a story about the time he drove his tubbed, ’caged, blown and injected HK ute, FATASS, to the pub for a counter lunch. Accompanied by fellow Thirlmere Fryer Tristan Ockers in his infamous seven-second MINCER Capri, the pair enjoyed a chicken schnitzel and a cheeky schooner, then coolly cruised on home. Such occurrences are commonplace in sunny Thirlmere. The walls of Pete’s bar are adorned…

IT’S BEEN a long time in the making – 18 years if you’ve been counting – but one of the most memorable Expression Session concepts from the pages of Street Machine is about to become a reality. Based on designs by Jeff Haggarty – the man who went on to become lead designer at Holden – the Torana Mod Rod will finally see the light of day at Meguiar’s MotorEx on 25-26 July at Sydney Showground. The hot rod-inspired LJ Torry will be part of the Freestyle Rides Inauguration, so we can’t really show you any completed photos – that would spoil the surprise. The other reason is, builder Chris Varney is absolutely flat-out making sure the car will be ready. “I’m busting my butt to get it done and…

20 JUN, CABOOLTURE, QLD Swap Meet & Show ’n’ Shine, Caboolture Showgrounds. Contact 0419 971 328 or 0419 331 213. 20-21 JUN, CAIRNS, QLD Australia Classic: Cairns 2015, Cairns. Contact 0420 533 600 or visit www.australiaclassic.com.au. 21 JUN, BLACKTOWN, NSW ’72-’78 Ford V8 Club of NSW Car Show, Alroy Tavern, 371 Rooty Hill Road. Contact Paul 0404 882 356. 23-26 JUN, DARWIN, NT Aussie Muscle Car Run, Darwin to Jabiru to Katherine to Pine Creek. Visit www.aussiemusclecarrun.com. 26-27 JUN, ST IVES, NSW Ku-Ring-Gai: Back to the 50s Festival, St Ives Showground. Contact Jesi 0427 913 386. 28 JUN, ACACIA RIDGE, QLD CMC Monthly Motor Show, Acacia Ridge Hotel Motel. Contact 0435 770 884. 28 JUN, BALLARAT, VIC The Fridge Swap Meet, Ballarat multi-storey car park, corner of Doveton and Dana…

AS THE years roll by, we accept that plenty of things in life will change, but when it comes to your passions, sticking to a tried-and-true formula can yield the best results. Brisbane’s Dario Pittis is a fine example of this ideal. As a young bloke in the 80s, Dario built a string of cool cars that refined the stock-bodied look. You know the deal – low stance and neat wheels, often with ample grunt under the hood. As family and work commitments evolved, so did his chosen style of ride, but 30 years on Dario’s love of all things old-school is back at full noise. 01 IT’S 1985; Dario is 17, and his first car is this silver TC Cortina. “It was a two-litre/ four-speed, and I made it…

DODGE THIS IT’S not a sure thing, but local Chrysler boss Pat Dougherty is desperate to get Dodge Challengers and Chargers onto Aussie shores within the next couple of years. The 527kW Dodge Challenger Hellcat is more than up to the task, and throw in the four-door Charger for the family guys and it’s a one-two muscle-car punch that could change the face of Australian motoring. If it does go ahead though, there are the naming conventions to sort; the Challenger name is owned by Mitsubishi locally and they’re not looking to give it up. Rumour has it Challengers could wear the Charger nameplate to align the premium coupe with the iconic Australian badge, which means the four-door would need a new name. So what do you think? Hell yes?…

THE list of defunct Australian drag strips has grown a little longer, with the Ballarat Drag Racing Club holding its final meeting at the local airport in March. For no particular reason that the racers can discern, the airport’s powers that be have decreed it’s no longer worth their while to shut one small part of the facility to let the drags run a few times a year. It is bad news for the club and comes at an uncertain time for drag racing in Victoria, with racing at Calder Park in limbo, Heathcote Park up for sale and the new Bairnsdale track yet to fire up in anger. Despite the gloom, the racers wanted to give the track a fitting send-off, and they certainly achieved that, with plenty of…

NEW Zealand’s Leadfoot Festival returned to the North Island’s Coromandel Peninsula in 2015, attracting more than 100 historic racing cars and motorcycles to Rod and Shelly Millen’s 150-acre oceanside farm in Hahei. They were all there to tackle the Millen family driveway, which doubles as a purpose-built hillclimb track incorporating replicas of some of the world’s gnarliest corners. Cars ranged from Anne Thomson’s 1906 Darracq Grand Prix to Steve Cox’s twin-turbo Lexus-powered F40 replica, and covered the full complement of circuit racers, rally cars, hillclimb specials, and even a go-kart that seriously undercut Rod Millen’s existing track record of 50.9 seconds. While essentially a social event, no racer ever chooses to come second. “The competitive aspect of the event is alive and well” said Rod, who competed in both major…

WHEN I started this journey over 10 years ago, I could never have imagined that I’d one day have a body of work good enough to be exhibited – let alone hold my own exhibition. My debut show is a collection of images that combine my experience in automotive portraiture photography with amazing custom cars in unique settings, from open natural spaces to cramped work sheds. I’ve tried to showcase the different photography techniques I use when shooting these feature cars, using natural light, artificial light and a combination of both. Going through my collection to find the exhibition images, I realised how often I had captured people with cars, so I decided to put a large selection of those on display, many of which we’ve reproduced on the next…

COUNTRY DEALER TEAM WHEN it came to sporty Geminis, Aussies got stitched up. Bathurst racer Jim Faneco sought to right this wrong, setting up CDT (Country Dealer Team) and offering a range of dealer-supported performance upgrades. CDT Geminis were individually numbered and included Group C-inspired body kits, aftermarket alloys, cool stripes, twin-carb upgrades and a rare turbo version. CDT did no emissions testing though, so any CDT Gemini was a rolling defect beacon from the get-go. ZZ/Z THE TG-model Gemini ZZ/Z sports sedan, Holden’s own attempt at a sporty Gem, featured a tidy body kit (with HDT-style wind splitters, no less!), white alloy wheels and precisely no mechanical upgrades. It was quickly dubbed the ‘snooze car’ by the motoring press. THE GYPSY THE Sandman wasn’t the only, er, ‘lifestyle van’…

YOU know those funny-as-muck videos where Ricky Bob gets his mate to hold his beer while he sits on a steering wheel airbag and gets his fourth cousin, Billy Bob, to set it off, shooting the hapless Ricky up into the air before he comes crashing back down clutching his pulverised buttocks? Yeah, I laughed myself stupid as well. Well, this cautionary tale is along the same lines. ColorSpec has this beaut aerosol paint refinishing system, which is great for spraying all kinds of stuff. However, it’s for small-to-medium repairs and touch-ups – not painting a whole car! Pfff, warnings schmarnings. Why not paint a whole Torana in pressure-pack? What could possibly go wrong? So in the spirit of Ricky and Billy, Street Machine decided to give it a bash…

WITH a record 350 entries and some of the biggest names in the USA, this year’s Hot Rod Drag Week should be a cracker. Every year a few more Aussies join the rat race, and this time there will be five cars locking horns with the Yanks in various classes. Steve Reimann and yours truly will have another crack at the small-block aspirated street class and try and improve on our runner-up spot last year. Steve’s 408ci, Yates-headed, Clevo-powered Capri was finally sorted by the end of last year’s event (bar some tranny issues) and was the fastest car in the class by the last day thanks to some tweaking. It should run in the mid-nines all week thanks to a warranty job by PTC on the auto and converter.…

BRADLEY DAY, 16, GOLD COAST, QLD MY DAD Kevin bought this 1981 Holden WB ute two-and-a-half years ago. He just wanted to do a few minor repairs and sell it, but it sat in the body shop for a year – we both kind of forgot about it. One day I said to him: “Let’s build a show car” so we picked the ute up and brought it home. The plan was to go all out and make this ute something nobody had seen before. I hadn’t built my own car before, so this was a big test to do the majority of the work myself, with a hand from Dad here and there. I had the front end completely off, motor out, exhaust system off, interior out, doors off,…

BAD START SATURDAY morning I got up early, quietly dressed, made my lunch, grabbed the dog, and slipped into the garage. I hooked up the boat to the truck, and proceeded to back out into a torrential downpour. It was blowing a gale, too, so I pulled back into the garage, turned on the radio, and discovered that the weather would be bad all day. I went back into the house, quietly undressed, and slipped back into bed. I cuddled up to my wife’s back – now with a different anticipation – and whispered: “The weather out there is terrible.” My wife of 10 years replied: “I know. Can you believe my stupid husband is out fishing in that?” Col Dresepshin, email CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR IT WAS spring…

THE revitalisation of the venerable Queensland Hot Rod Show continues, with this year’s event going off over the weekend of 23-24 May at the Brisbane Convention Centre. The show’s traditional home has been the RNA Showgrounds, but the new venue appears to have been warmly received. The space itself is smaller, but this seemed to result in a higher concentration of quality cars. Throw in easy parking, excellent public transport and lots of other activities nearby and the Queensland Hot Rod Promotions (QHRP) crew look to be on a winner. Trophy time was dominated by the current Street Machine Summernats Grand Champion, namely the Datsun 1200 of Nathan Borg. The rotary-powered ute took home a swag of awards, including Top Street Machine, Best Standard Paint, Best Undercarriage, a spot in…

WITH so many old-school rides relegated to gentle use, it’s cool to see one clocking up miles of hard yakka; even more so when it’s a custom Bedford van! Clayton Bate is one bloke keen to keep the dream alive, and we bumped into him and his son Rusty dipping the hull at the Avalon boat ramp. Love your Beddy. Had it long? I bought it 10 years ago to use as a work van for a side business. I wanted a real head-turner and picked this up from a young guy in Melbourne. It was cluttering up the yard and his old man was just glad to see it go [laughs]. Did I hear a V8 rumble? Yep, it runs an alloy P76 motor with an auto trans. Nice!…

CARS: 1974 Ford WT9000, 1964 Chevrolet C10, 1972 Cadillac Fleetwood, 1941 Chevrolet, 1970 Ford Custom, 1973 Diamond Reo, 1971 Ford LN 9000, 1974 Ford Ranchero, Kenworth K100 STARS: Jan-Michael Vincent, Kay Lenz, Slim Pickens, LQ Jones, Sam Laws, Don Porter DIRECTOR: Jonathan Kaplan CAR ACTION: Highway truck duels, rollovers, rammings and fireballs. The bobtail jump is real-life action at its best PLOT: Carrol Jo is back from ‘Nam and soon learns the freetruckin’ industry is corrupt MILITARY fly-boy Carrol Jo Hummer (Jan-Michael Vincent, who you may remember as the awesomely-named helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke from 80s TV series Airwolf) returns to the good ol’ US of A following a stint in Vietnam, keen for a fresh start with his high school sweetheart, Jerri (Lenz). He goes into hock for a…

PICTURE this: It’s Summernats 28 and Southern Rod & Custom is showcasing this sensational XP Falcon coupe in the PPG marquee. An elderly lady strolls up to one of the PPG representatives manning the stand and says: “Excuse me sir, I’d like the keys to my XP coupe please.” “Er, I’m sorry ma’am, the car belongs to some lucky bloke from WA” the PPG guy replies. “Yes, I know” she responds. “He’s my son; I gave it to him 15 years ago and now I want it back!” Dean Weldon is the aforementioned “lucky bloke from WA”, and he confirms that the XP was in fact his mum’s old shopping trolley. “As a kid, she would drop us off at the school bus stop every morning in it” he says.…

A LOT of people in the modified car scene like to stand out in a crowd: They’re big, loud, colourful and sometimes a little obnoxious – and so are their cars. Andrew Goodwin, on the other hand, is about as far away from that as you can get: quiet, polite to a fault, talented at what he does and an all-round good guy. I don’t draw this conclusion from a half-hour phone conversation either, I’ve known him for a few years now; he’s actually photographed a few cars that have made the pages of SM and SM Hot Rod. His XR Falcon is much like him, in a sense. Understated and low-key on the outside, but full of surprises when you dig a bit deeper. It started out as your…

IN WHAT is quite possibly a first for Street Machine – and possibly any car magazine – we have now featured the cars of a father and his two daughters, and to top it off, they’ve all been Mopar products. Perth’s Darryl Smirk has two beautiful daughters, who have obviously been brought up the right way and developed a love for hot cars. They both have stunning – and tough – Valiant Chargers that we featured in SM, May ’07: Katie’s silver VH Charger was featured in Iron Maiden, while Cassie’s blown and methanol-fuelled E55 was the cover car. You could argue that Darryl’s ’7 0 Challenger is the most girly of all of the cars, with its pretty pink paint looking all, well, pretty . Of course, any Mopar…

SLIDING behind the wheel of our HQ giveaway car feels like coming home. As a kid I rolled around in the back of an HQ Belmont panel van, which was our family car for the best part of a decade until the police told my parents to buy a car with four seats and seatbelts in the back. On the farm I learnt to drive in a couple of HQ utes and a sedan, and when I was just 17 years old I finished building an HQ ute all the way up from a bare chassis. So yeah, HQ Holdens are familiar territory for me. But I didn’t sling a single spanner on this one. In fact I’ve never built a car this nice. The black paint is like a…

ALL Morris J-type vans turn heads, but Graeme Collins’s V6 J-type positively cricks the spine. Graeme started with a spare V6, two abandoned J-type vans and a long-held idea. But transforming that idea into the super-slick van you see before you didn’t happen overnight. A clue to how this all began can be found in the ‘Fitzroy Motors’ signwriting on Graeme’s Morris J hottie. Fitzroy Motors was started in 1948 by Graeme’s dad Stan and wartime chum Roy Willi. At a loose end after exploits in Papua New Guinea, the two friends returned home to Warwick, Queensland, and started a garage that sold Jowett Javelins, Fiat cars and tractors. In the early 50s the agency for Austin came their way; BMC and Leyland soon followed. Graeme began a mechanical apprenticeship…

CRAIG & AMANDA BISHOP 1982 VH COMMODORE “MY WIFE and I purchased the VH in 2002; it was tidy but needed some TLC. The motor was a mild 308 with Trimatic, and the carby had all sorts of issues. The plan was to just refresh the carby and add a bigger cam; next thing you know every single part of the motor is completely new, right down to the nuts and bolts. The new engine is a Holden 5.0L stroked to 355ci, with a Harrop inlet manifold, Holley carburettor and GM solid lifters. It shifts trough a transbraked Powerglide with a 4000 high-stall, and has a VL turbo diff with a 3.9 mini-spool. The colour is Poison Ivy green. The children really enjoying coming out for drives” MICHAEL BUCKINGHAM 1973…

“I USED to hang around with the Fryers a bit back in the late 90s when I was living at Narellan and working at ProFlo on Saturdays,” Pete says. “I fell out of the car scene for a couple of years and kind of drifted away from the guys, but eventually we ended up moving down to Thirlmere. As soon as we moved here, every weekend we started noticing modified cars everywhere. You could just sit out the front and watch the cars cruising past. I love it; the car scene’s mad here, and the Fryers have been at it for years and years. It’s a really laidback club. There’s no meetings, we just go for cruises and hang out at the ’Nats. Tristan and Nathan Ockers are the founders…