Innehållsförteckning för November 2015 från Street Machine

18 OCT, WARRAGUL, VIC Classic Chrome Bumper Show ’n’ Shine, Logan Park Showground. Contact cammos@bigpond.com.au. 23-25 OCT, MELBOURNE, VIC Motorclassica, Royal Exhibition Building. Visit www.motorclassica.com.au. 24-25 OCT, WAGGA WAGGA, NSW Bonnie & Clyde Rods, Rats & Rides, Wagga Showgrounds. Visit www.autofest.com.au. 25 OCT, BUNBURY, WA Annual Bunbury Auto Show ’n’ Shine, Bunbury Recreation Ground. Visit www.ignitionsouthwest.com. 25 OCT, COOROY, QLD Cooroy Car Show & Swap Meet, Johnson Park. Contact Daryl 0407 588 697 or Steve 0432 741 400. 25 OCT, CHURCHILL, VIC Eighth Hazelwood Car & Bike Show, Caskin Park. Contact Catherine 0402 320 153 or Jane 0413 244 861. 25 OCT, MARSDEN PARK, NSW All Chrome Bumpers Car Show 2015, Hamrun Club, 100 Jackson Street. Contact Rob 0416 061 967. 25 OCT, SWAN HILL, VIC Swan Hill Show ’n’…

NSW REGO WIN AS DETAILED by Seddo on page 26, NSW began a two-year trial of a new logbook-based registration scheme for modified cars from 1 October. It will allow those with legally modified, club-registered vehicles (post-1948 but at least 30 years old) 60 days of unrestricted use per year. It means you can take your modified car or motorbike anywhere, anytime. Les Ings – This is great news; my wife’s Sandman costs $1000 a year, and last year it only did 24km! Brad Armstrong – Why make it a club restriction? Why not make it available to all? Gary Collins – To keep control of the trial scheme and keep the dickhead level to a minimum. If this scheme is screwed up by totally illegal cars, stupid behaviour or…

I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO ADD TRIPS TO PERTH, TASSIE AND ALICE SPRINGS TO THE EJ’S SCORECARD, SO WHEN RED CENTRE NATS WAS ANNOUNCED, I WAS THERE! FAIR to say, I don’t mind a road trip. So much so that when my EJ was first finished, photographer Simon Davidson and I used it as our transport to the inaugural drags at Barcaldine Airport in Queensland, a 3172km round trip from Davo’s home in Bondi. I’ve always wanted to add trips to Perth, Tassie and Alice Springs to the EJ’s scorecard, so when Red CentreNATS was announced, I was there! I figured there would be a few lunatics who’d be keen to convoy to Alice Springs with me, and sure enough Jason Vandyk stuck his hand up, ready to take on the…

ORGANISERS WOULD HA VE BEEN HAPPY WITH 100 ENTRIES, BUT AROUND 450 CARS MADE THEIR W AY TO THE MIDDLE OF OZ YOU know you’re in for a good time at a car festival when the chief minister – effectively the premier – of the host region says: “Have fun, but don’t be a dickhead.” Yep, those words actually left the mouth of the Northern Territory’s head of government, Adam Giles, and no one at the official opening of the inaugural Red CentreNATS took offence. For a politician, he seems like a pretty normal bloke. Adam got on stage before the Friday night concert, and I have to say it was the first time I have ever heard a politician of any description universally cheered by the assembled crowd. He’s…

IN 1950, Californian girl Marcia Campbell took delivery of a customised but unfinished 1942 Ford coupe. She tasked Sam Barris with finishing it, specifying dark blue duco, a ’49 Olds grille, five-inch chop and lengthened doors and quarters. Similarly, Barris bodyman Bill Ortega treated his 1941 Mercury to a severe chop, relocated fuel filler, smoothed nose and deck, and full fadeaway fenders down either side. Sixty-five years and 5390 miles away, Sally and John Phillips have painstakingly applied the most awesome traits of these early Californian game-changers to their humble ’63 Morris Minor, creating a masterpiece in the process. Having toiled away together in their windswept carport in darkest Oxfordshire for the past two-and-a-half years, the pair’s efforts were rewarded in April when Sally inadvertently debuted the car to the…

REGULAR Street Machine readers will no doubt be familiar with the work of Jason Wilkinson and the team at Wilky’s Pro Paintz in Maroochydore, Queensland. He’s built a number of recent SM feature cars, including Zane Hau’s Plymouth Satellite (Oct ’14) – a current Street Machine Of The Year contender – and Kris Nothdurft’s LOOSSE VU Commodore ute (Sep ’15). It’s incredible to think that Jason gets to work on cars of this calibre every day. A spray painter by trade, he started the business eight years ago and has gone from strength to strength on the back of hard graft and some very special skills. People now come to him for high-end fabrication work and specialist builds. “My business has sort of gone that way” Jason says. “We don’t…

SOON after Adam Reeves sold his HK about 10 years ago, he experienced an emotion well-known to many street machiners: seller’s remorse. Determined to right that wrong, Adam found this very tidy HK Kingswood, which now hides a tough VN-headed Holden 383 under the bonnet good for 580hp! Tough HK! How’d you get it to this stage? In 2011 I spotted one for sale on the internet down in Toowoomba. It was a rough six-banger cruiser that was about five different shades of white, with pretty bad rust damage – which had been repaired poorly! A year later she was ripped apart and underwent a three-year rebuild, which included replacing the full windscreen cowl, floor panels and a few other important bits. It was a big job. With all that…

BOOST is nice, but sometimes you just want raw, unadulterated power, and you want it right now. In that regard, nothing beats a tough NA motor with a squirt of giggle gas. Zoran and Bobby from Competition Engines love a bit of boost, but more importantly they love horsepower in all shapes. You may remember Romeo Temelkovski’s XB coupe (SM, Oct ’12). Back then it was making 803hp on pump fuel and ran 9.76@140mph. Well the boys have given it a freshen-up, and it’s now good for 850hp@8000rpm with 630lb-ft@5800rpm. If that’s not enough, there’s also a two-stage Wilson nitrous plate for another 300hp. Inside it’s a 9.5in-deck Dart block with a Lunati crank, Oliver rods and JE pistons. The short block is topped by a pair of billet Ultra…

STREET Machine’s Drag Challenge is coming up fast (23-27 October), with around 40 paid-up entrants and a bunch of other enthusiasts furiously thrashing to get their cars ready in time. There are road-registered weapons coming from all over the country, but with the event being entirely held in Victoria this year, there are going to be a lot of Mexican cars in the chase. With the event spanning five days and covering more than 1500km of road driving, it’s a big financial obligation and one that requires fast cars to be ANDRA-teched. For those not suited to Drag Challenge, the next best thing down south is Heathcote’s King Of The Street series, which is put on by Mustang racer John Colaidis and the guys from Tunnel Vision Turbocharging. The third…

HIS name might be Greg Ball, but he’s universally known as Beach. His business, Pro Street Restorations, is also universally known for turning out hundreds of streeters over the past 30 years – a number of which have graced the pages of Street Machine, as well claiming a swag of big awards. SM even did a feature on Beach in the Oct/ Nov 1991 issue. Oh yes, he’s also a Summernats institution, having cut more laps of NATEX than most – all while proudly wearing a cap sporting two bountiful bosoms. We thought it was high time we caught up with Beach to chew the fat. For the benefit of our newer SM readers, give us the abbreviated Greg ‘Beach’ Ball story. I’m a panel beater and spray painter by…

WHEN the Australian National Street Machine Association began the push nearly three years ago for a conditional registration scheme for modified cars in NSW, I gave them two chances. It was a great idea, but when has that had anything to do with government policy? The answer is quite a bit lately, at least in NSW, with the announcement of a new 60-day logbook scheme for legally modified cars. The existing NSW conditional scheme was negotiated some years ago by the historic clubs to allow their members to attend club events and conduct maintenance runs without paying full rego on cars that were used infrequently. Any other use has to be approved and recorded in the club’s day book by the registrar. Eligibility regulations were left ambiguous to account for…

SOME cars are constructed with bolt-on parts plucked from a catalogue, but Chris Willett’s HT Holden is being built in the truest possible sense of the word. We’re talking CAD-designed laser-cut chassis rails and handmade double A-arm front suspension kind of built. The body still closely resembles that of a Kingswood, but beneath the façade lurks a completely bespoke modern muscle car that upon completion will go, stop and steer like no other. When Chris brought the HT to The Chop Shop in April 2013, it was a bit of a basket case. “I bought the car to do it up, and while that was only supposed to mean a quick freshen-up, it turned out to be so rusty that I either had to go all out or send it…

PERHAPS it was Peter Brock’s passing in 2006 that sparked a renewed interest in the HDT brand and its iconic back catalogue of high-performance Commodores. You could also put it down to the fact that they have ‘come of age’ and are now old enough to be considered classics. In any case, values of genuine early-girl HDTs have been heading steadily north of late. As we know from experience with other classic muscle cars such as GT Falcons, when genuine cars appreciate in value to the point that they are no longer accessible to the masses, you start to see tribute cars being built out of ‘lesser’ models. As a result, HDT replicas are by no means thin on the ground these days, but Ahmed Addoug’s VK is a tribute…

THE burnout comp at Red CentreNATS proved to be a cracker of a show. There was plenty of local talent keen to compete on a larger stage, with many making the trek down from Darwin to face off against the interstate competition. Like most skid comps these days, the field was split into two classes – your regular Burnout class and the invite-only Burnout Masters, which boasted a star-studded line-up of experts in the art of tyre destruction. But spectators might have been hard-pressed to tell when the regular guys finished and the masters started up. There was plenty of smoke, big tip-ins and smashed tyres from every competitor, and a huge variety of cars – and I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a single VN Commodore bouncing the V6 off…

I THOUGHT I’D ABLE TO FINISH IT ALL IN SIX MONTHS - THREE YEARS LATER IT WAS ON THE ROAD, BUT IT’S STILL NOT FINISHED LIKE all great panel vans, Donna and Keith Richardson’s VANPYRE is in a constant state of evolution. Purchased a few years ago as a genuine HJ Sandman in need of some TLC, Keith and Donna soon had it looking much like it did when it left the factory – but it wasn’t going to stay that way for long. “I was a panel vanner back in the day, when I was 18, 19 – until I got married” Keith says. “Then the house came along, then kids, then divorce, then back into cars again.” Only this time around he was joined by Donna, a lady…

DAMIEN mp is on a mission to reinvigorate his favourite sport and have a good time while he’s at it. Drag racing is supposed to be fun, he reckons, like it was in the old days, so to go forward, maybe we should all take a big step back. For some years now, he and his buddy Steve Biggs have travelled throughout regional Victoria and up the east coast of Australia bringing their two-car Ford-vs-Chev Vintage Gas show to the masses. When we spoke, they were just back from a race-fuelled run of five meets over three states in just over a week. “We do the same trip each year,” Damien says. “We started at Heathcote at the March Rodders Fun Day, then we went up to Sydney and raced…

TOMOS GIBBS 1970 DODGE CHARGER & 1967 DODGE PHOENIX “MY SUBLIME green ’70 Charger runs a 440 with an Elgin cam topped by a Holley 750 double-pumper. Hooker headers take care of the waste gases, and wheels are 18x8 on the front and 20x10 rear. The ’67 Phoenix used to have a 318 but now runs a 383 with 30thou-over pistons and a Mutha Thumpr cam, with a 670 Holley on top. Trans is a 727 Torqueflite, and it’s had a four-wheel disc-brake conversion.” Photos: Greg Forster MICHAEL GEORGE VH COMMODORE SL “MY 1983 VH SL was originally my dad’s race car, but he felt the time had come to sell it, so I decided to take it off his hands. It had a 202 in it, but now runs…

THE inaugural Cruising Nationals was held in Deniliquin in April this year, with music, drag racing, lots of street cruising and even some burnouts making up the action. The centrepiece of the show, however, was the draw of the event’s raffle car, a righteous ’32 roadster. While red Deuce roadsters are hardly thin on the ground, this one was built in a muscular 60s drag style. We covered the start of the build in Street Machine Hot Rod 12 and we tallied up over $65,000 in parts alone, including the steel Brookville reproduction body, Scandinavian Street Rods chassis, 383ci Chev donk and Tremec five-speed transmission. Then we featured the finished product in Hot Rod 14, and what a stunner it turned out to be. It won’t meet the letter of…

DAVID Rawnsley is a car guy to the core, and likes to dabble in all areas of the hobby. Whether it be a factory-style restoration, full-on race car or tough streeter, he will try his hand at all aspects of the build process and has a variety of project cars to his credit. Hailing from Alice Springs, David has a reputation as the ‘Val guy’ of the Red Centre, but his interests range far beyond the five points of the Pentastar. 01: DAVID’S stepfather Graeme came into his life when he was nine years old. “From that point on we became a motorsport family” David says. “Without his influence my life would not have taken the automotive path. He owned a genuine Monte Carlo BMC works Mini Cooper and raced…

LETTER OF THE MONTH NUTS IN A TWIST I READ about William Porker’s frustrating incident concerning a ‘Commode’ with tight nuts (Dirty Stuff, SM, Sep ’15). Please forgive me for being a pedantic, picky SOB, but I noticed that in the cartoon depicting the owner attempting to loosen the over-tightened wheel nuts, he was standing on the wheel brace but turning the nuts clockwise to ‘loosen’ them – which of course in real life would actually be tightening them. I deserve a kick in my own nuts for pointing out something so trivial (just ask my two ex-wives), but maybe it is because I have had the same misfortune of having some mental midget over-tighten nuts while enjoying the power trip of having a lethal rattle gun in their hands!…

MANY street machiners will relate to the idea of picking up a spanner, grinder or welder as something to look forward to once the day’s work is done. Sydney’s Michael Sande certainly does: “Some people look at building a car as hard work, but for me it’s terrific free time” he says. “You get out there into the shed, put some music on and get into the groove.” A house builder during the day, Michael has lately spent his post-work hours building this splendid Mustang. It’s actually his second high-calibre ’Stang build. “I had a purple ’65 coupe, mini-tubbed with polished Simmons rims” he says. “That was more than 10 years ago. I had it at Summernats; it won 2nd Top Coupe, and a couple of other trophies elsewhere.” Michael…

MY MATE GOES: ‘YOU SHOULD BUY THIS, DROP IT ON ITS BALLS AND BLACK THE WINDOWS. IT’LL BE GANGSTER!’ THERE wouldn’t be too many people crazy enough to stick a big block in a big ol’ luxury Ford. Vito De Francesco isn’t big on convention though. A panel beater by trade, he smooths concrete for a living instead because he can’t stand working inside. He’s also got a lot of good mates down Geelong way and they do some pretty crazy things with cars. This car was actually meant to be an HSV ClubSport. At least that’s what Vito went to buy when he made the trip to a local car dealer at the ripe old age of 19. His mate suggested the near-new Fairlane was a better bet. “I…

IT IS pretty amazing that a little country town like Alice Springs – with a population of around 30,000 people – has a quarter-mile dragstrip just a few minutes from the town centre. Alice Springs Inland Dragway is right next to the airport, which is the perfect spot to put it because then people can’t whinge about the noise from the drags – you can’t hear them over the roar of the jet engines. Sure, there’s only a couple of flights a day that come in, but that’s beside the point. While the facilities aren’t quite up to the standards of Willowbank, Sydney or Kwinana – you’ve got to walk a few hundred metres to take a leak – they’ve just been given another $1.1 million to upgrade the track…

YOU’VE read the stories and you’ve seen the videos, but nothing can prepare you for the torture test that is Hot Rod Drag Week. It’s five days of racing, cruising and wrenching on some of the toughest street machines on the planet; it’s not for those who enjoy their sleep. Seriously, if you’re even contemplating transporting a car to this week-long mechanical marathon, make sure you come over and check it out first. A few Aussies have made a name for themselves at Drag Week over the past decade, but this year there were more than ever. Whether they were entrants, crew members or just spectators, Aussies were everywhere, and the big news was that five Australian teams were taking a crack at Drag Week 2015: John Faraone in the…

STREET machiners are usually pretty quick on the uptake when it comes to taking something from the racing scene and applying it to their street cars. Whether it’s running fat tyres on the back, bolting on a bonnet scoop or running spoilers and flares, what happens on a race track normally filters down to the street pretty quickly. The uptake of data acquisition – or datalogging – has been a little slower. While people are quite happy to spend tens of thousands of dollars on an engine, wheels, paint and interior, when it comes to having something that will enable you to get the most out of your engine – and also prevent it from going bang – people don’t always see the value. In the past, installing a computer…

01 TREASURE CHEST PUT a widebody in the garage with this sweet tool chest from Sidchrome. Designed to last and to keep your tools away from sticky fingers, the SCMT50244 features auto-return slides for a smooth action, rolled drawer-sides to avoid cuts and a 100-per-cent drawer extension to reach those tools playing hide-and-seek. All drawers are fitted with liners. For more info call Sidchrome on 1800 338 002. 02 BABY GOT BACK RECKON your rear end is letting you down? You’re probably not alone. RRS has a solution for XE to EL Falcon owners, though, with their recently completed first install of a three-link rear end with mini coil-overs and Watt’s linkage. The folks at RRS have engineered a clever shock-mount plate and recessed bolts for easy installation. The Trans…

A REAL HERO AN IRISHMAN, a Kiwi and an American were standing on the roof of a building, with an awning below them. The American said to the Irishman: “I bet I could jump off this roof, land on the awning and bounce back up here onto the roof.” So he jumped off, hit the awning, and was soon back on the roof. “There. Now you try” he said to the Irishman. So the Irishman jumped off, bounced off the awning, and fell to the ground with a splat. The Kiwi said to the American: “Jeez, Superman, you’re a real jerk sometimes!” L Luthor, email NO REGRETS AN ELDERLY man goes into confession and says to the priest: “Father, I’m 80 years old, married, have four kids and 11 grandchildren.…