Innehållsförteckning för November 2019 från Street Machine

ONLY a few issues back we introduced you to Holden’s Project Monaro build, which at the time was very much in its infancy. Now it’s a very different story, with the Monaro almost reborn and ready to be handed off to one lucky person. The car was sent to a Holden dealer to be pulled back to its bare bones, ready for a thorough going-over after 15 years and 200,000km of work logged. The whole driveline was dropped out for a rebuild, with the body getting sent to Dominic Mazzeo at B&A Motor Body Repairs for some loving, along with a fresh lick of custom-mixed PPG paint. While the car was to remain as an auto LS1 package, the engine was sent to one of the best in the business…

DON’T scoff; the Herbie films have serious Fanging Flick credentials. It all started with 1968’s The Love Bug, which introduced the world to Herbie, a lovable and good-humoured Volkswagen Beetle sporting the now-iconic go-fast stripes and ‘53’ race numbers. When jack-of-all-trades driver, Jim (Jones), loses his shine behind the wheel and subsequent demand for paid work, he starts to ponder both his own future and that of long-time friend, mechanic and housemate, Tennessee (Hackett). During a soul-searching walk, Jim spies an attractive pair of pins that draw him into the showrooms of Thorndyke Motors and the attention of lovely saleswoman Carole (Lee). While playing up his financial standing to loosely negotiate a deal on a sports car, Jim meets the irrepressible Peter Thorndyke (Tomlinson), in what is to be the…

LEADING THE CHARGE MANY thanks for the great cover story on Mario Ciarrocchi’s beautiful Charger (SM, Sep ’19). Great to read that Mario actually contacted the Charger’s chief exterior stylist, Bob Hubbach, who gave the car his approval. Bob would have certainly appreciated the clean lines of Mario’s VH, in keeping with the original Charger design he penned in Detroit back in 1970. While Bob is quick to point out that the Charger’s phenomenal success was a combination of factors with many people involved, without his inspired design the Charger may well have become just another also-ran. Bob also styled many other famous Mopars during his long career with Chrysler, including the Dodge Viper GTS, the Chrysler Atlantic and Dodge Copperhead concepts and the 2005 Chrysler 300C. Bob is now…

TOM Juric was mad about cars from a young age. As a teenager, he dreamed about building a wild pro street Falcon, but life as a uni student meant that an EF with AU Tickford alloys would have to do for a while. “It was a piece of junk, but I loved that thing; I cruised it to death,” Tom says. “I dumped it on its arse and put a big stereo in it – all that stuff you do when you can’t really afford much.” That was followed by a pretty nice VH Commodore that was an unfinished project; a painted roller that Tom slotted a healthy 308 in and finished off. Things went quiet on the car front for a little while as Tom focussed on work and…

THERE’S something serene about the sky above Alice Springs. Casting my eyes towards the cloudless blue flanked by the rusty red of the MacDonnell Ranges, I spot a trio of wedge-tailed eagles wheeling silently on the thermal drafts. Suddenly, the silence and wonder are broken by 1000hp of 440-cubic-inch Windsor, grunting with ferocious anger. Damo Kemp is behind the wheel of his 1964 Fairlane gasser, ‘Funderbolt’, and is grinning like a lunatic. “Are we going to Macca’s?” he yells over the deafening din. We sure are Damo, we sure are. That brief moment sums up the craziness of Red CentreNATS. Set against the picturesque backdrop of Australia’s Dead Heart, 700 show cars, dragsters, burnout rigs and buggies congregate, and are welcome to travel Alice Springs’ public roads just so long…

ROB Zahabi is well known for his show-winning custom interiors, and this aptitude has certainly rubbed off on young Cooper – the Nova’s cabin is nothing short of radical. “We designed it together,” says Cooper. “We get very creative when we start brainstorming. Both of us like to draw, so we sat down one night and sketched heaps of different ideas.” Other than a handful of pieces like the VE ute seats, Flaming River column and Dakota Digital dash, virtually everything is custom-made. The dash started from nothing; the doors trims were just the factory steel top bits and the rest was made from scratch. Then there’s the acres of Alcantara trim, complete with intricate diamond-stitching. “So much stitching in this interior – two solid weeks’ worth,” says Cooper. “It’s…

T’S hard to deny the physical and I emotional response one gets at the sound of a rumbling V8. Now imagine the impact that must have on the fresh synapses of an impressionable five-year-old. For Mark Cirillo, now 25, the iconic Holden five-litre V8 has really helped shape his life thus far. Not only has Mark owned a string of V8-powered Holdens already, but he has also earned his trade as a mechanic. “After I heard the heavy rumble of that 308 in my driveway for the first time at the age of five, I knew at some point that I would own this car,” Mark says. “It has been a dream of mine to own this very LJ ever since.” Mark’s ’74 LJ originally belonged to a family friend…

UNTIL fairly recently, the concept of printing parts for your car out of thin air was pure science fiction. However, 3D printing is beginning to change the way cars are built, and, as the cost of the printers tumble and the software is made ever more user-friendly, this new technology is sure to become more popular. Born out of the need for rapid prototyping, the type of 3D printing most commonly used today is known as fused deposition modelling. The concept is simple: You either 3D-scan or use computer modelling software to draw a 3D model of what you want to make, then export that file from your computer to a three-axis printer, which uses plastic extrusion to build each part in thin, stacked layers on the printer bed. Taree’s…

PAULINE Dickins’ tale is as much a testament to the love between her and her hubby of over 50 years, Peter, as it is about her sweet ’32 Ford pick-up. The bubbly Pauline is full of funny anecdotes – often accompanied by a good belly laugh – about Pete and of how her 302ci Windsor/C10/BorgWarner ’32 came to be. What got you into the car scene, Pauline? I’ve been into cars since I married Pete. He built a sweet little street rod when we were courting and I just fell in love with hot rods; it was something that we did together. But, as it goes, we did the grown-up thing and sold the rod to put the foundations down on our house. That was the end of hot rods…

THE recent Kenda Radial Riot round at Willowbank Raceway was very likely the greatest radial drag event ever held in Australia. With a star-studded line-up of cars, promoters Justin Simpson and Scott Harker threw everything at the event, and the results spoke for themselves. This was just the second Radial Riot, with entrant numbers up from 148 to 165. A great element of this event is the seeding system, where every final sees a racer from the top half of the field race a car from the bottom half, unlike the regular process of the number-one qualifier taking on the lowest-seeded qualifier. The track preparation was incredible, with famed US track prep king Kurt Johnson flown in. As a result, records tumbled and PBs were had from early in the…

11-13 OCT, MELBOURNE, VIC Motorclassica, Royal Exhibition Building. Visit motorclassica.com.au. 12 OCT, MOUNT BARKER, SA Car & Motorcycle Show ’n’ Shine For Brain Cancer, Keith Stephenson Park. Call 0405 013 217. 12 OCT, GEELONG, VIC Rats Tatts ’n’ Pin-Ups, Gateway Hotel, Princes Hwy. Search ‘Rats Tatts N PinUps’ on Facebook for more info. 12 OCT, MERRIGUM, VIC Merrigum Community Group Show ’n’ Shine, Merrigum Football Oval. Call Cameron on 0437 897 938 or email husslnautodetailing@gmail.com. 13 OCT, TARLEE, SA Classic Car Muster, Tarlee Town Oval. Email garry.wellington@bigpond.com. 13 OCT, HOPETOUN, VIC Hopetoun Show & Shine, Hopetoun. Call Anne on 0431 819 310. 18-19 OCT, EASTERN CREEK, NSW World Time Attack Challenge 2019, Sydney Motorsport Park.Visit worldtimeattack.com. 19 OCT, KIALLA, VIC HSCCA Holden Statesman Nationals, Shepparton Motor Museum. Call Peter on…

TOM Bailey recently pulled the quickest-ever Hot Rod Drag Week pass, with a blistering 5.99-second quarter-mile. Here's what you had to say on his crazy Camaro, our Aussies giving it a shot, and the rest of the event. Peter Dews - He can drive that on the street over there, and we can't even put a bloody pod filter on without being taxed by old mate! Robert Puglisi - Street car my arse. Shane Sventek - Very loose term, 'street car'. Matthew Coppock - To anyone throwing shade, you are following the wrong page. Jack Dargan - Hang on, that's a street car? I'm moving to America. Elton Williams - Amazes me what they can drive on the road over there. John Brandt - How many metres do you think…

BRETT Armstrong is well known to Street Machine, with his HK Monaro earning a swag of tinware at Summernats 32, followed by a strong showing at Drag Challenge Weekend 2019. Brett bought the car just six months before Summernats, taking the reins from previous owner and builder John Mawhinney (whose 1000hp blown ’57 Chev we featured in September 2015). John had just run a sub-nine pass in the HK despite suffering a misfire, but the bonnet had flipped open, damaging the engine bay and roof (see breakout, p. 46). Brett wasted no time getting the damage sorted. “I got a steel bonnet for it and fixed the paint,” he says. “But the miss was still there. We weren’t 100 per cent sure if the engine was hurt. I was just…

IT TOOK a couple of years longer than he’d planned, but Jason Behan’s full-house pro touring VG Valiant hardtop is finally done. Back in the July 2016 issue of SM, when we featured it in bare metal, we said it would probably need another 12 months of work before MINTVAL was finished. But good things come to those who wait, and this is most definitely a good thing. While we’ve featured a number killer Mopars in reccent years, few have been taken remotely as far as this one in terms of custom metal fabrication and modification. According to Jason: “Every bit of sheet metal on the car except for the roof was changed.” It’s had a lot of nips and tucks to make everything tighter, smoother and much more modern-looking,…

TOUGH VK Commodore. That’s been 37-year-old A Canberran Paul Knowles’s dream ever since he can remember – specifically, a tubbed and dumped sedan with a big Holden V8 rattling the panels and shaking the ground. Paul’s first step to making that dream a reality came in 2016, when he sourced a donor VK in Dapto, south of Sydney. “By the end of that year I had built what I thought was everything I’d ever wanted in a car,” he says. “My best mate had painted it a custom candy blue-over-silver, and it had a secondhand cream leather interior and a 355ci Holden stroker. The motor was mean and I couldn’t have been happier.” But while the engine was a stout combo, it had constant problems, and no one seemed able…

WHEN Gold Coast-based car builders Rides By Kam told us they were putting on a track day, we thought we’d head out to see their masterful builds in action. Seventy custom cars took over Queensland Raceway on 30 August for one day of powerskids, muscle-car and mixed track cruising, drift sessions and drag racing. Rides By Kam owner Rob Zahabi put the call out to get the cars rolling in. “We sent an invitation to our customers and close friends to come and enjoy the cars we built for them,” he said. “It’s about getting passionate car people together for maximum track time and a really cool day.” While the RBK team is known for their immaculate muscle cars, a variety of JDMs, Aussie toughies, US muscle cars, exotics and…

ENGINEERS use the National Heavy Vehicle Code as their guide for light-vehicle chassis building or modification, tailoring the Code’s rules to suit light vehicle design. This is because truck chassis are regularly modified for change of purpose, and the key aspects of doing this are well sorted out from prior practical performance and millions of miles of real-life use. When chassis members are joined as part of a graft or in building a new chassis, the joints should be made at 45 degrees. This maximises the length of the weld and puts the angle of the weld in the lowest stress plane when the chassis is doing its job in torsion. By comparison, welds at 90 degrees have the shortest length and act as stress raisers in the chassis, which…

01 CENTRAL COMMAND WITH the market for old resto parts for Aussie classics hotter than pancakes on a Sunday morning, being able to buy new parts off-the-shelf is most welcome. Rare Spares has been satisfying that need for decades, and has recently added even more to its catalogue of HQ Holden fodder, now offering complete centre consoles for HQs. There are four variations to choose from, with either black or silver trim in both auto and manual. Find out more at rarespares.net.au. 02 RISE UP HIGH-rise manifolds are an awesome way to increase your ponies, so naturally Holley has come up with a neat solution for the Ford boys. Designed for the ol’ faithful 351 Windsor, the intake bolts straight into place, with the choice of either a 95mm or…

WHEN YOU CONSIDER THAT CARL’S BUBBLETOP IS A 4000LB CAR IN ASPIRATED TRIM, TO BE KNOCKING ON NINES IS PRETTY BLOODY STOUT CARL Taylor’s 1962 bubbletop Chevy has always been a standout. It’s a car that harks back to a bygone era of chrome, great bodylines and stick-shifted luxo-barges. Carl has been successfully racing the Chev for the past 10 years, and even picked up four Christmas trees in the process. In recent times the car has been running a bored-out 409 that came in at 484ci and pushed the Chevy to mid-to-high 11s. But in a bid to keep up with his mates – all running similar-era muscle cars of different breeds – Carl has lashed out and bought an all-aluminium 540ci big-block Chevy from famed US engine builder…

IS THERE a more iconic drag racing engine than a blown and injected Chrysler Hemi? Considering it’s still the mill of choice for the quickest cars on the planet, there’s not much that comes near it. Admittedly, the 10,000hp-plus engines of today bear little resemblance to those that powered Chrysler products back in 1955, but the one you’re looking at here is the real deal – a genuine relic of cast-iron goodness from 1958 topped with a host of super-cool, mostly magnesium speed parts from the 60s. The 392ci Hemi belongs to Sydney hot rodder Joe Kurtovic, who’s no stranger to blown cars; his ’34 Ford coupe sported an 800hp SBC and ran low 10s, while his front-engined dragster runs deep into the eights with a blown 202 Holden. “I…

LEGENDARY I JUST got the Street Machine Legends book for Father’s Day and it’s awesome! It’s got pretty much all the best cars in there, the layouts are good and the photos are fantastic! I was disappointed you couldn’t find room for Brett Chambers’ HJ sedan (SM, Jun ’93). It was the perfect car for the time; colour-coding was all the rage and spearmint green was huge, white interiors were just starting to get popular, and the bigger the tubs, the better! My favourite car from the era, no doubt! Daniel Peachey, email CRUSHING HARD I JUST read your online article by Gordon Shumway about the Blue Crush Valiant panel van [search ‘Blue Crush’ on whichcar.com.au/ streetmachine to read it!]. I would like to know where the van is located…

AT 16, most young blokes with their head screwed on are just starting to think about what sort of car they want. Not Cooper Zahabi. Having spent bulk hours working beside his dad, Rides By Kam owner Rob Zahabi, on Rob’s stunning black-on-black Kam Nova (SM, Nov ’14), at 16 Cooper had not only settled on his dream car, the build was already well underway. And this stunning Chevy Nova is it! DEBUTING YOUR FIRST BUILD AT SUMMERNATS – AND TAKING OUT 2ND TOP COUPE TO BOOT – AT AGE 18 IS DAMN IMPRESSIVE! A few short years later, the finished car was good enough to take pride of place next to his dad’s jaw-dropping Dodge Challenger, HAVOC, in this year’s Great Meguiar’s Uncover at Summernats 32. Debuting your first…

THE cat’s officially out of the bag by now – the Barra has earned the title of the ‘Aussie 2JZ’ for its ability to make bulk twist and upset many more exotic engine combos on the street and the strip. Take a look under the bonnet of Corey Benning’s wickedly quick Cortina and you’ll find a particularly cranky Barra with enough stuff to blaze the quarter in a mere 8.49 seconds! Corey’s love affair with the mid-sized Pommy sedans makes for a pretty short and sweet story: “I bought my first Cortina when I was 19 and sold it a bit later,” he says. “Once you’ve had a Cortina you always want another! Then five years ago I had an FG XR6 Turbo and I decided I was ready to…

ON ANY bright Sunday in Melbourne, you’re sure to find a few tasty cars cruising around, but you won’t usually find too many well-known thoroughfares where mad machinery halts trams and traffic. But Father’s Day has become one of those Sundays at St Kilda’s Acland Street. For the past six years, the famed food and shopping destination has been invaded by hundreds of beautiful cars and thousands of car nuts, eager to celebrate their love of shiny metal with their families and friends. And yes, they do actually stop the trams! The massive annual Father’s Day Car & Bike Show is the product of months of hard work by the teams at Showcars Melbourne and the Acland Street Traders Association. The show doesn’t just take over Acland Street itself –…

BASIC ROLLING STANCE is everything, no matter what you drive. But more often than not, there are hurdles to overcome in the quest to get your ride sitting lower. One of the major ones is when the front tyres come into contact with the fenders (or guards) on full lock. This can be rectified by body modifications such as rolling your guards – also known as pumping, flaring and the like. Guard-rolling was a staple street machine mod in years gone by, and with period street machine restorations and tribute builds enjoying something of a resurgence, I figure it’s a good time to show you how to pump your guards the right way. STEP 01 You can buy specialist guard-rolling machines, but they’re not all they’re cracked up to be.…

SYDNEY DRAGWAY 13 OCT Sunday Street Meet 16 OCT Four-Cylinder/Rotary Night 19 OCT ATURA Championship round 6 23 OCT Race 4 Real 25 OCT Full Throttle Friday 30 OCT Race 4 Real 01 NOV East Coast Thunder 06 NOV Race 4 Real 13 NOV Race 4 Real sydneydragway.com.au Phone (02) 9421 0700 WILLOWBANK 12 OCT Test & Tune 19 OCT Test & Tune 26 OCT Test & Tune 02 NOV Test & Tune 08 NOV Test & Tune 09 NOV Qld Championships 16 NOV Test & Tune willowbankraceway.com.au Phone (07) 5461 5461 SPRINGMOUNT RACEWAY 19 OCT Nitro Rods & Track Championship springmountraceway.com BENARABY RACEWAY 25 OCT Off-Street Meet 26 OCT CQDRA Championship benarabyraceway.com Phone 0419 703 710 WARWICK DRAGWAY 19-20 OCT Dragfest warwickdragway.com PERTH MOTORPLEX 16 OCT Rotary Night 23…

DAVE MALONEY 1955 OLDSMOBILE ROCKET 88 “I PURCHASED my Olds in California in 2009 when I was at the LA Roadster Show. It caught my eye as it was a two-door and pillarless, with a roofline nearly two inches shorter than other makes. I just loved the lines. I was initially going to leave it with all its patina, but decided to repaint it in its factory colour scheme, but with a sheen finish instead of the original gloss white, just to tone it down. I left the stock interior too, as it was too good to redo. The car runs the original 324ci Rocket 88 V8, but I updated it with extractors and it now runs an alternator. I overhauled the brakes and exhaust, and updated and strengthened the…

PUNTASTIC A FLY feels a bug on its back. “Hey, bug on my back, are you a mite?” the fly asks. “I mite be,” giggles the mite. “That’s the worst pun I’ve ever heard,” groans the fly. “What do you expect?” says the mite. “I came up with it on the fly.” N Secht, email SUSS STAIN A PENGUIN is driving to the mall, when all of a sudden his engine starts running really rough and smoke is coming from under the bonnet. Luckily, there’s an auto repair shop right next to the mall, so he pulls in there. The mechanic says he’ll be glad to take a look, but he won’t be able to get to it for a couple of hours. The penguin says that’s fine, and walks…