Innehållsförteckning för March 2021 från Street Machine

RESPECT THE SLIDE? PRETTY much anyone with a bit of petrol running through their veins loves a cheeky sideways kick of the back end, but it seems that when it comes to proper motorsport, the notion of spending the entire time sideways and being judged a winner based on opinion is frowned upon by many. So we decided to ask the question to our Facebook followers: Do you think drifting should be taken as seriously as any other form of motorsport? Here’s what you had to say. Glenn Whittingham – I think the D1 championship and stadium truck championship should overtake Supercars as the country’s premier racing events. It’s far more interesting to watch. Nick Silva – I like watching it and so do my kids. They love seeing the…

SOME punters reckon early examples of the Ford Mustang are a bit limp, but Jonathan Danaskos’s wicked-tough ’65 ’Stang headbutts that opinion into a low orbit with its fat stance and 620hp small-block Ford. A regular cruiser on Sydney streets, it’s also run a 10 at the track – and is still neat enough to take out the Slam Champion award, the top gong at Summernats Slam! “The car was pretty much built by my dad and me – actually, mostly my dad, Sam,” laughs Jono. “We call ourselves Danaskos Garage. Dad has had a ’66 Mustang since I was a kid, so I was always getting a Mustang! Back when I got my licence, everyone was into the turbo Jap stuff – I had a pretty quick Toyota Starlet…

DRIFTING? Isn’t that the favoured pastime of youths who own smashed Silvias with mismatched wheels and anime stickers covering the windows? Well, the world has changed since Initial D, and drifting is now a major sport that attracts big crowds around the world. Sometimes, you’ll even find the odd Aussie rig in a sea of late-model Japanese cars and Mustangs. However, precious few western drift cars have as much history and are as well engineered as Danny Probert’s 1979 XD Falcon, XDrift. Back in 2004, Danny spotted a small article in the NT News about a local drift have-a-go day. “I come from a speedway background, so the idea of sliding on bitumen sounded pretty intense to me!” he says. “I researched drifting as much as I could, and nobody…

AFTER almost a year of COVID-related lockdowns, travel bans and shuttered tracks, championship drag racing made its triumphant return in Victoria in late January, with Portland’s South Coast Raceway hosting the South Coast 660. The Street Machine team just had to be there, so we brought a big crew with us to cover the event – and to race our Carnage Volvo for the first time. Portland is a five-hour haul from the home base of Carnage’s Scott Taylor, but like a lot of folks, we’d drive just about any distance to race at the moment! And besides, Portland’s eighth-mile is one of the prettiest tracks in the country, with outstanding facilities and awesome track staff. The meet formed round 10 of the extended 2019/20/21 Summit Racing Equipment Sportsman Series,…

THIS year is looking to be a good one for horsepower enthusiasts, with both Ford and General Motors bringing out new iron-block engines with serious performance potential. Last issue we gave you a rundown on Ford’s new 7.3-litre Godzilla V8, a 430hp iron small-block used in the F250 truck range, so this month it’s time to shine a light on GM’s new L8T. GM apparently decided its heavy-duty 3500-series pick-up trucks needed more towing capacity than what the 360hp, 6.0-litre L96 V8 could provide, so a larger-capacity engine has been developed off the 6.2-litre L86 V8 used in 1500-series trucks. Given the 2021 Chevy Silverado 3500HD rocks a claimed tow capacity of 36,000lb (that’s 16 tonnes in modern scales), we reckon the Bowtie brigade might have knocked it out of…

FINISHING third outright at Drag Challenge Weekend is no mean feat, but to do it at your first tilt at an organised drag racing event is amazing. Yet this is what Trent Brimble managed with his wicked-fast VL Commodore. Trent’s previous VL, a 900hp RB30-powered Calais, wasn’t tech-inspected, so one nine-second pass at Willowbank was enough to get him touched by the ban stick. This sparked the build of the new, LS-powered VILLIN. “I got a 9.40 out of my Calais, and then I sold it to a mate and he went 8.99,” Trent says. “I actually bought this VL from Sydney, as it was a mate’s car that he’d sold, but the bloke left it sitting in the shed so we brought it back and cleaned it up. It…

SEND photos of your car and a few details of what went into the build to Readers’ Rockets, Street Machine, Locked Bag 12, Oakleigh, Vic 3166 or email readerscars@aremedia.com.au. Please note: Send us copies of prints as we are unable to return your photos. BRAD MURNANE LJ TORANA “I PURCHASED my Torana back in 1994 as a then 22-year-old. Originally white, it’s since been painted in a custom Candy Apple Green mix by Phil Govan in Ballarat. In 2009 I entered my first burnout comp, and have been following the circuit all over Australia ever since. After numerous engine failures, my son Seth and I built the 383 small-block Chev, which has been in the car for about six years. It features H-beam rods, alloy heads and Callies crank. The…

MAKING big power out of small cubes is one thing, but Steve Makarios also has to make his engines live for thousands of kilometres’ worth of circuit racing. The bloke behind Synergy Race Engines has spent years screwing together killer mills for the Touring Car Masters race category, like this 351 Windsor for the ’69 Mustang driven by Cam Mason. “There’s a lot of regulations we have to adhere to,” Steve explains. “For a 351 Windsor, we have to use a Dart 195cc head specifically; we can’t have a bigger head than that, but we can CNC-port them. The intake manifold is height-controlled, so we can’t have lots of spacers. We’re rev-limited to 7500rpm through the ignition box, we all have to run 100-octane fuel, and we’re allowed to push…

WHILE 2020 saw major price hikes in the automotive auction market, the early months of 2021 have already realised record-breaking prices for two last-of-their-breed Holdens. On 30 January, an HSV GTS-R W1 Maloo with an odometer reading of 681km was sold by Lloyds Auctioneers for $1.05 million (plus buyer’s premium), the highest price yet for an Australian-made road car. The previous title holder was a Falcon GTHO Phase III, once owned by cricketing legend Jeff Thomson. It sold for $1.03 million plus fee in 2018. Just four W1 Maloos were built in 2017, each of which was offered to high-ranking HSV staff or elite customers. The only W1 Maloo finished in HSV’s Light My Fire gold was subject to a bidding frenzy in the weeks leading up the hammer falling,…

MODELLED on the legendary 1974 HB Halicki flick of the same name, the 2000 remake of Gone in 60 Seconds is slick and fast-paced, boasts a star-studded cast, and has plenty of very cool cars. Randall ‘Memphis’ Raines (Cage) is a former high-end car thief brought back into the fold when his younger brother, the greasy and ungrateful Kip (Ribisi), finds himself in deep shit with local gangster Raymond Calitri (Eccleston). Kip’s loose attitude has seen him fail to deliver a shipment of 50 specific cars for one of Calitri’s clients, and it’s now up to Memphis to steal these cars by a strict deadline, or Kip will be killed. Memphis reassembles his old crew – Donny (McBride), The Sphinx (Jones) and Sway (Jolie) – for the boost, using the…

FOR A man who was not a participant himself, the late John ‘Stomper’ Winterburn had an enormous impact on the sport of drag racing. Put simply, Australian drag racing would not have been as successful if not for his unceasing efforts behind the scenes. Stomper is the longest-serving official in Aussie drag racing, with a total of 54 years spent in the service of the sport. He served at Surfers Paradise International Raceway from 1966 until 1987, with 15 of those years spent as meeting director. When Willowbank opened in 1985, he was meeting director for both tracks, and when Surfers closed in ’87, he remained Willowbank meeting director until 1999. Fate brought John Winterburn and drag racing together in 1966, when he agreed to take his brother Bob’s FJ…

RUNNING EIGHTH-MILE DRAGS ON THE FRIDAY NIGHT WAS A MASTERSTROKE, WITH A SWAG OF TOUGH CARS HITTING THE TRACK WITH a long and storied history, Motorvation is a staple of the West Aussie street machining scene, but for the past few years it’s been struggling to find a direction and a crew to push it forward. However, the Summernats team came on board to mount the 2021 event and beyond, and it was pretty amazing what they managed to achieve in association with the Motorvation team in such a short timeframe. Bringing it back to a three-day event made the punters at Perth Motorplex happy, and running eighth-mile drags on the entrants-only Friday night was a masterstroke, with a swag of tough cars hitting the track, although a few of…

THE GSI FRONT END IS MADE TO SUIT A SMALL-BLOCK CRATE ENGINE, SO THAT MAKES IT AN EASY PROJECT CLASSIC pick-up trucks are possibly the hottest trend in street machining at the moment. They look killer no matter the modification style, whether lifted with beefy 4x4 underpinnings, raked heavily with a nasty pro street vibe, or slammed to the ground on air suspension like Chris Hicks’s ’65 C10 here. Freshly finished by Kyle Smith and the team at Smith Concepts in Brookvale, this short-bed Chevy blends street machine, lowrider and custom car touches. It’s an epic beach cruiser that’s nice enough to take trophies at shows. And yet it started from much humbler beginnings. “It was a pretty shabby satin-black truck imported into Queensland,” says Kyle. “A gentleman had it…

NINETEEN-year-old Rowan Ward brought a slick 1970 XY Falcon 500 to Drag Challenge Weekend 2020. The third-year apprentice mechanic ran a best time of 17.64@76mph in the Carnage Dial Your Own class and had a blast over the three days of road-tripping and racing. We caught up with him during the event to find out more. This is one clean XY; have you had it long? It’s my first car, and I’ve had it for around three years now, but we only finished it a week ago. I was looking for an XC Falcon initially, but we found the XY under a house in Brisbane sitting next to a Monaro. It was a 250ci six with a three-speed column-shift, and I’m the second owner. But it was pretty ratty; it…

HOLDEN UC SUNBIRD HEATH VAN DER WAERDEN “THIS is my UC Sunbird hatch that I’m turning into a modified A9X mock-up. I’ve been slaving away on it for six years! It has a 383 Holden V8 stroker, TKO600 ’box and a full-floating BorgWarner diff with custom three-link rear suspension. It runs big brakes all ’round, and I’ve put a lot of effort into reducing weight and strengthening the chassis. It will have a wild colour combo and interior, with my inspiration being Summernats circa 1989. I can’t wait to finish putting the puzzle together.” HZ ONE TONNER JAYD PLAYFORD “MY HZ One Tonner has been in the family for over 25 years. It has already been rebuilt twice, so this third time should be the treat. I’m building it slowly…

MARRIED couples enjoying the same hobby can be rare, but Oberon pair Brad and Britt Kilby share a love of setting burnout pads on fire in HAMMERTIME, their LS-powered ’96 Daihatsu Feroza. We caught up with Britt after she did one of the best skids of the Summernats Slam finals How did you get into skids? We’d been attending burnouts as spectators for years, and a Feroza with a five-litre came up for sale on Facebook, which we bought for $800 and took to a couple of events. But the engine was tired and the car looked terrible, so we figured we’d build something bigger and better. We had some parts there and morphed it all together. How is the Feroza set up? It’s actually a ’99 GU Patrol chassis…

LAST August, we spoke to Lance Warren just days after his purchase of Heathcote Park Raceway. The sale was settled on 31 December, and since then Lance and a dedicated crew have been working tirelessly on breathing life into the iconic venue. “We’ve only had four weeks here and the place is already looking so clean,” Lance says. “We’ve achieved a shitload.” The staging area has been torn up and resurfaced with fresh bitumen, while the less-than-reliable timing boards have been made functional. An entirely new Compulink system and tree are being installed, replacing the old insect-infested set-up. “Every day it’s a bit of a mystery with what we find around the track!” Lance laughs. Wall-to-wall track prep has also been completed, stripping three decades of rubber and debris from…

Write to: Your Stuff, Street Machine, Locked Bag 12, Oakleigh, Vic 3166 or email streetmachine@aremedia.com.au. Make sure you include your address (not necessarily for publication). Keep it short and sweet! LETTER OF THE MONTH THE BEST MEDICINE EVER since my dad, Gavin, was young, he’s lived and breathed anything cars. He had a Holden Premier back when he was in his 20s. He also helped to rebuild a 1973 HQ Holden Kingswood wagon, and he wanted one since that moment. In his 30s he got the opportunity to buy the wagon he helped rebuild – that was a big deal for my dad! He took this car to shows and was in a car club in Rockhampton. He also let me use it as my wedding car, which was very…

A LAND CRUISER? IN STREET MACHINE? IF THE BLOWN BIG-BLOCK ISN’T ENOUGH TO EASE YOUR PAIN, READ ON FIRST things first: No, Colin Byrne did not spend $130,000 on a brand new Land Cruiser Sahara and then proceed to cut it up, chuck in a blown big-block and fit some airbags. In fact, the build story on this car is very similar to many others that have graced these pages over the years, starting off with a vehicle that was a little bit worse for wear and bringing it back to life. What’s not immediately obvious is how much work was done to get this burly 200 Series looking as good as it does, and a big part of that was figuring out how to get the Cruiser to squat…

EARLY Holden Monaros fetch big bucks these days, so one that’s been modified to the extent of Peter Schimanski’s incredibly tough, pro street-style HT will surely have purists sobbing into their cups of Earl Grey. But the New Zealander has built the car of his dreams, so it’s fair to say his care factor is zero. Packing a brutish, blown 1200hp big-block Chev up front, this Monaro has been built for the street, despite its show-quality finish. The stunning creation is the work of Kendal and Rachel Smith from Kruzin Kustoms Rod & Kustom Shop in Palmerston North. Things kicked off back in 2008 when Peter and wife Delilah took a trip down to Invercargill, returning with an HT Monaro complete with Orchid paint and a tunnel-rammed 350ci Chev. It…

SOME people know how to build a certain make and model of car, and Dave Guilfoyle is one of those blokes. His Whipple-blown, LS-swapped VL Calais and his wife Jodie’s LX hatch have both been stunners, along with a laundry list of other cool rides they’ve enjoyed, but Dave has an uncanny knack for building righteously tough and clean HQ Monaro coupes. Feast your peepers on this Cyan Blue example and delight in the way he’s incorporated all the cool factory styling Aussies love about Holden’s iconic 70s muscle car. And then check the way he’s dialled up the aggro through fat Weld rollers, and that detailed, corn syrup-chugging, solidroller 421ci small-block under the bonnet. Dave’s other HQ, his Purr-Pull coupe MRGM8, was featured on the cover of our December…

Send your favourite funnies to: LOL, Street Machine, Locked Bag 12, Oakleigh, Vic 3166 or email them to: streetmachine@aremedia.com.au. GAG OF THE MONTH INSIDE JOB ANDY was sentenced to 10 years in prison. During his prison stay, he got along well with the guards and all his fellow inmates. The prison warden saw that deep down Andy was a good person and made arrangements for him to learn a trade while doing his time. After three years, Andy was recognised as one of the best carpenters in the local area. Often he would be given a weekend pass to do odd jobs for the citizens of the community, and he always reported back to prison on Sunday night. Time went by and the warden was in the middle of renovating…

Send your photos of fun with cars to: Sunday Too Far Away, Street Machine, Locked Bag 12, Oakleigh, Vic 3166, or email high-resolution images (1mb+) to: sundaytoofaraway@aremedia.com.au. Please send copies of prints as we are unable to return your photos. WIN! WIN an awesome digital multimeter from our friends at Wurth, valued at $175! Please include your mailing address with your submission. WINNER! WURTH DIGITAL MULTIMETER…