Innehållsförteckning för July 2021 från Street Machine

IT’S a phrase sellers are loving and keen buyers are dreading: COVID tax. It’s hit all areas of the car market pretty hard in the past 12 months or so, but the worst by far has been the skyrocketing classic market. The recent results from a Grays classic car auction are stone-cold proof of this, the major headline being Peter Brock’s personal HDT VK Group A road car, which sold for $1,057,509 before buyer’s premium. It was joined by a V8 XE Fairmont, which was not only the last XE fitted with a V8 before Ford canned them, but had also never been sold privately. With just 60km on the ticker, it went for $354,759, along with a shed-find RPO 83-spec XA GT hardtop, which reached $276,009 – both those…

HAMMER BLOW IN MAY, we covered the sale of Australia’s most expensive road-going LJ Torana GTR XU-1. The super-low-mileage example went under the hammer at Burns & Co Auctions, selling for an astronomical $295,000 – over $100,000 more than the previous record-holding XU-1. Here’s what you had to say about the result on Facebook. Mike Denison – I remember them coming off the line at the Elizabeth plant in ’72 at a tad more than $3K – maybe less. Anthony Byrne – Real race-bred street car. Daniel Vose – Considering how much Monaros go for, this is a bargain! They’ll be going for $1 million in the near future. Michael Kilgour – Soooo wish I hadn’t written mine off. Mine was a June 72. Looked exactly like this one. Joseph…

BURNOUT BIG GUNS, DRAG STRIP WEAPONS AND TOUGH POWERSKIDDERS HEAD TO FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND FOR THE EPIC THREE-DAY HORSEPOWER BLOWOUT OF NORTHERN NATS 5 SPRINGMOUNT Raceway, host to Northern Nats 5, isn’t an easy place to reach. Circled by mountains, the Far North Queensland strip is over an hour by twisty road from Cairns, itself some 1700km from Brisbane or 2500km from Sydney. Sure, it’s a sunny escape as winter arrives, but the event still needs a substantial dangling carrot to attract the big guns from down south. The answer lies in cold, hard cash. At Northern Nats, there’s gold in them thar skids. Across the three days of competition, $25,000 in prize money is on offer – the sort of cash you’d otherwise only see at Summernats for Burnout…

AFTER most of 2020 crawled by without any car events on the radar, we automotive obsessives have been hankering for any opportunity to return to the race track, drag strip or local car meet with our fellow deviants. Drooling over perfect paint, enormous engines and wicked wheels online just doesn’t quite feed the soul the way wandering around ogling shiny metal in person does. So, when the original date of 14 February for the 2021 Geelong All Ford Day copped a smack with the cancel gavel due to the snap February lockdown, it looked like we were going to miss out on the southern hemisphere’s largest Ford gathering for the first time in 30 years. However, with the lockdown over and a revised COVID plan in hand, the AFD team…

WHEN Manuel Thomason went looking for a project car to build with Wazza, his mate of 25 years, his first thought was to find an HQ. After all, the 48-year-old concreter considered himself a dyed-in-the-wool Holden man, having owned an HQ ute with a 327ci SBC, an HR Premier and a Torana running a hot six. But all that changed when he and Wazza found an XP Falcon sedan hiding under a rotting tarp in a Penrith shed. The car had been sitting there for some 25 years, unloved and untouched, just waiting for someone to rescue it. Manuel took one look at it and handed over the cash. While the XP came with six-cylinder running gear, Manuel had a clear vision for what he wanted the car to look…

WHO would’ve thought that one day we’d be writing about a nine-second, completely useable street car that makes over 750rwhp with an unopened engine? Well, that’s exactly the case with Wayne Lineker’s 2017 Ford Mustang GT. The car he originally bought to be his daily drive now packs a ProCharged punch, but retains all the standard Mustang driveline bits and has run a PB of 9.70@149mph. “It’s awesome to see what you can do these days with standard stuff, and it shows how capable these cars are for the money,” says Wayne. The six-speed transmission remains untouched, as does the factory LSD, with the only major driveline modifications being an upgraded Circle D 3200rpm converter, a Spicer one-piece aluminium tailshaft and Driveshaft Shop 2000hp driveshafts. As for the mighty Coyote…

THE FEELING OF KNOWING THAT I’M PART OF THE ’59 IS AMAZING; I NOW KNOW HOW IT ALL WORKS JOANNE Darwin is a passionate car enthusiast keen to encourage women to work on their own rides. A country girl at heart, Joanne knows first-hand the joy and sense of accomplishment that comes from doing something yourself. Most recently, she’s been wrenching, prepping and doing a bit of everything else on her enviable ’59 Chev El Camino pick-up. How’d you come across the El Camino? I was sick of driving my partner’s cars, so I wanted one of my own. When I wasn’t having any luck finding the ’68 Pontiac that my heart was set on, my husband Anthony suggested I look at his mate’s ’59 El Camino. Although the car…

01 BRIGHT SPARKS AEROFLOW Performance’s 8.5mm universal ceramic sparkplug wire sets have been designed with high-temperature applications in mind. They feature ceramic lead boots fitted in straight, 90° or 135° orientations to resist the intense heat (up to 1090°C) generated by close-fitting headers and turbos. The other end is kept open, ready to be trimmed to your desired length. Aeroflow also offers ceramic LS ignition lead sets with 135° plug boots and pre-crimped 45° boots to suit LS coils. For more info, head to aeroflowperformance.com. 02 PUT A RING ON IT IT’S NO surprise that the bulk of engine friction comes from your piston rings. Hastings Manufacturing Company knows this too, and has developed a series of ultra-thin piston rings to cut down on power-robbing friction. Hastings’ stainless steel-series ring…

THE September issue of Street Machine is going to be a 244-page extravaganza, celebrating the 40th anniversary of this esteemed journal of record. We’ve got a stack of fun stuff planned, but one thing we’re really pumped for is the return of our much-loved Expression Session column. Kicking off in the March 1997 issue of SM, Expression Session was a showcase for wild concept car ideas, featuring artist Jeff Haggarty on the crayons, journo Glenn Torrens on the words and engineer Werner Ihle adjudicating on the legality of what was being proposed. Jeff went on to a long career with Holden, where he worked on some amazing projects, including Efijy, the VZ Monaro, the SST Commodore show car and the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro. Jeff’s last issue was the January 2002…

WRITING feature articles on cars built by Down Town Kustoms is normally quite a task, as the Taree workshop led by Graeme Brewer has built a solid reputation for constructing genre-busting machines overloaded with cool features. It’s never easy to squeeze all of these little details into a concise story, but I found it particularly daunting in the case of Peter Sharp’s SHQRP Monaro, thanks to the sheer scale of the work involved in making this radical, wide-body HQ. COMING UP WITH IDEAS FOR MAD MODS IS ONE THING, BUT WORKING OUT HOW TO INTEGRATE THEM COHESIVELY IS A TOUGHER ASK Still, my own professional struggle doesn’t compare to the strain Graeme Brewer has felt over the past eight years. “It feels like a weight has been lifted now it’s…

YOU could say Max Phillips jumped in at the deep end when, as a young bloke of just 20 years, he made the decision to fly across the country and buy a big block-powered, left-hand-drive US muscle car. “I had a VX Clubby as a P-plater and got sick of that,” Max says. “It was pretty expensive to modify, it made no power and it was slow, so I thought, ‘I’m getting rid of this and getting an older car and making it fast.’” Enter this ’74 Dodge Dart, which Max tracked down via an internet forum, when they used to be a thing. “It was for sale a few months earlier, but I hadn’t sold my other car at the time, so I couldn’t buy it,” he says. “Lucky…

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FEASTING my eyes on Tim Kress’s striking ’64 EH Holden wagon at the Adelaide Auto Expo earlier this year, I was intrigued by the mix of styles on what looked to be a fairly fresh build. Bubble windows; sunroof; flares – oh my! As it turns out, this wagon has 80s show cred, having been formerly known and shown in Queensland under the name ‘Imperial’. And, while some owners may have rebuilt it to that spec, Tim decided he could have his cake and eat it too. He set about creating a neat family cruiser with modern appointments to suit his tastes, while also retaining elements of the car’s history. “I wanted to keep the sunroof, bubble windows, louvre-vented front guards and flares, while also putting my own touches on…

HOLDEN HQ COUPE DANNY CLARKE “HERE’S my big-block HQ coupe project. It’s running an 800hp, 565ci Dart Big M engine and TH400 ’box. It’s been tubbed, and a custom boot floor has been added. The CDS Engineering rear end uses Viking coil-overs, a 35-spline Strange nine-inch diff with Moser axles, and Wilwood brakes. The rest of the floor and tunnel has been raised, and the front end uses United Speed Shop tubular arms with coil-overs. It also has RetroRack power steering, along with Rod Hadfield drop spindles. Under the rear guards sit 15x10 satin Center Lines with Nitto 325/50 radials. When it’s done, it’ll have a Barbados Green GTS exterior and factory-inspired GTS houndstooth interior.” FORD XD FALCON PAOLO BONI “THIS is my Barra-swapped XD Falcon build that is almost…

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. KYLE BRAY HK HOLDEN UTE “MY UTE was bought as a bog-stock, one-owner car with a 161 and three-on-the-tree. It wasn’t long before that was ditched for a carby 304, TH350 and nine-inch. After a short stay, the car was pulled apart for a quick coat of paint and new trim, which quickly got out of hand. The 5.0-litre was ditched for a stock LS1 conversion, before becoming the 600hp turbocharged weapon it is today. It runs a 75mm turbo, Holley Terminator X EFI and E85. It…

THE street machine scene stepped up a serious notch by the late 1980s, with the first Summernats laying an annual foundation for the explosion in build styles coming in hot for the 1990s. Mark Parsons was still deep in car projects at the time, elevating his game with a view to future show and drag-strip success. “I’ve never gambled and I’ve never smoked,” he says. “Money was always precious to me so I could funnel it into cars.” We take up the third part of Mark’s car journey during this period, showcasing some builds that would still draw plenty of admiration today. 01: SIX-HUNDRED bucks bought Mark this grubby blue XB GS as a parts donor for his Fairmont family car. “It was fully optioned with air and steer, and…

HE RIDES a black Harley. He drives a black Camaro ZL1 and his tow-car is a black Dodge Ram. So what on earth possessed Ross Pontonio to buy an orange Mustang? “I used to go down looking around at the cars up for auction, and I saw this orange fastback and just fell in love with it. I don’t know why; I mean, orange is not my favourite colour!” Ross had passed up a black fastback 18 months earlier, but something about the orange 289 ’Stang grabbed him. “I was hell-bent on getting it.” Get it he did, but alongside his black Ram and Camaro, the Mustang’s orange paint was an eyeful. There were no plans to dip the fastback in a fresh coat of black when it landed at…

FOR plenty of people, owning a Monaro is a lifelong goal, something they’ve dreamed of since they were kids. Perth’s Brad Durtanovich, on the other hand, was always more of a Torana guy: “My first car at 17 years old was a genuine GTR XU-1, and then it went bad from there,” he laughs. “I went through basically every form of Torana, and the only thing I wasn’t that keen on in the early days was Monaros!” The Torana affliction culminated in a four-door A9X that Brad restored; it was awarded Best Four Door at the A9X Nationals in 2003. But don’t worry, Brad didn’t turn into some rivet-counting restorer after that. In fact, he’s built a couple of seriously tough cars since then, including an EK Holden and a…

ONCE DERIDED as purely practical workhorses, pick-up trucks are finally finding their space in the street machining scene. Today we think of them as super-cool, practical sleds that can look epic jacked into the sky on muddies or laying rail on big-inch wheels. It was this ground-pounding style that captured Glenn Smith’s imagination, though his path to this righteous, supercharged dentside Ford F100 actually began when he tried to buy a Chevy truck! “I had put a deposit on a Chev 3100 in Queensland, but he sold it out from under me within a day of me going to get it,” says the Sydney detailer. “I love the slammed, ’bagged, low-riding trucks like KC Mathieu’s ‘Red Morning’ F100 and Aaron Kaufman’s bumpside truck, so I found this F100 in Victoria.…

PLENTY of pre-1978 cars showed up to cop a thrashing over a March weekend at the fourth Retrospeed Wilby Park Sprints, held at the Wilby Park circuit, not far from the Victoria/NSW border. The range of classes encompassed the entire history of motoring from pre-World War I to the late 70s, with everything from custom-built specials and purpose-built track cars to street cruisers showing up to play. Wilby Park has an authentic old-school feel to it, too – perfect for this type of event. The track was leased for the weekend from the Wilby Park Motorsports Club, while insurance and licensing were covered by the Australian Auto Sport Alliance (AASA). Camping was available on Friday and Saturday nights, with the sprints taking place on the Saturday. THE RANGE OF CLASSES…

THE RAISED FRONT CROSSMEMBER TAKES A BEATING, BUT AS I LIKE TO SAY, “IT’S NOT A PARTY ’TIL THE CROSSMEMBER SCRAPES!” WHEN Street Machine featured the 1971 Camaro of Dayton, Ohio resident Gary Buckles in our March 1994 issue, the US pro street universe was ruled by wild, over-the-top graphics, mile-high metal mountains poking out of hoods and wall-to-wall tweed. Gary’s Camaro had none of that. Completely smooth and slick, it boasted a radical stance and an even more radical all-metal interior. There wasn’t a hint of tweed or exposed engine hardware in sight. Instead, it was ultra-clean, and the razor-sharp styling elevated this Camaro to icon status. Gary has owned the car the entire time, and it still looks just the same as it did at the ’93 and…

AT THE ripe young age of 17, Zac Luk was already the proud owner of two VK Commodores. He’d found a mint one-owner six-banger, complete with sunvisor, and had plans to slot in a V8. But then he came across the one gracing these pages. “This one came up and it was perfect, so I convinced Mum and Dad to let me buy it,” Zac says. “It was a 308 car, but I took the motor out and sold it.” That might seem like a strange decision, but Zac had a plan. The motor out of ACCUSED, a VN that had graced the cover of Street Commodores, came up for sale, and Zac jumped on it. “I was going to do a 355 package with the original motor – I…

HEY GOOD-LOOKIN’ SEXY billet hardware abounds, including the Pro Billet tunnel ram, APD carbs, Shaun’s Custom Alloy rocker covers, timing cover, belt drive system, CVR alternator tor and Lowe Fabrications alternator bracket. But how’s this for going to extremes to ensure the engine looks the part? “A lot of race engines require the inlet manifold to be removed frequently for maintenance, so we often machine O-ring grooves into the inlet faces of the cylinder heads to make that quicker and easier,” says Damian. “In this case it was more for looks. The runners on the tunnel ram are CNC-machined to the shape of the ports, so if we were to use factory-style inlet manifold gaskets, it’d look pretty ugly. By using O-rings, we can do away with the manifold gaskets…