Innehållsförteckning för September 2021 från Street Machine

TAMWORTH could soon become the motorsport hub of country NSW, with plans to reinvent the Oakburn Park Motorsport Complex into a world-class facility with a speedway, racing circuit and drag strip. The Tamworth Sporting Car Club (TSCC) recently shared a video on its Facebook page outlining the plans in place for the facility. The plans are to progress in three major stages. Stage two is the most important, as it will include the construction of a new 1.2km Touring Car circuit and an ANDRA-sanctioned eighth-mile drag strip. Stage three will then see the drag strip extended to a full quarter-mile and the circuit increased to a 3.1km layout. Oakburn Park is just 13km from the Tamworth CBD, with the TSCC regularly using the current 760m short circuit for hillclimb and…

THOUGH many acclaimed flicks have been based on the works of Stephen King, Maximum Overdrive was the first – and so far last – to have been directed by the horror legend himself. Based loosely on King’s short story Trucks, Maximum Overdrive kicks off with a drawbridge mysteriously rising by itself, sending motorists to their doom to the tune of AC/DC’s Who Made Who. This sets the tone for the rest of the film – machines running amok, sound-tracked by more Acca Dacca songs. Much of the action takes place around the Dixie Boy Truck Stop outside Wilmington, North Carolina. Things begin to go awry when a misbehaving diesel bowser blinds an attendant and an arcade gamer (a young Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad fame) is electrocuted. It’s here that…

HQFORU WAS THE BRAINCHILD OF THEN-EDITOR PHIL SCOTT, WHO BELIEVED A GIVEAWAY CAR WAS A SURE THING TO DRIVE UP SALES STREET Machine has built a number of awesome project cars over the past 40 years, but not many can hold a candle to the popularity and longevity of our sixth build, the HQFORU Monaro. Maybe it’s because it was our first project to be given away to a reader. Maybe it’s because it’s hard to beat the iconic shape of an HQ Monaro. Or perhaps it’s just because HQFORU was tougher than Japanese maths. Whatever the reasons, this car has lived long in our collective memory. Fortunately, it’s also lived long in the garage of street machining power couple Rodney and Judith Menso. Late in 1985, I was one…

STREET Machine of the Year is one of the longest-running, most prestigious, most lucrative and certainly most democratic prizes in the Aussie car-crafting scene, with $20,000 and eternal bragging rights on the line. For a tilt at winning, a car must have been built primarily in Australia and featured in Street Machine over the past year. Like last year, we’ve turned to SM staff and contributors to select the 16 finalists. A grand total of 60 cars ended up with at least one vote from a member of our team, reflecting the number of incredible builds that have graced our pages of late. The addition of our 2020 Yearbook made the decision even harder by throwing more amazing metal into the mix. Now it’s up to you to decide who…

YOU only have to read the comments below any online Street Machine piece on Howard Bell’s iconic LX Torana to get a taste of the impact it had on a generation of enthusiasts: “Still got the poster!”; “Best Torana ever built”; “This would have been one of the tuffest cars on the road once upon a time”; and countless shared links between mates with, “Remember this?” What makes this car so legendary? Howard Bell paid $6981 for a brand-new Mandarin Red LX SL/R 5000 at Dustings Holden in Burwood, Victoria, in April 1976. It was a 21st birthday present to himself. The dealership no longer exists, though its sticker remains on the Torana’s rear windscreen. Street Machine was still years away from its first issue. Malcolm Fraser was Aussie PM.…

MORE than 1000 Fords rolled up to Willowbank Raceway for the 39th All Ford Day in July, though it was a close-run thing, with COVID breakouts across the country threatening to stop the party. Fortunately for Queensland’s Blue Oval buffs, the day got done, although under different circumstances than in previous years. AFD is organised by the Falcon GT Owners Club of Queensland’s Tammy and Mark Van Der Togt. Mark also happens to be Drag Challenge royalty, having taken out the first-ever Drag Challenge Weekend win in his savage 1600hp twin-turbo XW Futura. “COVID definitely made the day tricky with masks and check-ins, but while we may be a little down on numbers compared to 2019, it was a pretty good turnout,” Mark says. It just goes to show that…

TESTING THE TORSIONAL RIGIDITY OF A CAMARO’S FRAME BEFORE ADDING A FULL AFTERMARKET CHASSIS THE process of making a killer street machine legal is shrouded in conjecture and mythology, so when Glenn Davies of Moits Motorcars invited us along to watch the process of putting a car through torsional twist testing, we jumped at it. The Moits team were doing this as part of a 1968 Chevy Camaro they’re constructing for Customs 4 Cancer. While the charity previously raised a stack of money for the Cancer Council when they raffled Cooper Zahabi’s Rides By Kam-built 1970 Chevy Nova, they’ve progressed to commissioning Moits Motorcars to build them a killer Camaro featuring all the go-to pro touring gear, like Forgeline wheels, Tremec manual transmission and a full Roadster Shop SPEC-series aftermarket…

KEN Buckland’s ’67 Mustang coupe was one of the most talked-about cars at Street Machine Summernats 12 in 1998-99. Usually, cars that cause that level of tongue-wagging are fierce, over-the-top mechanical monsters, but not in the case of this thoroughbred. Ken’s Mustang was pure class, with wholesale restyling taking a back seat to breathtaking workmanship and incredible finish. The level to which the underside had been caressed left mouths agape inside the Elite Hall, including those of the judges. Even the highly experienced John Taverna singled it out for special comment: “The engine bay is beautiful, then the underside, plus up inside the wheelarches. He’s spent a lot of time on this car; I just love it!” Street Machine featured the car in our June 1999 issue, where scribe Mark…

SIMON KINGSWELL CHEVROLET C10 “HAVING been into slammed and custom cars and US-style mini-trucks for some time, it was no surprise that this 1965 C10 grabbed my attention when I saw it laid out at Kustomnats many years ago. Fast-forward a few years and I saw it advertised for sale on Facebook. I couldn’t believe my eyes! I was on the phone in an instant and in no time flat a deal was done. The C10 is largely unchanged from when I purchased it. It runs a 350 Chev with a Thumpr cam, four-into-one extractors and a 650 Holley carby. That is backed by a Turbo 350 trans with a small stall converter, and a slip-yolk tailshaft mated to the standard diff. Wheels are 15x6 all ’round with radial whitewall…

FORCE-fed small-blocks making four-digit power figures have been all the rage for a while now, but there are some guys who want the old-school, kick-the-door-down bad attitude of a big aspirated engine in their tough-as-nails street car. This NA fat-block built by John Pilla at Powerhouse Engines is exactly one of these combos, and it is going into a tubbed HQ Monaro coupe being built by Ballarat’s Dave Guilfoyle of DJ Automotive & Towing. “The customer was going to set the car up to do burnouts, but it did one skid and nuked the previous engine,” Dave explains. “I think the last engine made 2200hp when it was set up to run on methanol with a 14/71 blower, but this is a whole new combo that is designed for street…

IN A huge shake-up for Aussie drag racing, the country’s four active Top Fuel teams have broken away from the IHRA-sanctioned 400 Thunder Series to launch the Australian Top Fuel Championship. Jim Read Racing, Lamattina Top Fuel Racing, PremiAir Racing and Rapisarda Autosport International have all committed to the inaugural series, which will include races in Victoria and WA for the first time in years. “Victorian and West Australian fans have been wanting Top Fuel championship events, so it’s great to add these regions to the mix,” said Rapisarda Autosport International crew chief Santino Rapisarda. Although the calendar is still being finalised, the 2022 Australian Top Fuel Championship is set to include six rounds across four states and territories, with at least six Top Fuel cars planning to race at…

LETTER OF THE MONTH SPARK THE FIRE I HAVE made a discovery about the infamous Starfire engine, which was created by cutting down a six-cylinder big-car donk into a four to go into Toyota Coronas and others to meet government quotas of the time. Quick recap for context: the Starfire ran like crap, sucked petrol and quickly gained a reputation for being a piece of shit! I ended up being given one of these Coronas, which inevitably led me into the Starfire quagmire. But here’s the kicker: I discovered what the fault was! The standard set for the timing was about 15 degrees out. My hypothesis is that the timing mark on the leading pulley wheel had been notched 15 degrees off the correct position, causing the spark timing to…

FOR Frank Vadnjal, cars are more than just fun toys to cruise around in on sunny Sunday arvos. Cars have provided an opportunity to work beside family and friends, to share in the joy of achieving something, and to build stronger bonds. His Lime Frost XW Fairmont is the epitome of that, and it’s been the catalyst for a stable of stout streeters that Frank and his 20-year-old son Nicholas have built up over the past few years. Frank bought the 1970 Fairmont after a chance sighting at a car show in 2014. “I saw the XW for sale at the Picnic at Hanging Rock Classic Car Show,” he says. “It was a totally unmolested factory V8 Fairmont that had sat around for the past 18 years.” While Frank wasn’t…

THERE are two schools of thought when it comes to crafting a car that can travel at speeds somewhere in the vicinity of ‘the clappers’. The first posits giving it a powerplant that generates the kind of output required to move a container ship, while the second argues for making it so light that adding two occupants would double the kerb weight. Of course, there are some who recognise the benefits of both schools and concoct crazy creations like Frank Cannistra’s mean little Datsun ute. Dubbed HEL113, this Datto is not Frank’s first foray into the wild world of brutally quick cars. “My brother is a Ford guy and has an XY GT, and my uncle has an original Phase III,” says Frank. “My first car was an XW Falcon…

WE’VE built plenty of cars over the 40-year history of Street Machine. Some were to give away, some were for fun, and some seemed like a good idea at the time but we were too dumb to run for the hills when they lobbed in the car park. Carnage falls into the second and third categories. It is dumb fun with cars! Over a couple of lunchtime souvlakis in 2017, then-editor Simon Telford suggested that we build up a few cars on our YouTube channel for cheap fun. The idea was to amp up our online video presence and bring more subscribers to our channel, which at the time had fewer than 20,000. Four years later, we’ve added another 120,000 subscribers and 30 million views, and had a great time…

IN EARLY 2013, the world got its first look at General Motors’ high-tech V8 that would soon take over from the LS series, and bring with it some cool new, horsepower-rich tech. Dubbed the LT1, the fifth-generation Chevy small-block carries many familiar features over from the Gen III and IV LS engines, but is a whole new design that will throw a couple of curveballs at punters hoping to apply their LS knowledge to the new donk. Offered in a 6.2-litre capacity, the naturally aspirated LT1 (335kW) and LT2 (365kW), and the supercharged LT4 (484kW) and LT5 (563kW) all feature variable valve timing and variable-pressure oil and cooling systems. Some features like Active Fuel Management (AFM) will be familiar to LS experts, but the biggest change is the switch from…

WHEN it comes to EH utes and panos, I can’t help but feel a little sad that they didn’t get the sexy rear end that EH sedans and wagons did. Sure, the guys at GM-H had their reasons for it, but it’s always been a massive ‘what if?’ in my mind. So when Tim Bubb submitted this concept for the Expression Session, I was excited to help explore how a proper EH rear end could look on a ute. Tim’s initial brief was pretty simple, but no easy feat, either: “What if Holden had styled the EH ute similar to an El Camino?” Based on Tim’s initial scissors-and-paper rendering of an EH sedan cut into an El Camino, the job was going to entail a two-door conversion, extended quarter panels…

XC FALCON SARAH MILHAM “I PURCHASED my XC sight-unseen from Sydney in 2015 and got it shipped to Melbourne where I gutted the inside of it and put it back to original. With the help of my dad, I spent a week sanding the car back, bogging it up (shhh!), doing the primer and painting it the XA Wild Plum colour. I purchased Challenger rims for it, which cost me more than the rest of the car! It’s running a 351 Cleveland engine with auto transmission and nine-inch diff. I’m hoping to one day finish the job so I can enjoy this Aussie classic.” HG KINGSWOOD GEO MOLINARO “I’VE HAD this 1970 Kingswood for 10 years. A freshly built 383 stroker engine with alloy heads provides the power, backed by…

GAG OF THE MONTH HEAD ON THERE once was a boy who was born as just a head. On the boy’s 18th birthday, his dad decided to take him out to a pub to buy him his first beer. So the father and the son-who-was-just-a-head arrived at the pub and the dad ordered them both a beer. The son finished his beer, and suddenly, out popped two arms! Everyone in the pub was so excited. “Drink another beer; see what happens!” they all cried. So the son drank another beer, and out popped two legs! Everyone in the pub cheered. “Drink another one!” they cried. So the son ordered another beer and drank it. Suddenly, out popped a torso – he finally had a full body! Having been just a…

AS THE new millennium approached, Mark Parsons was celebrating nearly a quarter of a century building hot cars – long enough to have seen certain styles and fads come and go. But what separated Mark from many of his peers was his general lack of brand allegiance – he just loves cars. And if he likes a certain car or can just plain see potential in a particular make or model, he’s always jumped in balls-deep and given each project his all. 01: WELL-known hot rodder Len Moore was a good mate of Mark’s. “He had a very tough green T-bucket that ran a blown small-block Chev, which he would drag-race in a pair of overalls – no rollcage or anything,” Mark says. “He owned a Ford wrecking yard in…

13 ISSUES FOR Only $64.68 THAT’S $4.98 PER ISSUE! Scan the QR code streetmachine.subscription.com.au Phone 136 116 Offer represents a 50% saving on the cover price of $9.95. Valid from midnight July 4, 2021 to midnight September 5, 2021. Available on 13 month Australian subscriptions only. Offer is valid for new subscriptions and renewals of existing subscriptions. For full terms and condition please visit magshop.com.au/dad. The Promoter is Are Media Pty Ltd (ABN 18053273546).…

MITCH DECIDED TO GIVE THE XP A REBUILD. HE DISASSEMBLED IT IN THE GARAGE AND IT SAT THAT WAY FOR MORE THAN A DECADE THIS classic XP Falcon coupe has been part of Ange and Mitch Wallace’s family for a very long time. Ange’s father, Bob Westwood, purchased it in the mid 70s for his wife Judy. It was her first car and she learnt to drive in it. Many years later, Bob helped out Ange and her husband Mitch by swapping the XP for Mitch’s car, which had finance owing on it. The generous deal helped Ange and Mitch shake some debt and buy their first home. Fast-forward a few years, and Ange and Mitch welcomed their son Brenton into their lives. Somewhat ambitiously, Mitch also decided to give…

SILENCE. That’s what gets you with electric cars. Stomp on the throttle and you’re flung forward at surprising rate, but your senses aren’t properly satisfied. No trace of the familiar suck, squeeze, bang, blow of combustion; no grin-bringing exhaust music as you tickle the redline. When a Tesla whisks by, silence is expected, but what about a 1965 Ford Cortina Mk1 humming along like a spaceship? Welcome to the world of electro-modding. Gone is this classic Cortina’s traditional 1500cc Kent four-pot; in its place is a 100kW/235Nm electric motor fed by a 31kWh Tesla battery pack giving a driving range of about 180km. In pubs around the land, beer is spraying from the mouths of the disgusted. Outrage! Sacrilege! Burn the witch! But hang on. What if converting a classic…

FANCY an argument with a car guy? Start chatting about electric vehicles. Prefer a full-blown fist fight? Suggest you’re going to convert your classic car to electric power and do away with its petrol- or diesel-swigging internal combustion heart. Let’s just say ‘electromodding’ isn’t for everyone. But like it or not, it’s an ever-increasing trend. Out goes your engine, fuel system, radiator, exhaust and anything else related to internal combustion. In their place goes one or more electric motors, a battery pack, and a power controller to regulate proceedings. The gearbox and shifter can stay if you wish, but even they can be ditched if you want to lose more weight. The batteries need a cooling system, and to be safely and securely boxed and fitted. You need to fit…

WITH a dad like Mark Schwarz – owner of the Powercruise hero HQ Monaro known as HANFUL – Jacob Lenoble was destined for the burnout life. We caught up with him to find out more about his methanol-drinking, LS2-powered Datsun 120Y, SYCOPTH. I LOVE THE ADRENALINE RUSH, TRYING TO KEEP IT OFF THE WALLS AND FIGURING OUT WHAT TO DO NEXT Growing up around your dad, you’ve probably been in some cool rides. We’ve always had nice Commodores and things with tough motors, so I was always going to be into cars. As a young bloke, how do you fund your hobby? I do house painting with my dad for a living; then I come home and do car painting as well. When did you pick up the Datsun? I’ve…

NATASHA Weltsch has owned an eclectic array of cool and rugged rides over the years, culminating in this tricky little LS1-powered 1979 Toyota Crown. Needless to say, we just had to find out more about Natasha and her unassuming-looking but stout daily. You’ve owned a few very different rides. My first car was an LH Torana sedan. I was going to do it up, but ran out of time and resources and unfortunately had to sell it around six years ago. For a couple of years after that I had a lifted and decked-out 2008 Toyota HiLux that I went four-wheel-driving in. Now it is my Toyota Crown, which has been my daily for the past four years. I wouldn’t trade this car for the world. Tell us about it.…

01 HEAD IN THE GAME WHETHER it’s in a classic XR Falcon streeter or a workhorse AU, a fresh set of heads is a great way to get your Windsor powerplant hopping. Aeroflow is offering new heads to suit the small-block platform, available in 185cc and 200cc capacities. The smaller heads give great performance from idle all the way to 6500rpm – perfect for a street-used engine. These include larger-than-stock 1.32in dual valve springs that will handle up to 0.600in lift and suit flat-tappet and hydraulic camshafts. The 200cc heads take 1.575in springs for up to 0.710in maximum lift, and are ideal for hydraulic-roller cams. They’re available from aeroflowperformance.com. 02 WHEEL NICE LOOKING for a set of wheels to achieve that high-end look without the huge price tag? Our mates…