Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2024 i Street Machine

IT’S long been touted as Australia’s biggest horsepower party, but the 36th running of Street Machine Summernats was the biggest of them all. Gates were thrown open to entrant campers on Wednesday for the first time ever, allowing them to settle in and limber up for the days of sheer radness that lay ahead. Over the course of five days, Exhibition Park in Canberra welcomed a monumental 130,000 people – an all-time Summernats record. “The scale of the event this year was just enormous,” said ’Nats frontman Andy Lopez. “On top of 130,000 people at the event itself, we also had 30,000 people join us for the Fringe Festival in Braddon, including 22,000 on the Saturday night alone. And as usual, we also had somewhere north of 20,000 people lining…

IT WAS a banner year in the Elite Hall at Street Machine Summernats 36, with an incredible array of models and build styles on show. Everything from tough Aussie classics to hot rods to lesser-spotted Japanese and British rides sat gleaming in the hall for punters to enjoy, the one common denominator among them being the incredible level of detail, craft and quality finish lavished upon them. Exemplifying this was the truly outstanding FORGED XY Fairmont of Dan Morton, which scooped up practically every top elite award going, including the big one: Top Judged Elite. Here are the Top 10 elite cars of Summernats 36. ELITE TOP 10 JOE BAUER – 1968 DODGE CHARGER Top Pro Two-Door MIKE DAVISON – 1954 CHEV BEL AIR Top Special Effects Finish ROB DE…

There was plenty of celebration happening around EPIC on day three of Street Machine Summernats 36, but few would have partied harder than Andrew ‘LYNCHY’ Lynch, who was crowned Burnout Master for the first time after years of skidding his infamous Corolla in the Masters. The other Masters finalists cheered along with the pumped-up crowd when Lynchy was announced as the winner – a fitting tribute to his long history of wild ’Nats performances. Runner-up went to Chris Orchard in his NASCAR-powered VH Commodore, THE GAME, followed by Robert Cottrell in third in his 4DH8RS XD Falcon. It had already been an epic Masters instalment even before Saturday’s finals. It all began on Thursday with the Last Chance Wildcard Shootout, where competitors who hadn’t already booked their Masters spot fought…

CERTAIN cars speak to us, and sometimes there’s little rhyme or reason as to why. For Sydney’s Shane Serret, it was Brett ‘Woodsy’ Woods’s blown-and-injected big-block HG wagon race car that made him frothier than a two-dollar cappuccino. And now he owns it! “It was originally built by Woodsy probably 18 years ago,” Shane says. “It had run 8.0 in the SS/AA class back then, I think, but then it went through three or four hands and wound up in Tasmania, where it was abused and raced into ruin.” IT ISN’T SOMETHING I’D TAKE OUT ALL THE TIME, BUT I’VE ALWAYS WANTED THE BIG BLOWER OUT THE BONNET; THAT SUMMERNATS LOOK Shane had always had a soft spot for Woodsy’s wagon, but he didn’t have the money to buy it…

LANGUISHING in a shed for 20 years had done this XR Falcon no favours, but its young custodian Bryce McCabe was more than up to the task of giving it a second life. It just took him five years and a ridiculous amount of hard yakka to get it together. You see, Bryce has been a Ford fan since birth, and he’d always wanted an XR. “I’ve always liked Falcons with circular tail-lights, and that, combined with the overall styling of the car, is what drew me to them,” he says. But at age 16 and just grasping a set of L-plates, those ambitions were too grandiose for his budget, so he switched his focus to another classic, an early Corolla! With a spray painting apprenticeship underway, Bryce launched into…

THE publication you’re currently reading really hit its stride in the mid-to-late 80s. Street Machine mags back then were packed with cars that are still beloved and influential today, and the covers are seared into the brains of just about every nostalgia-minded punter. However, few issues are more iconic than December 1985, thanks to HQFORU, our first-ever giveaway car. SM had built a few projects in its early years, but editor Phil Scott upped the ante in 1985 by assigning touring car racer, mechanical guru and columnist Kevin Bartlett to create a hot HQ Monaro that would eventually be given to one über-lucky reader. Over the next five months, KB oversaw its transformation from a mild-mannered 1971 LS coupe into a circuit racer-inspired icon. It involved a 350 Chev driveline,…

EVERYONE has a vision for their car before they commence a build, and Neville Shears’s idea for his XD was about as specific as you can get. “I wanted to build something to take me back to the 80s, cruising down Northbourne Avenue at Summernats,” he says. “That’s a golden era to me, and the perfect kind of car to build as a cruiser.” Having owned plenty of tough old Fords before, Nev wanted this next car to be a stand-out. “I love the vans, and I was set on getting an XD – windowless with the tailgate rear instead of barn doors,” he says. “That was bloody hard! The tailgate was a $4000 option back then, so I spent ages trying to find the right car.” He eventually lucked…

SIMON MAJOR VG VALIANT “I WAS 18 back in 1991 when I bought my 1971 VG hardtop off the original owner for $2300. By the late 90s, it was running a high 13-second Hemi 265 along with 1968 Dodge Dart stripes and US Charger hubcaps, whitewalls and a custom full grille. It stayed this way for the next two decades, and I became completely bored with it. I’d also built a V8-powered VF hardtop called ‘Old Daze’, so I decided I’d cull the fleet by combining the two; I switched the complete drivelines, sold Old Daze and got busy re-imagining the VG as ‘Loose Morals’. Some life challenges stripped me of virtually any spare time, so my good mate Andrew ‘Macka’ McDonald freshened the 318 on my behalf with a…

A staple of 1980s post-Hey Hey It’s Saturday night-time TV movies, comic duo Terence Hill and Bud Spencer starred in 18 films together, the most popular of which were the Trinity series of ‘spaghetti’ Westerns – so named due to them being filmed in Italy. But 1974’s Watch Out, We’re Mad is my favourite of the lot. This film centres around the friendship (and rivalry) between racers Kid (Hill) and Ben (Spencer), who gallantly battle one another in a rallycross race to win a brand-new Puma dune buggy. After tying for first place, the pair retire to Ben’s mechanical workshop to ponder a suitable challenge to decide which of them will become the buggy’s rightful owner. However, their plans change when a group of local gangsters, headed by wannabee kingpin…

EVERYONE’S got their habits, good and bad. Rob De Sciscio from South Australia has a very good one – collecting classic cars around Christmas time! “During every Christmas break, I have a habit of looking for project cars,” says Rob, who has scooped up quite a few fresh rides over yuletides past, mostly small-bodied Toranas. “I’ve always had a soft spot for the LC and LJ coupes – at one stage I had a shed full of them,” he admits. This particular 1970 LC GTR popped up during one of Rob’s habitual holiday trawling sprees 13 years ago. It had already been mini-tubbed and fitted with a nine-inch, so he reckoned it’d be easy enough to finish off with a quick LS swap and paintjob. The first port of call…

ONE of the undoubted highlights each year at Street Machine Summernats is the Great Meguiar’s Uncover, where a slew of brand new, never-before-seen automotive masterworks are unveiled to the public for the first time. Thursday evening at ’Nats 36 saw the covers pulled off a monumental 23 new builds, and we were front and centre in the Elite Hall to witness it all. DALE MILLICAN – HR HOLDEN UTE SOUTHERN Rod & Custom built this belter of an HR ute for Dale Millican. United Speed Shop sorted the undercarriage in conjunction with Chassisworks Australia. There’s an LSA underneath the bonnet, hooked to a Powerglide and 9in. The interior is by Option Auto Trim, while the Southern lads handled the body and paint. “This isn’t our normal sort of build,” said…

The record book for the Haltech Horsepower Heroes dyno comp was dramatically rewritten during Saturday qualifying at Street Machine Summernats 36, with the Maatouks Racing MAKDDY VL Commodore resetting the overall record with an incredible 2504hp run in the MPW dyno cell. The previous record was held by Brenden ‘Bubba’ Medlyn and his twin-turbo Holden V8-powered VH Commodore, which he set in 2019 at Street Machine Summernats 32 with a run of 2483hp. Talk was that the Maatouks VL was well and truly capable of a 2500hp run with its billet RB30/26 and single turbo combo. MAKDDY is dripping in a heap of Platinum Racing Products goodies, along with the full Haltech Nexus catalogue. There was no warm-up; Anthony Maatouk sat shotgun with dyno operator Adam Rogash as the VL…

THE fourth and final day of Street Machine Summernats 36 climaxed with 40 Burnout Championship contenders taking turns to violate the skid pad in a last-chance effort to win the Championship crown. It had already been an eventful competition up to that point, with things really heating up on Saturday afternoon during the second round of eliminations, which saw plenty of tyre and engine bay fires as temperatures soared on the blacktop. Daniel Vella in the FRYLC Torana had flames licking the wall during his skid on Saturday, while New Zealand contenders Ryan Shirtcliffe and Garrett Matthews had bad luck, both hitting the wall in the VIOLENT Mitsubishi Lancer and DSPRNG HQ Tonner respectively. Shane D’Amato blew the tyres off his blown VS ute, GHETTO, while Thomas McManaway drove his…

DURING THE BUILD, I HAD TO STOP FOR EIGHT MONTHS WHILE I HAD ADELAIDE’S Mike Bowden had been thinking about sticking a late-model EFI mill into an older car for nigh on 30 years, and he’s finally done so with his awesome Barra-powered XF Falcon. Why did it take him so long? Quite simply, he felt he didn’t have the know-how. “I thought about making my spinner [SM, Sep ’19] retrotech by adding an EFI Ford Windsor engine,” he admits, “but at the time, the electronic stuff was a bit beyond me.” That’s why, for the past few decades, Mike’s stuck with carby-fed rides that he’s wrenched on, panel-beaten and painted himself. His work as a panel guy with Adelaide’s Auto Transformers has also seen him fashion countless immaculate cruisers…

SUMMERNATS is hands-down the biggest car show in the country, and it’s daylight to second. An enormous volume of trophies and accolades are bestowed each year upon all different types of cars, from Tuff Street monsters to stunning Elite showpieces, tyre-melting pro burnout cars and 2000hp-plus dyno-destroying powerhouses. But, in my humble opinion at least, one of the coolest awards a bloke or sheila can win at Street Machine Summernats has long been Street Champion. Think of it as a Grand Champion award for proper, jump-in-and-drive street cars. To win the award, your car has to impress the judges, and you’ve got to be able to pedal the thing properly in the grass driving events. There’s no use turning up with a car that you can’t or won’t drive with…

PROFLO PERFORMANCE HQ HOLDEN GTS “THIS HQ Holden started life as a genuine GTS sedan in the rare hue of Gunmetal Metallic with Lone O’Ranger stripes. Owner Mick isn’t good at keeping anything original, so he quickly got into the build by getting the car sandblasted, and then dropped it off to us here at ProFlo Performance to give it the signature stance we are known for. We’ve modified the rear end to fit the 15x10 Weld Racing rear wheels and 275/60 tyres. In order to turn that rubber into smoke and keep Mick pleased, nothing less than 632ci of full-fat Chevy will power the HQ. The car is now off getting panelwork, and the original colours will be sprayed back on before heading back to ProFlo to get fitted…

GAG OF THE MONTH A BIT TESTY A WOMAN went to her doctor for a follow-up visit after the doctor had prescribed testosterone for her. She was a little worried about some of the side effects she was experiencing. “Doctor, the hormones you’ve been giving me have really helped, but I’m afraid that you’re giving me too much. I’ve started growing hair in places that I’ve never grown hair before.” The doctor reassured her, “A little hair growth is a perfectly normal side effect of testosterone. Where has this hair appeared?” The woman replied, “On my testicles, which is something else I wanted to talk to you about…” A Biggsak, email AUTHORITY FIGURE AN AFP officer knocks on a farmer’s door. “I need to inspect your farm for illegal drug…

EACH year on the first evening of Summernats, the Street Machine team, our partners and some of the country’s top car builders gather to celebrate the crowning of the Milwaukee Street Machine of the Year. This year’s award went to Gary and Jake Myers and their famous Mustang, making it the fourth time the Myers name has been engraved on the iconic SMOTY trophy. “It was a busy night!” said Gary. “We get an invite to the SMOTY party every year, and it’s always good to catch up with people you often don’t see the rest of the year. It’s been a few times now that we’ve won the award, but it still feels like an absolute privilege.” Gary was clearly as proud as punch to be sharing the award…

IT’S not uncommon these days to see a V8 and twin turbos in a low-eight-second streeter, but the way Theo Diamond’s 1972 VH Valiant Charger takes on that power is anything but normal. You see, the 388ci Mopar R3 mill in the engine bay uses a blow-through carby set-up. There’s no injectors or ECU to be seen – just good old-fashioned screwdriver and jet tuning to go with all that boost. “It was tempting to start again, as technology evolved during this build, and the goal posts did move several times,” says Theo of his Charger build. “But I made a decision to stay old-school and stuck with minimal electronics. I’ve got a lot of Holley carby tuning experience, and it gives it a point of difference being a blow-through.”…

THE Grand Champion award at Street Machine Summernats is one of the most coveted gongs in our scene, and it takes a well-built, well-rounded and well-driven car to win it. There are four key components to the competition, being Judging, People’s Choice, Go-to-Whoa and Slalom, so a car has to impress the judges, poll well with the masses, and go, stop and steer in order to earn the Grand Champ sword. Summernats 36 saw a bunch of killer cars in the mix, from balls-out pro streeters like Joe Bauer’s 3000hp BLOWN RT Hemi Dodge Charger to exquisitely finished street cars like Zoran Krstevski’s XE Falcon – not to mention Dan Morton’s exceptional FORGED XY Falcon, which many pundits consider to be the best custom car ever built on Aussie soil.…

IF YOU were at Street Machine Summernats 36 and happened to wonder how our mates in NZ do things, you were in luck. Operating from the paddock side of the burnout pad were four epic skid cars fresh from a journey across the Tasman. Premier Events coordinated the mission, with NZ performance-scene stalwart Azhar Bhamji at the helm. “The Chrome Horsepower Festival is our big event in New Zealand, and it’s been going for about 10 years now,” he said. “We did a massive promotion in partnership with Summernats, and the grand prize was that we’d bring four cars to Australia to compete against the best here. “In August, we had Chrome in Auckland, and we had about 35 of the best of the best in NZ turn up for…

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IN OCTOBER last year, Border Battle returned to Albury-Wodonga for the third time since its inception in 2019, and the warring parties from New South Wales and Victoria brought their A games. This State of Origin-style car show has come along in leaps and bounds. With entrant numbers limited to 100 and with an emphasis on showing a variety of cars and automotive subcultures, it has widened its appeal by adding family activities and live music. Spectator entry cost a measly gold coin donation for adults and was free for kids under 16, and the show drew a large crowd of car enthusiasts and the general public. The event is put on by Street Machine photographer Luke Hunter, with the help of a dedicated group of volunteers. “The concept of…

DEATH Race!” shouted the Melbourne tabloid Truth in 1984. Cannonball Run fever had landed in Australia, with two cross-continent sprints to be held within a month of each other. While October 1984’s Paradise to Perth was a humble three-car gig, the Australian Cannonball Cup promised to be bigger, faster and sexier. Thirty-three teams forked out $550 a pop to race across the 3800 kays between north-west Melbourne and Fremantle. Organisers flexed coordinated air support and radio comms to warn of police, with a $10,000 prize for whoever got home first. Like most great schemes of the 80s, the Cup soon brewed into a circus of unpaid debtors, cops behaving badly and media sensationalism, with some sleep-deprived Nullarbor hallucinations thrown in for good measure (scan the QR code on page 101…

TWENTY-two-year-old Jack Mill is a Summernats regular and former Young Gun with his rad, low-buck VS ute (SM, Jun ’22), but this year he upped the ante with another LS swap into a very different machine. This angry, yet tidy and well-disguised Suzuki Swift instantly caught our eye when we saw it ripping up Skid Row on day one of Street Machine Summernats 36, so we chased Jack to the car wash bays to find out more! This thing is awesome, mate! What’s the story of the build? We were looking around on Marketplace for something that was tiny and that somebody had never done. This Swift popped up for $500; it was a paddock-basher. We couldn’t go wrong. It was running and driving, so I picked it up and…

A SCREAMING straight-six with triple carbs isn’t an uncommon sight in the pages of this fine magazine, but you probably haven’t seen one quite like this before. Despite the angled block, this isn’t a Chrysler slant, and nor is it from Ford or GM. Nope, this is as European as they come. “The engine is a BMW M20B25, which is a small six”, says Danno ‘Grooty’ Groot, the South Australian responsible for this raging beast. “It’s a street/circuit build for my partner Jo’s 1985 BMW E30 323i race car. We’ve chased everything in the engine for every last horsepower, aiming for two horsepower per cubic inch.” Starting with a mint 1988 325i iron block, it features a factory forged crank from an M52B28 2.8-litre that copped some isotropic polishing courtesy…