Innholdsfortegnelse for No 137 October 2016 i NZV8

A few weeks back, I managed to catch up with the undisputed King of Kustoms, John D’Agostino, while he was swapping planes at Auckland Airport. If you haven’t heard of him, don’t worry, you may not be alone, but he’s a pretty big deal abroad when it comes to kustom cars — and I don’t write kustom with the letter ‘K’ to make me look cool. We’ve got a full interview with John in this issue, and it’s an interesting read, even if kustom cars aren’t your thing. While I was talking to John and running him through a few old issues of NZV8, he picked up on something that I’ve been aware of for a long time, but I’ve always held off talking about, not wanting to look like…

EXTRA CHROME If our coverage of the Mothers Chrome Expression Session 2016 later on in this issue doesn’t do the trick for you, we’ve got a huge image gallery up online for your viewing pleasure. Just search ‘Polished to Perfection’ to check it out — you may even spot yourself! REMEMBERING CHRIS AMON We were pretty shocked to hear the news of Chris Amon’s passing on the evening of August 3, and our sister magazine New Zealand Classic Car went through a last-minute redesign to pay homage to the Kiwi motorsport hero. Part of that included uploading a plethora of tributes to Chris Amon to themotorhood.com, our favourite of which is the interview that took place when he was reunited with his BMW CSL ‘Batmobile’ 38 years after he raced…

We saw a few months back that your wife also has a yellow Camaro. Who got theirs first? This one was first. I’d dreamed about it for a while, then, when I was working in Waihi Beach, I needed to go into Waihi to pick up supplies for the job on the day Beach Hop was going through, so I went and had a look. There was a ’78 all done up with a ‘for sale‘ sign on the back, so I sent Jo a photo and said, “Let’s buy it”. She came back straight away, asking, “How much?” It wasn’t the answer I was expecting. They wanted a bit more than I was prepared to spend, but the seller said his friend had one for sale more cheaply, so…

The fact that you’re reading an article about Todd Hall’s staunch-looking ’66 GTO is actually a bit of a happy accident. Todd never set out to build the masterpiece you see here, but the story of how it came to be is one that you won’t be unfamiliar with. It all started some three years ago, when, in Australia, Todd caught sight of a first-generation Pontiac GTO — one of the best-designed vehicles to come out of the US, period. It’s a design that makes an impression, irrespective of your automotive inclinations, and one of only a handful that, through its simplicity — stacked headlights, Coke-bottle hips, and a perfectly proportioned profile — can be classified as art. That look was all it took for Todd to realize how much…

Think about the Australian car scene, then think about New Zealand’s. What’s the main difference? Well, Australia has a thriving show car scene, boasting builds that are consistently stepping the game up to the next level, with a huge automotive events calendar to boot — disregarding any economic factors, there’s a bit of a chicken versus egg scenario there. Do these cars get built demanding events to be shown at, or do the events these cars attend inspire people to step up the quality of their builds? The answer should be obvious … However, to be general, the Australian legal system doesn’t favour hot rodders, be they of the older or younger variety. That’s why they’ve got so many crazy builds taken to the extremes of car building — builds…

Jim Wildermoth’s wild procharged 1976 Mitsubishi Lancer has been a familiar sight at Masterton Motorplex over the past few seasons as it’s worked its way down into the low eightsecond zone. Next time it hits the track, the car is set to look a whole lot different. Over the off season, the steel body was removed and a fibreglass Fiat Topolino body fitted. Of course, the task was far more complex than that, with the body first needing to be widened by 300mm and the A-pillars also requiring modification. With the same F2 procharged 327ci engine under the hood that pushed the far-heavier-bodied vehicle to a best of 8.35s at 149.64mph, all going to plan, the new set-up should see the car closer to the seven-second mark. With a Reid…

As you can imagine, we get a lot of opportunities to see some pretty cool shit here at NZV8. You might even go so far as to say we are privileged — not that you’d catch us complaining. So, when the opportunity arose to have a bit of a poke and prod around at the Kruzin Kustoms open house, we leapt at the chance. The population of little old ‘Noo Zillund’ may be a bit thin on the ground compared with those of other countries inhabited by animals blessed with the opposable thumb, but we sure know how to make the most of those ever-special thumbs when it comes to ingenuity and engineering skills! Kendal Smith and his talented team of fabricators and engineers at Kruzin Kustoms have been part…

Around 15 kilometres out of the Canterbury town of Timaru, on a long country road, lies a group of inconspicuous sheds on a two-acre piece of land that holds not only some beautiful classics belonging to its owners but also a restoration business turning out some of the country’s loveliest resto jobs. Hadleigh Oudemans, his wife, and his six children have called this piece of paradise their home for 14 years. Having done his panel-beating apprenticeship and been lucky enough to learn some old-school techniques, Hadleigh would come home from a busy day and continue working in the shed on old cars. “That’s where my passion is,” says Hadleigh. “I love oldschool restoration.” After working as a foreman in a Timaru panel shop before becoming the floor manager, Hadleigh decided…

The old saying about a builder’s house never being completed is one that most of us know to be true. Of course, for every rule, there’s an exception, and that exception is usually in the form of the builder who not only completes their own house but also does so to awardwinning standard and national acclaim. Wayne ‘Jacko’ Anderson doesn’t build houses; he builds race cars, and, as you may have guessed, he’s more akin to the award winner than the non-completer, as his mindblowing ’75 Chev Monza shows. While Jacko laughs that, when he turns up to the track with the car, people will wonder what this silly old fella is up to, the reality is that he’s had far more race experience than most others on the track,…

I’ve got a lot of respect for anyone who builds a car themself. Whether it’s a simple repower or a full-on tube-frame monster, you’ve got to give credit when it’s due. It’s been said a million times before, by a million different people, but no one else really understands it — living off mi goreng and the cheapest beer that comes in a 15-box (dollar per bottle, mate); grinding — sometimes literally — past midnight; the joy of receiving new parts from the courier; or the setbacks that make you want to say “F*** it all” and throw in the towel. In the past few months, for me, it’s been more of the latter than anything else. Then again, old Holden plus strip-down is obviously going to equal a bit…

Hi Todd, Just a quick email to say congrats on another great mag [Issue No. 135]. The article Burnside Style was a good read. Also, your coverage of the first Parked up out West [event] was first class. What caught my eye was the coverage of the Nagoya Speed and Custom Show. The Japanese certainly bring their creativity to the car scene. I have a question for you: is that a 1963 Fairlane compact wagon at the top right of page 51? Cheers, Wayne Cheers for the feedback, Wayne. We always love to read Tony Johnson’s columns, too, and his Burnside Style was no different. Agree on the Japanese, also; they have a great sense of style and seem to blend their own tastes well with American iron. The car…

EMAIL YOUR BUILDS TO: EDITOR@V8.CO.NZ YOUNG GUN Taranaki’s Lockie Bower bought his XA Falcon station wagon at the age of just 14, after saving all his pamphlet-run money and working an after-school job at a local panel beaters. For the first 18 months, Lockie took on the panel work of the wagon himself, with guidance from his father, Clint, who showed him how to patch rust, weld, and fix dents. Lockie bare-metalled the car, fixed all the rust and dents, and filled and primed the car himself, and a good family friend, Andrew Campbell, aka ‘Nits’, sprayed the top coat, thanks to Steve from A & G Paint and Panel for allowing him the use of the spray booth. At age 17, having left school for a maintenance engineer apprenticeship,…

Not that you’d know it now, but, back a bit — more than a decade ago, in fact — Dale Williams was a rotary fan. Actually, he was more than just a fan; his cars were well known the length and breadth of the country, both for the abuse they received on the burnout pad and the awards they won in the show hall. At any given stage, Dale’s overpowered RX 323 could only ever be found with melted rubber dripping off the back of it, and his candy-coated RX-3 was always polished to perfection. However, that all changed when Dale moved his attention back to the racetrack. It turned out that, thanks to his years of karting as a kid, he wasn’t a half-bad pedaller, either, working his way…

NZV8: We’ve been lucky enough to know your creations and even check some of them out up close, but, for those who don’t know you, who are you, and what do you do? John D’Agostino: I’m a kustom car builder and designer. What I do is purchase the cars and design the cars. I have somebody do the rendering of the concept — usually Steve Stanford. I take the cars to a couple of different shops to be built. In the past 15 years, I’ve been using Oz Kustoms in Oroville, California. They build the cars under my direction, but I also use a few of their ideas, and we build one or two cars a year. Most of the time, it’s just one per year, and that keeps me…

Scotty and the Chief’ — one moniker, comprising four words, that could elicit a knowing nod from drag racers and drag racing fans in the decades leading up to the turn of the century. It’s clearly a name that has earned its respect over the years, but who exactly were Scotty and the Chief? They’d be Ian Scott and Willie Roach, who were — and still are — rather well known in New Zealand’s drag racing circle for their vivid red Pro Stock– style Pontiac Trans Am with ‘Scotty and the Chief’ emblazoned on the side. A frequent sight at Thunderpark Raceway, that Trans Am would later fall into the hands of locally renowned drag racer Mike Nola, while the early ’90s saw the Scotty and the Chief duo move…

Chances are that, at some point in your life, you’ve driven through outlying rural areas and admired the big sheds scattered throughout the properties. If you’re anything like us, you’ll have wondered what gems lay within them — could the sheds have been home to that elusive barn find you’ve always dreamed of, or could they've been full of someone’s already-impressive car collection? Or maybe — well, more likely — they were just there for the farming essentials. Unless you go door knocking or late-night prying, you'll probably never find out what such buildings contain. Brigham MacDonald is one such farmer with one such large farm shed. It’s the type of shed that townies can only ever dream about owning, but the reality is that it’s there as an essential…

The older generation can probably do this blindfolded, but, if you’ve grown up in the electronic age, setting ignition points probably sounds far more daunting than it really is. While it pays to check your points gap occasionally, the main time you'll want to set your points gap is when you’ve replaced the old, wornout points with new items, which is the case we detail here. The replacements cost us just under $11 from an auto-electrical supply store and the set of feeler gauges was $7 from Repco. Essentially, the process of the points opening and closing — and the gap created when they do — dictates when a spark is sent to your engine, so, for optimal performance, it’s crucial that the gap be as outlined in the manufacturer’s…

For well over the past 10 years, Allan Norris and ‘BAD EH’ have been staple features at just about every car event within driving distance. Although, at the time we first photographed it all those years ago, it was one of the best-presented street cars in the country, Allan’s intention was always to drive the car the way it deserved. That meant enormous burnouts, furious quartermile passes — the EH runs easy 10s — and driving it to whatever event he wanted, down whatever crap back road needed driving down. Since we featured BAD EH, Allan’s made a number of changes, to make the car more up to date. These include having Terry Bowden, of Terry’s Chassis Shoppe, rework the roll cage to keep up with rule changes; replacing the…

ZL1 PRICING RELEASED GM has released the specs for the 2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, and they were certainly worth the wait. How does a 6.2-litre supercharged engine that produces 650hp and 650lb·ft sound? Apparently good enough to push the cars to 60mph in 3.5 seconds and down the standing quarter-mile in 11.4 seconds at 127mph! Helping to deal with those figures is the new 10-speed automatic transmission. In theory, the ZL1 should be good competition for the 707hp Dodge Hellcat in terms of straight-line speed, with the Hellcat being rated at 0–60mph in 3.5 seconds and the quartermile at 11.2 seconds. Where the ZL1 will come into its own, however, is in the twisty stuff, in which the Magnetic Ride suspension, Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar tyres, and electronic rear diff…

Chris Amon, the Kiwi driver who was widely considered to be the best Formula 1 (F1) driver never to have won a Championship Grand Prix, passed away on August 3, aged 73. He leaves behind a legacy as a driver with sublime talent at the wheel but a career plagued by near-wins after constant mechanical failures robbed him of the winner’s laurel wreath in championship races. He also held the record for driving the highest number of teams in the history of the F1 championship. Born in 1943, Chris grew up in Bulls, near Palmerston North, where the family farmed sheep and cattle. When his schooldays were over, he began racing an Austin A40 in local events, later graduating to a 1.5-litre Cooper-Climax. Then came the Maserati 250F, which he…

SEPTEMBER 24 ROYALS RUMBLE 2016 The Royals Rumble 2016 will be held on Saturday, September 24, at Pirongia Clydesdales, 1375 McClure Street, Pirongia. The laid-back event is open to all pre-1963 American vehicles and hot rods and pre-1966 American and British motorcycles, all to be modified in a 1950s or 1960s manner — no billet and no digital dashes. In addition to the selection of traditionally styled vehicles to drool over, there will be hot rod swap sites to keep the bargain hunters happy. Gates will be open from 7am for entrants, with public entry from 9am to 3pm, via gold-coin donation. There will be plenty of preferential parking for classics, kustoms, and hot rods that do not fit within the above show requirements. The venue will be well signposted,…

For as long as anyone can remember, the first weekend of August has been swapmeet weekend for the Palmerston North Hot Rod Club (PNHRC), and it’s the weekend that many lower North Island petrolheads look forward to. August weather is historically sketchy, and August 2016 proved no different. The week leading up to August 6 could best be summed up as cold, wet, and dirty — it really was that miserable. Come dawn on the Saturday, things hadn't changed. A bitterly cold wind was blowing the rain horizontal, the Desert Road a few hours north had been shut due to heavy snow, and the South Island hadn’t escaped and was copping the wintery blast. In fact, it was probably the worst weekend the country had seen all year, but still…

Before we get into this article, it’s probably a good idea to begin with a disclaimer: this is intended to give an insight into how chassis modification is conducted. It is not intended as a substitute for proper research, knowledge, and ability. It’s not uncommon, when talking to someone about their car, for them to mention, “It’s been four-linked” or, “I just Z’d the chassis” — making these sound like the simplest of tasks. While chassis modification isn’t necessarily a massive job if you know what you’re doing, the amount of work required may go over the heads of many car lovers. That old adage ‘measure twice and cut once’ is a very good one to follow — especially if you’re thinking about taking an angle grinder or welding torch…

The first obvious problem would be the ride height — even though these vehicles are more often seen outside schools than out in the mud, they’re still way too high off the ground for someone of Todd’s mindset. The easy way around that would be to lift the body off the chassis then roll in an Art Morrison replacement chassis. The added advantage would be that Todd could spec the chassis to be built with narrowed rear chassis rails, giving room for the massive 20x15-inch rear rims that he’d tuck under it. Since all Todd’s cars seem to end up on the drag strip at some stage, the nine-inch diff would need to be secured to the chassis by way of a four-link — except that, instead of coilovers, it…

GET A GRIP Not all clutches are created equal, and unlike some off-the-shelf options, the Mantic Stage Clutch System is designed, engineered and manufactured with one thing in mind: performance. The five stages of the range suit streetperformance to track weapons, and feature upgraded cover assemblies, multiple clutch plate options and patented ER2 Technology. With 200 vehicle applications in the range, there’s a clutch system to suit your build. Visit clutchindustries.com.au, or call the team on 09 636 5428 for further information. LUBED UP Castrol Transmax with Smooth Drive Technology takes the guesswork out of buying quality transmission oils. This stuff features an innovative automatic adjusting friction level formula, to ensure changing pressures on critical transmission parts are correctly addressed to protect the life of your drivetrain. It’ll also deliver…

FUTURA TRAILERS LOW LOADER If you’re reading this magazine, you’re probably well aware of the love–hate feeling that cartransporter trailers inexplicably evoke. Yeah, they’re incredibly handy — and usually a pain in the arse to load and secure a vehicle onto. When we got a call from Futura Trailers to check out its all-new Low Loader, designed to make loading and unloading a breeze, we didn’t hesitate to do so — it’s not every day you see a full race-spec Porsche GT3 drive on and off a trailer with no long ramps, blocks of wood, or profuse sweating to be seen. The Low Loader trailers are the brainchild of Futura Trailers’ Glen Reid, and are a totally original and patented design that the company has been producing since 2010 —…