Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2021 i Street Machine

IT’S fair to say Australia is pretty starved of real-world car action right now. Lockdowns across the country have seen the cancellation of more events than you can poke a stick at, and in some places we haven’t even been able to go for a recreational drive on our own. Thankfully, there are still ways to socialise with like-minded gearheads, even if it’s in the virtual world. The long-running Grand Theft Auto video game series has always featured cars and driving action, but GTA Online’s latest downloadable update has kicked things up a notch. Los Santos Tuners is all about car culture, and introduces a whole new way to cruise and race against your mates. The LS Car Meet is a fresh addition to the online map, offering a…

I’D KNOWN of Corky due to my obsession with wild 1970s Street Machines and the custom Barracuda that has a starring role in the film. However, I was honestly expecting your typical 1970s B-grade spoof with cheesy dialogue, some great car stunts, crudely funny humour and the odd titty thrown in for good measure. How wrong was I? Corky Curtiss (Blake) is a young mechanic who has tasted victory in the minor ranks of stock car racing, but his loose stylings and risk-taking behind the wheel make him damaged goods when it comes to scoring a drive. It’s really hard to like him – he is a sickeningly oblivious narcissist who treats his family and friends like garbage in his quest to further his own agenda. After a run-in with…

FIRST as Tickford, then as Prodrive and finally Premcar, Ford Australia’s in-house tuning operation delivered serious mojo to the Blue Oval for almost three decades, culminating in the weapons-grade FG X Sprint models. Although Ford Oz has shut up shop, Premcar continues to innovate and employ some of the smartest Aussie engineers around. To mark 25 years since the release of the first Tickford-badged Falcon, we chatted with Premcar’s engineering director Bernie Quinn about the firm’s legacy and where it’s headed. How did you come to work on fast Fords? After I graduated from university I was a production engineer at Toyota in Port Melbourne, working on the introduction of the Toyota Aurion into the manufacturing plant. It gave me a good insight into Toyota’s renowned manufacturing processes and systems,…

LARGE cars like mid-70s Valiant hardtops were generally ordered new for their wafting luxury, and in the years since have been turned into cool cruisers. Their sheer size means owners have to work twice as hard to make them run as fast as a smaller car like a Charger or Centura, and this may be why many of us get a kick out of the sight of a big car hefting its nose in the air and running serious numbers. Adelaide’s Rob Evans would surely agree, because his big VJ Val two-door runs 8.70@154mph, with plenty more left in the tank as he shakes the combo down. “I bought this car 30 years ago, dead-stock with a 318 and vinyl roof, as a tow car for my nitrous 340ci street/race…

FROM day one of the event, picking a winner for the Grand Champ gong looked to be a complex proposition. The judges were struggling to separate Billy Shelton’s VL Calais and Charlie Harley’s ’57 Chev when it came to show judging, but then you had proven performers such as last year’s winner Graham Miller in his freshly built EH panel van and RCN 1 Grand Champ John Curwen-Walker and his legendary FX Holden. While they might not score as high in the judging, they’re a lot more street-friendly and would handle the driving events and cruising with ease. There were a couple of dark horses in the mix, too, with Nigel Warr’s HQ ute making its way across from Perth and spending most of Saturday at the drag strip working…

THE ninth HQ Holden Run brought the thunder to Brisbane on Saturday 14 August, with more than 250 of the chrome-bumpered stunners brought out to play after last year’s cruise got COVID-canned. Timed perfectly to commemorate 50 years of the iconic HQ, the cavalcade gathered at Rocklea Showgrounds before cruising the back roads of Brisbane’s south side. Organisers Skye Wallace and Scott McAlinden put together an epic route, which was kept secret until the day to prevent gate-crashers joining the tough pack of Holdens. “How good is it!” Skye exclaimed as cars filled the showgrounds and sunshine pushed aside the early morning fog. “We told them not to get here ’til half past seven, but they all packed in from six.” Sadly, Skye’s own HQ Statesman didn’t make it on…

THERE’S a lot to be said for making your own fun.Pete Neale of Pete’s Hot Rod & Resto Shop knows a thing or two about that. He and his team–wife Katrina and stepsons and business partners Shaun (Young Guns, SM, Aug ’15) and Luke Matthews – have been engaging with their local community of Cottonvale, on the Queensland/NSW border, both through their business and the grassroots car events they put on. Over the past 14 years, the crew have organised the annual Moonshine Run in February, and off the back of that grew the more boutique Cottonvale Digout, offering dirt drags, cruising and camaraderie. “The Digout started six years ago as a thanks to those who help out on the Moonshine Run,” Pete explains. The teamhave been dodging some coronavirus-shaped…

BROTHERS Troy and Clayton Hillier stunned everyone when they rocked up to Summernats 13 in 2000 in a custom-built but very factory-looking AU two-door. At the time, Street Machine called it “the coupe Ford should have built”. It made it onto the cover of our March 2000 issue. Around the same time, Holden made front-page news with the announcement that it was bringing back the two-door Monaro, so a six-cylinder AU coupe really set tongues wagging. Just six months later, Mark Rovera’s red XR8-based coupe landed – and the Hillier brothers had a big hand in building that one, too. With V8 power, a tougher stance and a more muscular wheel and tyre package, Mark’s coupe (SM, Sep-Oct ’00) made an even bigger splash than the brothers’ green AU had.…

EF FAIRMONT MATT NAGLE “MY EF Fairmont started out as a plain white car. My spray-painter mate and I spent about 150 hours on body prep before applying the three-layer Ford Fantasy paint. Engine is a SOHC 4.0-litre with a Jim Mock Motorsport head, DEV 6 cam and supporting mods. It has a 6boost twin-scroll T4 turbo manifold, GT42 turbo with billet core, four-inch dump and exhaust, and a 50mm Pro Gate with screamer pipe. Fuel comes from 2000cc E85 injectors, a Turbosmart FPR2000 regulator and a surge tank with twin 525 Walbro pumps. It makes 580rwhp at 20psi on E85. We’ve now started to build a bottom end: three-quarter grout-filled block, shot-peened and nitrided crank, Spool rods, custom CP pistons with valve reliefs, moly rings, ARP studs throughout, and…

WHEN it comes to Mopar small-blocks, the 318ci V8 is the forgotten child of the family. You know – the one that is well-behaved, does all the chores and gets good grades but is always overshadowed by their bigger and smaller siblings. It’s an engine that has powered just about everything in the Chrysler range, and in factory form it was rated at anywhere between 140 and 230hp. Despite the relatively low power output, the 318 does have a reputation for reliability, and it was made in massive numbers, too, with a production lifespan that stretched from 1967 through to 1991. There are literally millions of them out there, and with the larger 340 and 360 engines becoming harder and more expensive to find, the 318 has developed a loyal…

OUR fingers were crossed that it wouldn’t come to this, but the worsening COVID-19 situation in Victoria means that we’ve had to cancel Street Machine Drag Challenge for 2021, which was scheduled for 18-22 October. The event had sold out in six hours, with 250 entrants and another 100 on the waiting list. With racers coming from every state and territory, it was set to be massive. But it is not to be! We’ll run our five-day Drag Challenge once more in October 2022, and we’ll announce dates for that early next year. Most of the existing entry list has rolled over to next year and we’ll fill any drop-outs from the waiting list. But if you missed out or just can’t wait that long, we’re proud to announce that…

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 HORSEPLAY G’DAY friends, I enjoyed your recent article on HQFORU by the talented and handsome Simon Major (SM, Sep ’21). Here is a pic of Rod and Judith Menso, the owners (saviours) of the aforementioned spicy coupe. They are holding a genuine copy of the December 1985 issue of Street Machine that originally featured HQFORU. We at The Thongslappers podcast have turned this issue of the mag into a kind of chain letter to help our great friend Brett Abraham, who owns and operates NSW Variety Bash car #035, a mighty EH Holden called EHorse…

PURISTS who accidentally picked up this magazine while looking for stories on boring survivors, avert your eyes. While Holden turned out a quarter-million EHs, 57 years of attrition has seen cherry, untouched examples now rarer than chickens with lips. But this didn’t dissuade Queensland’s Glenn Swift from taking one such unicorn and building a rad 400rwhp streeter out of it. “When I got it, the car was totally original, in grandpa-spec and with all the NASCO accessories,” Glenn says. “I probably walked around it in the shed for three weeks debating whether to cut it up, but my son Jamie convinced me to put an LS in it.” Glenn purchased the untouched peach of a sedan off his mate Graham from the EH Car Club, whose uncle had bought it…

DANIEL Hookham fell in love with Ford Capris as a kid. “I just loved the styling of them,” he says. As a car-crazed 90s child, Daniel was also heavily influenced by the pro street-inspired muscle cars that typified the era, and, like so many of us, inherited his passion for cars from his father. “Dad made a living importing and converting US muscle cars,” explains Daniel, who built his first Street Machine with his dad at just 15 years old. After countless tough street cars, the opportunity finally arose for Daniel to add a Capri to his muscle-car rap sheet, so he jumped at it. “Honestly, it was straight out of the 90s!” he laughs. “It was purple with green stripes, had no wipers or mirrors, but it was tubbed,…

WHEN it comes to chrome-bumper muscle cars in Australia, it’s fair to say the Plymouth Barracuda is under-represented. Outside of Mopar-only events, you’d probably be hard-pressed to see more than a handful of them each year, and even fewer being radically modified. So when Ben Doble’s ’70 ’Cuda was proposed for Expression Session, complete with a 1200hp Hellcat motor, insane custom fabrication and modern styling, I just had to take it on. Ben already had a solid idea of what he wanted his build to look like, having thrown together a pretty comprehensive Photoshop example of his vision. It included 2018 Challenger Hellcat Widebody wheels, factory Limelight green paint with an AAR blackout on the bonnet and guards, and a killer stance, but there was still design work to be…

SOME of our brethren love their rides to stay exactly as the car gods first created them. Super-mum Tess MacDonald is one such enthusiast. Through her hubby, Ben, Tess was introduced to street machining, hot rodding and everything in between, and her beautiful, all-original, blue-on-blue ’66 Mustang is the apple of her eye. How did you get involved in the car scene? I have no real car background, as I grew up on a farm; I’m not mechanically minded. Though my first car in the late 90s was a light green HJ Kingswood sedan with a stock 202ci six-cylinder. I loved that car; it was similar to drive to the Mustang, although the Muzzy is left-hand drive. Since meeting Ben 20 years ago, I’ve grown to love old cars –…

> GAG OF THE MONTH TESTING TIMES I’VE just been through the toughest time of my life. First, I got angina pectoris and then arteriosclerosis. Just as I was recovering from those, I got tuberculosis, pneumonia and phthisis. Then they gave me hypodermics. Appendicitis was followed by tonsillectomy. These gave way to aphasia and hypertrophic cirrhosis. I then had diabetes and indigestion, as well as gastritis, rheumatism, lumbago and neuritis. I don’t know how I got through it. It was the hardest spelling test I’ve ever had. Howe D Pullthru, email CONSERVATION EFFORT THERE was an old man who lived by a forest. As he grew older, he started losing his hair, and by the time he was on his deathbed, he was completely bald. Knowing his time was short,…

FEW modified-car genres doubled as a lifestyle choice quite like the humble panel van of the 1970s. John Scanlon was wholly immersed in both the show and social aspects of the vanner life, when times were simpler and both freedom and imagination reigned supreme. This issue we take a look back at a few poignant snapshots from John’s memories of that time. 01: AS A young bloke, John loved immersing himself in hot rod magazines and going to the drags, and cars like the Pirotta/Caruana ‘Satisfaction’ Mk1 Cortina, with its custom candy paint, really stood out for him. “It was the amazing effort with the colours and detailing that set them apart from the rest,” John says. “A plain-looking rail could be a tough and quick runner, but you’d see…

RICCI Camilleri had built himself a nice LX Torana – good, but not great. It was a neat little street car, tidy enough to turn heads and even score a magazine feature, but as far as Ricci was concerned, it just wasn’t quite up to scratch. “For that first build, I’d painted it yellow, as that was the colour of the SL/R my dad owned when I was a kid,” Ricci says. “As a street car, it was pretty good, but I’m a perfectionist. The body wasn’t as straight as I wanted. Also, the paint and the gaps were not as good as I would have liked. This and some other stuff drove me nuts.” The only solution was to tear it apart and go again. “The smartest thing I…

WHEN the rest of the country was hunkered down trying to get through the tail-end of winter, it sure was nice to embark on a warm getaway to Alice Springs the first weekend of September for the seventh running of Red CentreNATS. As my Wi-Fi-equipped flight took off from Perth, I snapped a photo out the window and put up a slightly smug post online letting everyone know I was “off to sunnier skies and warmer weather”. Well, how wrong was I? I stepped off the plane and instantly regretted not packing my Street Machine hoodie – cloudy skies, cold wind and many bewildered locals trying to figure out what the wet stuff coming out of the sky was. In the previous six months, it had rained for one day,…

FOR Todd and Luke Foley, it all started when they were kids. “Luke and I would stay up late at night talking about all the cars we wanted to build when we were older,” Todd says. “We still ring each other every day to talk cars; if we didn’t have cars, we probably wouldn’t be as close!” The Foley brothers are stalwarts of Melbourne’s street car scene and regular features at Street Machine Drag Challenge. For the past decade, they’ve been tinkering with their VH Commodores, resulting in two of the best-presented street-driven radial race cars in the country. LUKE FOLEY – VH COMMODORE SL/E LUKE’S VH SL/E was no stranger to the Foley household before he’d even purchased it, having belonged to Todd several owners previously. “Todd had built…

WE ALL know that cars have a way of bringing people together, but things were a little bit different for Jeff and Maureen Saverin. For them, it was a lifelong friendship that led to the creation of this stunning F100 and a Rockynats Top 10 finish. The Effie you see here came from Jeff’s best mate, John Wohlsen. He built Jeff and Maureen’s Eagleby home, and was later named godfather to their son Matthew. For decades, he and Jeff were inseparable. “They’ve got drinking stories you wouldn’t even want anyone to know about,” Maureen laughs. “Their friendship was just really terrific.” John bought the long-wheelbase F100 Custom from Gary Burns Ford on 17 April 1978, and put it to work carting tools, timber and practically anything else John needed in…

BOLT-together torque converters are the new hotness, but what’s so special about them, and why would you want to put one in your car? For the answers, we asked Simon ‘Gonzo’ Travaglini from AllFast Torque Converters, a walking encyclopaedia who understands how the black magic and voodoo works in a converter. He’s also a highly successful drag racer and builder of Carnage-proof transmissions that even Scotty Taylor can’t blow up! WELDED CONVERTERS BOLT-TOGETHER CONVERTERS It appears that Joe’s Performance Torque Converters in Sydney was the first company to offer a bolt-together converter for performance use, advertising an eight-inch bolt-together unit in the 1980s. It was essentially a normal eight-inch high-stall converter but with two metal rings welded on the joining face and a series of bolts holding the two halves…

A CARBY-FED, 383-cube Holden V8 sounds like something from a bygone era in the modern day of turbo LS mills, but for Street Machine Drag Challenge combatant Michael Ryder, he couldn’t imagine his VN SS any other way. And given the car’s 650hp output, nine-second timeslips, 9000rpm gear changes and perfect street manners, who can blame him? While he’s a tradie who tackles bathroom renos by day, Michael also builds seriously tough street and drag cars under his MR Racing Fabrication name from home in his spare time. “That means I’ve built heaps of turbo LS cars, RBs – you name it,” he says. “So I could’ve done that just as easily with this car, but I love my old Holdens and that’s why I love the VN the way…

STEVEN BACICH 1963 EH HOLDEN “THE EH was my dad Len’s first car. He bought it in 1966; we still have the receipt somewhere. It was then my first car as a teenager, but I was in a bingle in 2004 and it took 15 years to get it back on the road. I like to think that I just improved the car rather than modifying it. It now features an all-new original interior, new Eden Blue (the original colour) paintwork and a neatly detailed and warmed-up six with triple SUs. It runs an all-synchro three-speed, VS Commodore diff, IFS front end and disc brakes all ’round. I have special memories of completing the build at my dad’s place before he passed away in April this year from a brain…