Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2024 i Street Machine

SUMMERNATS has announced that the total burnout prize pool for Street Machine Summernats 37 will grow to exceed a whopping $70,000. The winner of the top-billed competition will take home $50,000 outright (an increase of $30,000), along with further increases in both the top and second-tier comps. That’s some serious dough, acknowledging the massive time and effort that entrants put into travelling and competing all around the country. Talk about upping the stakes! In other news, Summernats has moved to create a new qualifying series, dubbed the Pro Burnout Series: “Since November 2022, appointment of qualifying events has been undertaken by Burnout Masters. Given the complexities of motorsport insurance, the Summernats organisation has taken advice that we should directly engage, and do due diligence on, all events in a qualifying…

LETTER OF THE MONTH SMALL WONDER I’M FLIPPING through the March issue, and just wanted to say how good it is to see the smaller four-cylinder and rotary stuff in the mag. The R100, the Morris Minor and the Mill of the Month CA18 inside the back cover just made my day. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved V8s and the traditional Street Machine content, and I’ve bought every single issue of the magazine since I was eight years old (I’m 43 now). However, I also have much love for the smaller-engined stuff. Street Machine is one of a handful of magazines that has survived, so I applaud you for having a platform for a wider range of vehicles. Daniel Grech, email THANKS for the support and kind words,…

WHEN your ‘other car’ is a twin-turbo big-block HQ Monaro, life’s pretty good. But good things don’t come easily, and this monster Monaro build was hard slog for ‘RIVAL’ XE (p.24) builder and co-owner Eddie Khazi. “This HQ wasn’t supposed to exist,” he says. “My brother Younan and I were building our XE, and my cousin Sagz said he wanted to build an HQ. He said he had a vision of a 2000hp street car, so I said if he handled the drivetrain I’d do the rest. If it wasn’t for Sagz, this car wouldn’t have been built; it was a family project and he made it happen.” Eddie makes it sound so simple, as though we’re all capable of knocking out a full-rotisserie build of a super-neat street car…

JASON Hannam is a down-to-earth-bloke with a true-blue, give-it-a-go attitude. It’s with that mindset he garnered the skills to birth this crisp LX SL/R 5000 tribute. Jason’s day job involves laying paint for Hills Autobodies, which came about through his deeply entrenched love of cars and doing things himself. “I took on an adult apprenticeship at 35 years old, after rocking up to my mate’s work in my freshly painted Barbados Green LX Torana,” he recounts. “The panel shop boss saw the car and asked if I wanted a job! I had a family at home to think about, but up to that point I was just doing shitkicker jobs. As I’ve always had a passion for cars, I took the offer.” While Jason’s self-taught abilities helped him elevate the…

PRO STREET luxury cars may as well be a religion unto themselves in Victoria. Many Fairmonts, Regals, Statos and LTDs have worn big-and-little wheels over the years, and a select few have picked up Street Machine Summernats Top 60 trophies along the way. Chris Courouzou’s SIRZD Fairlane is one such toughie, sporting fat meats and old-school propulsion, not to mention a beastly side profile. Go on, take a few seconds to just drink in the acres of claret-coloured real estate on display here. “My old man had a show car in the 80s: a Vintage Burgundy XT wagon with a Fairlane front,” Chris says. “I always loved the shape of the Fairlanes, so when this one popped up in the same colour, I picked it up straight away.” The ZD…

THE age-old saying goes that there ain’t no substitute for cubic inches, but lovers of Holden’s venerable homegrown bent-eight were limited in the capacity stakes until Torque-Power’s alloy Big Paw block came along. With a 9.5in deck height, raised cam tunnel and myriad other changes, the Big Paw platform permits a 4.5in stroke and 4.2in bore to nudge a theoretical 500 cubes of displacement. This particular example, assembled by Flav at Micron Competition Engines in Mount Gambier, packs a 4.125in bore to arrive at 488ci. Despite having massive cubes for a small-block engine, it’s a long way from being a full-effort race package, with the customer’s brief instead calling for a torquey, street-friendly mill. “This motor was designed for a client who wasn’t chasing huge power,” Torque-Power’s Craig Bennett says.…

MEGUIAR’S MotorEx, one of the Aussie car show calendar’s biggest gigs, will return to the Melbourne Showgrounds on May 4-5. Last issue, we revealed that no less than Jim and Mike Ring of Ringbrothers will be attending the event to meet, greet and hand out some great awards. Normally, having such esteemed guests in attendance would be all that we can talk about, but this MotorEx is going to be anything but normal, with some big Aussie names set to debut cars at the event. For starters, Pat’s Pro Restos, Rides By Kam and Southern Rod & Custom all have new cars ready to rock, alongside some iconic names from the golden age of street machining, including Ron Barclay, Phil Rillotta and Troy Hillier! Almost 20 cars will be revealed,…

IT’S said that twins often share an intrinsic understanding of one another that leads to a special bond, and that’s certainly true of Sydney brothers Younan and Eddie Khazi. The pair are joined at the hip, and given Younan is a panel beater and Eddie a painter, they make a pretty formidable team whether they’re repairing cars at work, or churning out epic custom builds in the shed at home. Perhaps compounding their bond is the fact Younan is hearing-impaired, and often relies on Eddie to help him communicate. “We’ve always worked together, from when we were apprentices through to owning our own shop, then selling the business and continuing to work together in the industry,” Eddie says. “We’ve always been inseparable, and when one of us is having a…

WARWICK Dragway has long been one of the Street Machine team’s favourite tracks to race and spectate at. Only 100km down the road from Willowbank, Warwick has a relaxed country charm that’s kept us coming back regularly over the past 20-odd years for events like Dragfest, the Six Banger Nats and our own Drag Challenge Weekend. In 2020, the State and Federal governments announced the track was to receive $1.9 million in funding for upgrades, which would include an extension of the track from an eighth-mile to a full quarter. What followed was a stack of hard work, punctuated by COVID-related dramas and months of inclement weather. Track volunteers have poured their passion and energy into the project over the long haul, overcoming countless obstacles to have the venue back…

IT AIN’T easy being a traditional custom car builder in Australia. Beyond starting with a car that’s at least 60 years old, there’s a mountain of work in chopping roofs and reshaping panels on top of all the usual car-modding challenges. Build times are long, and the results are rarely the most comfortable or practical cars on the road. But they sure do look the part, especially when they’re strutting their stuff in company around NSW’s Central Coast for things like the Taildragger Kustom Invitational. 60 cars and 135 entrants descended on the Canton Beach Holiday Park for the inaugural event, organised by Michael Morris – the guy behind the popular Donut Derelicts park-up each month at Tuggerah. Impetus for the Invitational came after the demise of the Kustom Nationals…

SCORING top brass at Street Machine Summernats on a modest budget is a rare feat, but Monique and Rob O’Garr did just that with this gorgeous, home-built EH wagon. Even more impressive? They reckon it cost them less than $50,000 to build. “It just shows you don’t need to spend hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars on cars like this, which I think is something people really need to hear during these difficult times,” owner Monique says. “People loved it at Summernats because they found it quite relatable – something they could actually achieve themselves.” Monique’s husband Rob has built plenty of custom cars in his time, starting in Western Australia before the pair relocated to Portland, on Victoria’s southwest coast. Rob still churns out the odd car under…

PURISTS, look away now. The concept of a sacred cow is foreign to Adelaide maniac Jay Duca, so he had no qualms with cutting up this factory 5.0-powered VL Berlina to achieve his vision of what a VL should be. “I wanted to do one in my style, and I’m all about being super-low, on small Japanese wheels,” he says. “I don’t have a problem with people who jack these things up on 20-inch Simmons, but it’s just not my style.” The VL is by no means Jay’s first wild concoction. A drifter at heart, he’s been building cars like this for decades. In 2020 he started documenting these escapades on his Low Standards YouTube Channel, kicking off with a 10A rotary-swapped VN Commodore. This VL is one of Jay’s…

JESSE LEE-MASON MITSUBISHI L200 “THIS is my partner Jesse’s 1986 Mitsubishi L200 ute that she built herself, from the ground up. It started life with us as a farm ute; she found it in a paddock. First, she stripped it bare and built it with a Holden 304 and ‘Glide. Then came the decision that it needed more power. Out came the 304 and in went the 5.7-litre LS combo. Shortly after that, it needed more power again, so on went the Littlefield Teflon-stripped 6/71 blower and custom hat. It was all purchased off Gary Myers, from AGROXA. Since then, it’s seen a few competitions including Summernats 35, and it’s now waiting for its next show.” Words: Luke Mason; photos Michelle Porobic & Ash Wilson JORDAN HILL S15 SILVIA “I…

CALIFORNIA Highway Patrol buddies, Smokey (director Jack Vacek pulling double duties) and Ed (Edward Abrahms) are happily living a carefree 1970s life of fun, booze and women, when a fluke roadside encounter offers them a chance to earn some extra scratch. Their new acquaintance, George (George Cole), runs a repossession team and is looking for extra staff to help recover cars and boats, and he thinks the duo have just the means and street smarts to make the perfect pairing. The boys get busy repossessing all manner of new and luxury rides, but a couple of unusual encounters raise their suspicions. They’re smacked by a curveball when they learn they’re flat-out stealing cars, but some stern words with George reveal he seems to be innocent in the whole affair. George…

I DON’T know how, but Ringbrothers just keeps building amazing cars that seamlessly blend modern aesthetics and classic US muscle-car styling. The ’69 Charger has been done so many times that it’s hard to imagine you could do a fresh take on it, yet here we have it. It’s almost what hasn’t been done that makes this car stand out – it’s still got the Charger badge on the C-pillar, the door handles and the stock fuel cap. There are a couple of subtle changes you may not even pick up at first, but we’ll get to those a bit later. Drawn up by Gary Ragle Designs, the Charger was brought to the Ringbrothers shop by a developer from New York City. He’d recently had the car completely rebuilt but…

THE 2005 Kandos Street Machine & Hot Rod Show was a heartbreaker for Jason MacKenzie. Having been subjected to a 7500rpm limiter over 30-odd burnout comps, a rod in his ’67 Camaro’s 350 Chev finally called it a day. “It didn’t come out the side,’ Jason says. “It went inwards – it smashed the cam into three pieces and destroyed everything!” To rub salt into the wound, he copped jeers from the crowd as he pushed his broken car off the pad. Shattered, and with all available funds supporting his young family, he placed the wounded SIXTY7 into hibernation. During the eight years it sat untouched, some expressions of interest were put forward. “[My wife] Monique forbade me to sell it,” Jason recounts. “She said, ‘You’ve owned that car since…

WHEN it comes to laying surface coatings to protect the metal on our cars, solvent-based wet paint is but one option. There are many ways to treat metal to seal it from the elements, coat it for improved performance, or lay down a more visually appealing finish. The coatings detailed here are specialised products and services, so they’re not necessarily going to be available in every industrial area of downtown Dunedoo. However, the coaters who can offer these services and products are worth hunting down, and it isn’t too hard to find them using the internet. HYDRODIPPING WET paint and powdercoating are great if you’re after a uniform colour, but there is a way to have patterns applied to jobs, and this is known as water-transfer printing, immersion printing, or…

ANYTHING BUT AVERAGE MIKE ROTCHBURNS LEYLAND P76 “AN ACQUIRED taste is this 1974 Leyland P76. It took me a year of staring into the abyss of its single-headlight grille in my backyard, but the abyss finally looked back, and like day-drinking a warm VB from under the back seat, I finally understood it! Getting hooked into its yeasty broth, I finally pushed it into my carport for repairs and cracked a warm one. It’s got MacPherson strut front suspension, the first large-car application of variable rack-and pinion steering, and an ultra-lightweight aluminium Rover 4.4 V8 that’s not only lighter than its six-cylinder counterpart, but also boasts the same power-to-weight ratio of the cast-iron bruisers from the Big Three. And let’s not forget the 2.7:1 (this is not a joke, it’s…

GAG OF THE MONTH CHILLI RECEPTION A BLOKE walks into a bar and sits down next to a guy who has a bowl of chilli in front of him. After ordering a drink and chatting for 20 minutes he speaks up to the guy next to him, who still hasn’t touched the bowl of chilli. “Are you gonna eat that?” He asks. “I can take it off your hands if not.” The guy says, “Sure, I don’t want it,” so he proceeds to eat the chilli. When he gets close to the bottom of the bowl he realises there’s a dead rat under the chilli. He vomits everything back into the bowl, and the guy who gave him the chilli speaks up. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s as far as I…