Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2024 i Street Machine

SUPERCARS racer Cameron Waters is set to unveil his 1974 XB Falcon coupe at Meguiar’s MotorEx on 4 May, in an unveiling that both we and the Tickford Racing star have been looking forward to for quite a while. At the time of writing, the car is in paint at Rides By Kam in Queensland, with head honcho Rob Zahabi taking on a last minute, do-or-die thrash to get it finished in time to have the covers pulled off at the Melbourne Showgrounds. “I’ve always loved Fords and cars,” Cam says. “Growing up, Dad was racing speedway and had a lot of cars himself so it’s in the blood, and that’s why I’ve picked a couple of Falcons to do up.” We’ve been following the build since it began during…

IN AUGUST 2016, a fella named Jono Calautti drove his XD onto the Young Guns page of this publication. His Heron White streeter won lots of attention with its ruler-straight lines, fat ROH Modenas and one of the most sanitary engine bays we’ve ever seen in an 80s Falcon. “Let’s just say I’ve got a new combo in the works with more cubes,” he said back then. We’ve since learned he was really about to quadruple the power output! Jono has been into cars since day-dot – thanks largely to his dad taking him to car shows in his XT GT – and after getting his licence he went on the hunt for something rowdy. “My old man found the XD sitting in the back of a suspension shop in…

WHEN mates brainstorm over a few coldies at their local, magic can happen. For Harry Haig and Ryan Ford, one such session birthed the Hardass 1000. Harry has won Street Machine Drag Challenge twice and raced at several Hot Rod Drag Weeks in the US, while Ryan Ford has been running Chopped for years, so in hindsight it seems almost inevitable the two would eventually cook up their own drag-and-drive event. “I’d been wanting to do a Hard Metal [drag-and-drive] for a while, and then one night Harry and I thought, ‘Bugger it, let’s do our own,’” Ryan said. “I’ve done plenty of these, and I know what sucks and what doesn’t,” Harry added. “I’ve waited in the lanes for hours, got to checkpoints in the dark, eaten shit servo…

WHILE countless car events are hosted in New Zealand’s small towns, none take over as comprehensively as the Repco Beach Hop does with sleepy Whangamata, on the Coromandel Peninsula. The five-day Hop is limited to around 2000 entrants, which is plenty in and of itself, but that’s only scratching the surface of how many cars actually show up. Walk down any street of Whangamata (pronounced ‘fong-a-ma-tah’, not ‘wanga-matter’) and you’ll spot classisc cars in driveways, and the supermarket car park is full of them too. It’s something that can’t really be comprehended until it’s experienced. Now in its 24th year, the event started off as a rock-and-roll festival with a sideshow of cars, but it has grown into arguably the biggest motoring event on the Kiwi calendar. The first few…

MATES can be the worst influence when it comes to buying and building cars, as Michael ‘Mick’ MacGregor quickly learned when he started LS-swapping this tradie-spec HT wagon. “I have a mate with a turbo-LS CV8 Monaro, and he twisted my arm to make it what it is now,” he says. “Originally, I just wanted a cruiser!” The Queenslander found the wagon in Victoria, buying it sight-unseen from a Gumtree listing. “I called the guy, took his word for it, and had it shipped up,” Mick says. “I’d always wanted a long-roof; I love the wagons.” He cruised it around for a bit with the 186, before a dead battery cable triggered the whole conversion process. “It died one night at a mate’s house, so I found the LS online…

THE crazies in Street Machine Drag Challenge’s aspirated classes are some of the toughest nuts out there. Rocking old-school carbies, big converters and thumping exhausts, they attempt to drag their mechanical monsters through our DC rolling torture chamber for five days straight. Darwin local Dave Carpenter was a new entrant at the 2023 event. Having followed along as a spectator several times, he decided it was the year he and his Camaro would do it for real. “I just thought, ‘Bugger it, I’m not waiting any longer, so any of my mates who want to come with me can jump in!’” he says. The Camaro is a 1968 model, which Dave purchased in Darwin circa 2014. He was getting treatment for kidney failure at the time, so the Camaro was…

MARCO ANTONUCCI ’56 CHEVY BEL AIR I’VE always owned Aussie cars, but this time I wanted something American, and that’s when the ’56 Chev caught my eye. I spent countless days and nights in my garage separating the body from the chassis, stripping the paint and preparing the metal for the next stage. Jerry, a coachbuilder, agreed to do the whole body resto. Not being a fan of LHD steering, I moved the gear lever to the left side of the column and made all the other components to RHD specs. I set up the drivetrain and fabricated the engine mounts, gearbox crossmember and rear end to suit. Once the car was dummied up and torn down, it was ready for paint. It was a no-brainer that Shawn Potter from…

THE first year of the National Drag Racing Championship (NDRC) is moving towards the pointy end after a fantastic season across the country in both Group One and Sportsman racing. After more than a decade of turmoil in the sport, the NDRC has ushered in a unified championship with rounds held in every state and territory, bar Tassie and the ACT. To help Sportsman racers deal with the obstacles presented by geography, the NDRC has split the Sportsman season into Eastern and Western Conferences. The Western Conference wrapped up at the Riverbend Nationals in April, while the Eastern Conference finals have effectively three meetings to go, with a double-header Nitro Champs (May 3-5) in Sydney, followed by the Winternationals at Willowbank (June 6-9). The winners, runners-up and other highest-scoring racers…

STRENGTH coaching and car-building may be worlds apart on a surface level, but as Robert Kastoun found with his showstopping ’49 Chev pick-up, dedication, expert help and a shitload of time will get you far in both disciplines. While Rob’s an accomplished Strength Coach on the gym scene, he went into this project with little more than a lofty goal. "This was my first build – after watching hundreds of episodes of Fast N’ Loud, Iron Resurrection and other American car-building shows. I thought I’d give building my dream truck a go, and gift it to myself for my 40th birthday,” he says. “These guys could do it in a week or two and for under $30k, so I thought I'd be realistic and give myself a year and a…

THERE ARE FEWER MINT, UNTOUCHED HK PREMIERS THAN GYPSIES WITH MORTGAGES, BUT BRENDAN GOT LUCKY OLD hands know that project cars are never truly finished, as we’re always tinkering on, improving or spicing-up our rides. For Ballarat’s Brendan Simpson this had culminated in a tidy, small-block-powered HG Premier, but the call of a belt-driven intake had never ceased. “It didn’t make sense to cut up the HG, which drives so nicely and is so reliable, to fit a blower,” Brendan says. “I’d always wanted an HK Premier since I was a kid as I love the rear-end on them. When I was a young bloke, I was buying and selling cars for a bit of extra money, and I bought an HK Premier wagon really cheap off an old bloke.…

SHANE Graham didn't know much about Valiants when he bought his VJ Charger 15 years ago. He was 19 years old and in the market for an HQ coupe until this car popped up on eBay. “The look and colour sold it for me,” he says. It helped that the car was fairly local and had just been treated to an incredibly fresh resto; the seller had driven it down to the local exhaust shop and back, and that was it! He wanted to go travelling, so had decided to move the Charger on. While the car was a turn-key concern, it didn’t last long in that form. “Apart from the now-15-year-old paint, I’ve changed everything on this car,” Shane laughs. That process started with ditching the lime-green-and-black velour interior.…

BEN MAGOR XM FALCON UTE “HERE is our XM Falcon gasser project. After going to Chopped a couple of years ago we thought, ‘This was a cool event, but how much better would it be with a car of our own?’ I bought the ute on the-tail-end of COVID prices, so I probably paid a tad too much, considering how much rust needs fixing. It’s been a bit of a process working out the front end, having no hot rod shop in Tassie. I have gotten lots of valuable information from Damien Kemp, of Funderbolt Fairlane fame. I own the car and my son Axel owns the engine: a Windsor with a converted Detroit Diesel 6/71 blower. It will be a four-speed manual, and we’re trying to build it on…

GAG OF THE MONTH UNDERGROUND MUSIC AS A guitarist, I play many gigs. A funeral director recently asked me to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper’s cemetery in the middle of nowhere. As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost. I arrived an hour late and saw the funeral people had evidently gone, and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left, and they were eating lunch. I felt bad and apologised to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked in, but the vault lid was already in place. I didn’t know what else to…

THE third instalment in the Norwegian Børning trilogy, Børning 3: Asphalt Burning sees the often loose and irresponsible street racer, Roy Gundersen (Anders Baasmo) back with his trusty yellow ’67 Mustang, allegedly changed in his ways and getting serious as a family man. With his wedding to Sylvia (Kathrine Thorborg Johansen) set for the following day, a pickled Roy become the victim of the ultimate cockblock at his own pre-wedding party: he’s tricked into laying a kiss on the sultry and dangerous Robin (Alexandra Maria Lara), who subsequently disappears. A perplexed Roy tries to forget the night’s confusing encounter and focuses his energy on the next day’s joke ‘race’ between his friends up Norway’s stunning Trollstigen mountain road, where the ‘winner’ gets to claim the bride. All is jovial between…

IT’S A BEAUTIFULLY PRESENTED CAR WITH SOME MIND-BLOWING FABRICATION, CREATED IN A BACKYARD SHED THE story of Boris Pacey’s HQ Sandman Doorslammer took quite a few twists and turns along its 15-year journey to completion, but when the covers came off at Motorvation 38, the wait and all the effort was rewarded handsomely. Not only did the car pick up a few trophies – most significantly People’s Choice – but it also broke the internet and had people talking for weeks. And while we don’t tend to feature many race cars, this one stands out for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s a beautifully presented car with some genuinely mind-blowing fabrication, created in a backyard shed. Okay, the shed might be a bit bigger than average, and it does have…

JUST QUIETLY, SIPPING A COLD BEER ON THE BALCONY WHILE WATCHING NO-PREP DRAG RACING IS SOMETHING I COULD GET USED TO AFTER 30-odd years living in Sydney and Melbourne, I’ve recently been repatriated to my native Queensland. While I’m still getting used to the humidity, I’m loving the car scene up here, and nothing has delighted me more so far than the sheer epicness of Rare Spares Rockynats. So much of what makes the event great is the city of Rockhampton itself. Stroll along Quay Street for the show ’n’ shine and you’ll have the mighty Fitzroy River on one side and some stunning Victorian-era buildings on the other, with lush tropical trees for shade. The burnout pad is located across the river, accessible by punt if you so choose.…

THE VK Blue Meanie must be one of the most-repeated Commodore tributes out there, so how do you make yours stand out from the crowd? It’s safe to say Anthony Safar has pulled it off with this VK; it looks good and makes a hell of a splash in the process. “I wanted it to be better than my last VK, CUH8N: a gunmetal-grey car with an LSA that was a big deal at the time,” Anthony explains. To go one step further with this VK was no mean feat, considering CUH8N made the cover of Street Commodores back in 2017. If that wasn’t enough, Anthony had just nine weeks to get it ready for an unveiling at Street Machine Summernats 35. “We didn’t have much time, and then to…

HAVING SPAT OUT A VERY CREDIBLE 1170HP AT THE CRANK AND 950HP AT THE TYRES ON PUMP E85, THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING WHEN you own a car for 32 years, you form a pretty intense bond with it. Frank Zammit bought this Capri way back in 1992, and in the years since he has transformed it from an asthmatic four-pot into a staunch little street car, then a dedicated race car, and now back into a streeter, this time powered by a magnificent Whipple-blown Windsor that makes no shortage of grunt. “I was an apprentice boilermaker when I bought the car in Lithgow – I paid $400 for it,” Frank says. “I had a little 302 Windsor built for it, and I fitted the motor and nine-inch myself.…

OUR photoshoot of Roy Alati’s awesome S-Series Valiant from the Jan-Feb ’97 issue of Street Machine is a particularly memorable one. With its pastel paint scheme, silver bumpers and Dragway billet rollers, the car is oh-so-representative of its time, as are Roy’s fashion choices – you’ve gotta love the plaid happy pants paired with socks and sandals! Paul Whillock is one of many SM readers the Valiant made a lasting impression on, and he’s now come to own the very car that he lusted over as a youngster. Despite already owning a few early Vals, Paul jumped at the chance to add PRO62S to his fleet when it popped up for sale a few years ago. We spotted the distinctive car at the Dubbo Motorfest last year, and caught up…

GIVEN he’s known as one of Australia’s best LS-builders, it may be a surprise to learn Troy Worsley of Warspeed Industries doesn’t own a V8-powered project. The engine mastermind carries the keys to a super-cool KE38 Toyota Corolla wagon, powered by a crazy Toyota 5K four-banger. Originally found in forklifts, a stock 5K engine won’t have you dizzy with its performance, spanning 1486cc and boasting just 45hp. Troy has built his mill into a 1520cc monster he’s aiming to pull 10,000rpm and 200hp at the hubs from, though it was already rather impressive in its previous guise. “It was making between 160hp and 180hp, then at 9400rpm it cracked a main cap, so it was time to go bigger and badder,” Troy says. “This engine is the same block and…