Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2024 i Street Machine

FITS LIKE A GLOVE THERE is no better-value way to freshen up the cabin of your street machine than new carpet, and Tru-Fit Carpets has long been the go-to business for carpets to suit a monstrous range of cars. Having outgrown its previous digs, Tru-Fit has just relocated to bigger and better premises at 74-78 Greenhills Road, Pakenham, Victoria 3810, which boasts more room for its manufacturing operation, on-site parking, and a new showroom for you to check out their wares. Call in and say g’day, or visit trufitauto.com.au. MYERS MARRIAGE PLEASE join us in congratulating burnout legend Jake Myers and his lovely misso Amy on their recent nuptials! As one might expect, cars played a central role in their special day, with the Myers family’s SMOTY-winning GM176/S1CKO Mustang and…

HEN decorated Vietnam veteran turned melon farmer Vince Majestyk (Charles Bronson) attempts to start his first harvest, he is pressured by a local labour-hire thug, Bobby Kopas (Paul Koslo), to use his substandard teams instead of hiring skilled migrant workers. Majestyk is on parole after a short jail stint for assault, so when his initial interaction with Kopas leads to blows, he is duly arrested, charged, and locked in a holding cell. Concerned for his crop, Majestyk entrusts his old friend, Larry Mendoza (Alejandro Rey), and his new love interest, the spicy Nancy Chavez (Linda Cristal), to run the farm while he focuses on beating the charges. During a routine transfer to regular jail, Majestyk’s convoy is ambushed by a mob team looking to spring one of their high-profile hitmen,…

THERE are two schools of thought among street machiners today. Some want their classic tin to be left largely alone, while others need everything taken to 11. Sydney’s Chris Schembri falls somewhere in the middle. He likes his cars to keep their classic vibe but with way more guts than the factory ever offered, as his blown, 403ci LS-powered HT Monaro proves. “I tried to keep it looking like an original car from Holden, but way tougher,” Chris says. “I wanted a Monaro my whole life, and I went through probably 27 cars, buying and selling them, to get to a point where I could start looking for one.” CHRIS FOUND HIS DREAM HT INSIDE THE SHED OF 2008 SMOTY WINNER AND SUMMERNATS 21 GRAND CHAMPION ROB GODFREY Chris found…

SPEEDWAY racer Jacinta Locke realised a dream when she debuted her dazzling Candy Fuchsia HQ One Tonner at Rockynats 4 earlier this year. This was her very first car, and the big reveal was the crescendo to a 14-year rebuild, so you can bet it was a special moment for her. Being voted People’s Choice made it all the more special. “The positive response was overwhelming,” Jacinta says. “I still pinch myself that it won People’s Choice.” Jacinta, who has also raced a ⅝-scale ’34 Ford Legend Cars car, has owned her Tonner since 2008, when she was a teenager. Like many of us, she was swayed by parental sensibilities when it came to purchasing her first ride. “Dad likes old cars because they’re solid,” she explains. “When I was…

THIS stunning, award-winning Holden is the third iteration of Phil Coombes’s much-loved 1967 HR Premier, a car he had owned since 1988. Unfortunately, Phil never got to see the HR in its current guise, as he passed away on Boxing Day 2020 from cancer. However, his sons Michael and Tim Coombes pieced it back together just as he’d envisioned, in tribute to their old man. “It was still a shell when he passed, but he’d specced everything – colour, interior trim, driveline, the whole lot – the way he wanted it,” says Michael. “We took about six months off it after he passed, and then we got back to putting it together so Mum and the whole family could enjoy it.” Both brothers are pretty handy when it comes to…

AS THOSE old T-shirt transfers back in the 70s and 80s used to proclaim, “Old Holdens never die, they just go faster.” And if you’re looking for a car that embodies that slogan and that classic era of Australian street machining, this glorious FC Holden, built by the late Alan Hale, would be hard to beat. Virtually from the inception of our scene damn-near five decades ago, Alan’s stunning, pioneering FC build has been widely regarded as one of the all-time greats. But its beginnings were quite modest. In 1972, a 16-year-old Alan had been tinkering with an FJ sedan when his mum transferred ownership of her beloved, dead-stock, one-owner FC to him. Alan had long been smitten with the car and felt it was more to his taste as…

GOT a sweet ride that’s currently in the build and want to share it with our readers? Email photos of it (2MB+ each) along with some details on the build to inthebuild@streetmachine.com.au. SPECIAL DELIVERY BROCK & NASH CLARK XM FALCON SEDAN DELIVERY “MY FATHER-in-law bought this XM sedan delivery in the late 70s and had plans to do it up, but it sat in his yard until the early 2000s, so he ended up giving it to me. I had a plethora of cars at the time, and a mate’d had a serious accident on his motorbike, so I gave him the rolling body so he could focus on it during his rehabilitation. He pulled it all apart, but then it lived under sheets of tin for 15 or so…

ARGUABLY one of the most famous Aussie drag-and-drive cars has made a remarkable comeback, with Brenden ‘Bubba’ Medlyn’s old seven-second VH Commodore reborn in the hands of new owner John Ricca. The Holden V8-powered VH claimed the overall win at Street Machine Drag Challenge 2016 under Bubba’s ownership, and he campaigned the car at several other marathons after that. While the VH has changed hands a few times since the pandemic, it found its new home with John not long before this year’s Drag Challenge. Having sold the Skyline GT-R he originally intended to bring to DC 2024, John and his lads at Race Parts Melbourne ended up giving the VH a complete overhaul to get it ready for the event. “We had the engine rebuilt, the gearbox – we…

GOBLIN KING HI GUYS, thanks for consistently putting out a regular, read-worthy publication. I have been a Street Machine reader for what seems like a lifetime – I even have the early Van Wheels & Street Machine magazines stored safely on my shed shelving. The attached article (pictured), from a recent edition of The West Australian paper, is about the search for Graeme Farrell’s long-missing ‘Goblin’, which he built all by himself from the ground up in 1959, using a Holden Essex chassis and parts from a wrecked FX and other cars. To build something like that back then as an 18-year-old is pretty astounding – right up William Porker’s alley, I reckon! I thought it would be worthy of a mention in SM, as your readers might be able…

ALL RON’S BUILDS HAVE FEATURED HIS LEGENDARY ATTENTION TO DETAIL AND KNACK FOR UNDERSTATED REFINEMENT FEW names in Aussie street machining are held in such high esteem as that of Ron Barclay. His 1990 Street Machine of the Year-winning HQ ute (SM, Apr-May ’90) is without doubt one of the most iconic machines in our sport – two Top Judged awards at Summernats and a starring role on of one Street Machine’s best-remembered covers (SM, Jan-Feb ’91) are ample testament to that. But even going back to his metallic-brown LOPREM HQ from the mid-80s, all of Ron’s builds have featured his legendary attention to detail and knack for understated refinement. His latest creation is no exception. As soon as this 1967 Camaro was unveiled at this year’s Meguiar’s MotorEx, there…

Conditions apply, see www.streetmachine.com.au/terms-and-conditions. Commences 8 November 2024. Ends 23:59 AEDT on 9 December 2024. Open to AU and NZ residents 18+. Only one entry per person. Drawn at Street Machine, Kingscliff, NSW, 2487 on 11 December 2024 at 11:00 AEDT. Prize: $3000. The Promoter in Australia is Street Machine Pty Ltd (ABN 33 672 316 951). The Promoter collects personal information through the competition website to conduct the Promotion and for other purposes. JUST to make the field of 16 finalists for Street Machine of the Year is an absolute honour. Since its inception in 1988, SMOTY has been considered the pinnacle accolade in our sport. Not only does the winner get their name carved into the iconic perpetual trophy alongside those of the greatest to ever do it,…

CHOPPED 2024 WAS AN HOMAGE TO DAVID FREIBURGER’S ROUGH-AND-READY PHILOSOPHY OF CAR BUILDING, AND WE WERE ALL FOR IT Tim Pleasance’s ’62 Beetle turned plenty of heads as it spat flames out the back all weekend. Tim later added snow chains to the rear rubber for extra insanity! The VW features a Type 3 front end, 6in roof chop and a 5in engine and transmission raise A HEADY MIX OF HIGH-OCTANE MUSIC, COCKTAILS AND CAMPING LURE BACK THE FAITHFUL YEAR AFTER YEAR CHOPPED is back! When it began in 2008, the Chopped Rod & Custom festival was designed as a low-key event for traditional rods, customs and bikes. The first Chopped was held as a static show on a footy oval in the tiny Victorian goldfields town of Newstead, before…

WHILE chatting in the Sunday-morning sun at Toranafest 2024, my mate Phil made a terrific observation: “All these cars, all these colours – it’s like a spilled bag of jellybeans!” He wasn’t wrong – few car events boast the lolly-shop colours of a paddock packed with Holden Toranas! Held around Maitland in NSW’s Hunter region, this year’s 30th-birthday event was the first Toranafest in five years. Prior to COVID disruptions, the decision had been made to run the event every second year rather than annually, not only to reduce the load on the good people of the Hunter Valley Torana Club, who organise the whole shebang, but also to make Toranafest feel a bit more special and sacred. It’s an idea that seems to have worked, with the half-decade between…

WE KNOW what you’re thinking: What the hell is a 2021 Subaru BRZ doing in The Bible? Well, that’s what the Different Strokes department is all about! Melbourne’s Marcos Dillmann took the rotary driveline from his crashed Mazda 1300, stabbed it into a salvage Subaru BRZ and made an eight-second weapon, with a manual gearbox and 275 rear meats to boot. That’s worthy enough for us! A nasty accident ended Marcos’s eight-second Mazda 1300 at Heathcote Park Raceway a few years back, but he found a way to move on from the calamity by using the salvageable parts from that car in this new BRZ. “Initially, I wasn’t sure I wanted to get back into racing; it banged me up a bit inside,” he says of the Mazda’s demise. “You…

THEY might be best known for building big-inch combos that tower above bonnet lines, but the team at Sydney’s ProFlo Performance will happily work to extract maximum power from a given engine no matter what it looks like. This 7.0-litre LS is a case in point. “At the end of the day, the big blown stuff gets noticed more, but these Harrop combos are great, as they make plenty of power and you end up with a more street-legal car,” says ProFlo head honcho Paul Sant. “This is going into an HJ Holden show car, which will become a streeter and may get raced a bit later on. The customer wanted 1000rwhp, and this combo has done 1225hp and 920lb-ft on the engine dyno, running E85 and around 18psi boost.”…

AUSSIE drag racer Grantley Schloss turned plenty of heads in America in October with a spectacular Pro 275 class victory at No Mercy 15 in Georgia – one of the biggest, most competitive and prestigious radial racing events in the world. Schloss ran a PB of 3.69@201mph in a ProCharged, Noonan Hemi-powered Chevy Nova to take a holeshot win over Mo Hall in the final. Remarkably, Schloss hadn’t even intended to compete in the event, and now the Queensland racer – known locally for his tough LX Torana – has a full US program ahead of him and more invitations still flowing in. Schloss’s journey to No Mercy glory was set in motion by a simple desire to improve his ETs with his existing car. “We wanted to go quicker…

NOAH KNOWS MY 11-YEAR-OLD son Noah’s first words were ‘Beetle’ and ‘Kombi’! He was somewhat born with a VW fascination, but his car interest has developed over the years via the cars I’ve owned, including a 1970 VG Pacer, 1971 Valiant ute, 1956 Buick Century, 1979 Mazda RX-7, 1975 Mazda RX-4, 1967 Mercury Monterey, and lastly (but by far the best), our 1963 Chev Bel Air lowrider (pictured above). He also has his own VW Baja Bug that he is customising/restoring to his own taste. He blows everyone away with his unusual photographic memory and recall of every car he sees or reads about in Street Machine, which he buys and reads religiously. He and I frequently travel the country hunting for yard art and barn-finds, and recently we uncovered…

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YOU just never know what kind of metal you’re going to encounter at these casual cruise-in events that have shot to prominence in recent years. Every now and then, you’ll unearth an absolute gem like this XT Fairmont, its crisp, white paint glowing in the morning sun. A chat with the owner, Joey Stivaletta, and a pop of the bonnet reveals 408 cubes of very healthy Clevo, machined by the legendary Southside Engine Centre and built by Wayne Wooten. It’s a factory block that’s topped with CHI 3V heads and a dual-plane intake, ported and polished by A1 Hi Performance. Inside, it’s all forged, with SRP pistons, Scat crank and rods, and a Pavtek billet main girdle to make sure everything stays where it should. The carby isn’t crazy –…

WE ALL know the risks involved with buying a car sight unseen. One is that we’ll pay too much for something that’s been oversold in the wording and had its flaws obscured in the photographs. Another is that we’ll lose our faith in humanity. Colin McQuinn knew the risks too, but this 1969 VF Valiant hardtop was gently calling his name from across the internet. “I always loved the shape of the VF coupe; I’m more someone who loves the shape of a car over a brand,” Colin says. “This is one of those shapes I always loved. And the fact my dad brought one home when they were new when I was a kid helps – even if Mum did make him return it straight away!” Colin, who lives…

CLINT DiGiovanni has been a fixture of the modified car scene in Perth since the mid-90s, and he’s always stretched the boundaries with his styling and paint schemes. One of his first cars to make a big impact was his XW ute (SM, Jul-Aug ’99), painted in two-tone black over apricot with graphics, and rolling on massive-for-the-time, 16-inch Alan Jones Signature Series wheels. Clint still owns that ute, and it may make a comeback in the not-too-distant future, although he’s still pondering what direction to take it in. But regardless of the form the XW finally takes, there’s no doubt the result will be better than ever, as Clint has refined his skills considerably in the 25 years since its Street Machine feature THE WHOLE TRUCK HAS BEEN RE-FABRICATED AND…

WANT your pride and joy featured in the mag? Just send some photos of your car (minimum file size 2MB each) and a few details of what went into the build to readerscars@streetmachine.com.au. DANIEL DARK XD FALCON “I’VE been a fan of XD Falcons for a long time; it was my first car just out of school, running a Cleveland V8 and C4 auto, so I’ve had a sentimental attachment to the model ever since. Fast-forward 18 years later, and I decided I really wanted to buy another XD, and with a few more dollars and a little more patience, set about creating something my younger self could only dream of. Around 2.5 years ago, I found a 1981 S-Pack as the perfect base for the build, and then I…