Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2025 i Street Machine

IN THIS age of outrageous social media stunts, it can be tough to stand out amidst the sea of influencers and YouTube superstars. To cut through all that online noise, I came up with the idea of driving our eight-second Carnage VS Commodore ute all the way from Melbourne to Canberra to make 1000rwhp – or more – on the dyno at Street Machine Summernats 37. It might just be a crazy enough to work! I’ve followed the Horsepower Heroes dyno comp at Summernats ever since I was the young guy in the front row with a video camera at ’Nats 10. As I progressed through the car journo ranks over the next quarter-century, I witnessed the likes of Jason Gray, Rob Vickery, Todd Wilkes, Eddie Tassone, Craig Munro, Jake…

EMAIL your missives to gday@streetmachine.com.au. Keep it short and sweet! LETTER OF THE MONTH TAKING IT TO THE STREET CONGRATULATIONS to Heath and his LX Torana on becoming the Street Machine of the Year winner for 2025 (SM, Jan ’25). In a world full of cars that are modified to extreme levels, the people certainly have picked a worthy candidate in Heath’s Torana, with its styling and colours that scream the 80s. It has just the right amount of flares and fluoro to stand out, and the right stuff underneath to allow it to shame more modern, purpose-built motorkhana weapons. Here’s hoping for a fantastic follow-up for Heath and the LX at this year’s Optima Ultimate Street Car! James Baylis, email GETTING SHAFTED I RECENTLY came across your Carnage Trolvo…

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IF YOU were lucky enough to roam the unveil hall at Meguiar’s MotorEx 2024, you copped a ridiculously stacked roster of A1 builds. For us, it was impossible to pick a single stand-out, but few could match the sheer toughness of Marion Breski’s ’67 Mustang, fresh from Paul Sant and his merry band of maniacs at ProFlo Performance. The blown coupe is Marion’s second collaboration with Paul, who had previously set the Western Sydney builder up with a street-brawler XY ute. “He did the motor and all the running gear in that – it’s got a 427,” Marion explains. “Paul does excellent work!” Between that Falcon and this stonker, we wouldn’t blame you for assuming Marion bleeds blue. You’d be wrong, though, because if it weren’t for a certain plague…

WE ALL dream about finding that rare, cool car languishing in some backyard or shed and bringing it back to life as a bad-arse street machine. But for Melbourne’s Robert Crosby, it’s no dream – that’s exactly how his tough VH Charger came into his life. “My brother saw it from his excavator sitting in a chook pen in Glen Waverley, next door to where he was working. I had a Charger when I was 18, which is why he knew I wanted it,” Robert explains. “It’s an original Charger 770, but it was pretty sad: it was painted Holden Chrome Yellow, had a CL front on it, and it had been left to rot. It needed a lot of work to bring it back.” Thankfully, Rob is no stranger…

BUILT by Pete Dening, this stunning, big block-powered 1941 Willys had a killer start to the new millennium. With its striking blue-green paint, widened rear guards, custom four-link and epic stance, it knocked everyone for six at Summernats 13 in 2000, snagging a spot in the Top 10 as well as winning Top Closed Hot Rod, Top Engineered Hot Rod, 2nd Top Bodywork and 2nd Undercarriage. It then went on to star on the December 2000 cover of Street Machine – the first pre-’48 car to do so! But after that initial success, the Willys all but disappeared. In 2001, not long after its starring role on the SM cover, Pete sold it to Rob Palamara, and the car only occasionally broke cover during his 23 years of ownership. In…

To have your product featured here, call Kim Simonsen on 0439 422 285 or email kim.simonsen@streetmachine.com.au. 01 LET’S ROLL ENGINEERED in Melbourne, Street Pro’s all-new 009 Series wheels combine cutting-edge design with uncompromising performance. Forged from a single block of premium 6061-T6 aluminium, these one-piece wheels are built for high-performance street/strip applications, offering exceptional strength, durability and weight savings. Rear 009 Series wheels are equipped with lightweight billet aluminium beadlock rings and feature precision knurling on the wheel face, beadlock ring, and even on the rear of the barrel, ensuring maximum traction and eliminating tyre slippage, even under extreme stress. Available in 17x4.5in front runners and 15x8in and 15x10in rear sizes, the 009 Series offers a perfect fit for a variety of Ford and Chevrolet applications, and you can choose from…

AUSTRALIA’S own V8 is enjoying something of a resurgence in popularity of late, and we’re here for it. “I love doing Holdens,” grins ProFlo Performance’s Paul Sant. “Maybe it’s from the good old days when I had my own blown alcohol Holden; I reckon they’re the best sounding engine. “This one came to us as a nitrous motor, but the owner got sick of buying nitrous and figured that a blower is like a bottle of nitrous that never runs out,” Paul continues. “He was going through half a dozen bottles and a ton of C16 in a Powercruise weekend – it was setting him back three grand per event.” It was already a fairly staunch little mill when it got wheeled through the doors at ProFlo, measuring in at…

METAL magician Aaron Gregory is in the midst of a comprehensive rebuild of his 2020 Street Machine of the Year-winning ’51 Chev pick-up, affectionately known as ‘Memphis Hell’. The goal is to get the Elite-level truck racing at the pointy end of the Australian pro touring scene, including a future shot at Optima Ultimate Street Car. Since debuting at MotorEx in 2012, Memphis Hell has twice placed in the Summernats Top 60, in addition to its 2020 SMOTY crown. Aaron has tirelessly cruised the truck up and down Australia’s east coast, and in 2019, he undertook a motorsport-inspired reimagining of the Chev that included some weight saving, aero upgrades and whopping great tyres. “We rushed to make the car’s debut in 2012, and since then, every show we’ve been to…

FOR those of you who don’t know who Peter Grmusa is – all three of you – the man is a pre-eminent figure in the Aussie burnout world, with a list of wins as long as your arm. He’s also a prolific car builder, turning out everything from clean streeters to mental pad-pounders. With a resume like that, we tend to pay attention when he shows up on the pad with a new weapon of mass tyre destruction. “I’ve competed in Perth, Darwin, Sydney, Adelaide, Queensland, Tassie – I reckon I’ve nearly skidded all the way around Australia!” says the well-travelled Victorian. “I enjoy it whether I win or lose; just the thrill of being in the car and skidding. I just love burnouts!” THE XA WAS GATHERING DUST, BUT…

BUILDING a sweet streeter out of a rare car was never a concern back in the day, but the thinning number of surviving classic cars nowadays – and their resultant rising values – has divided car enthusiasts. Some believe all old cars should be restored and preserved, while others, like Dimitrios Apostoleris, take a different line. “I had bought a completely original HJ GTS coupe to chop up into a tough street cruiser, and while the body was shot, it was a good driver,” Dimitrios says. “I soon came to the realisation that I couldn’t cut it up, being that they only made 606 of them and it was in totally original condition. But I’ve always loved the LX Torana, as a friend raced one back in the day, and…

CHUCKING your family into a cool car and heading out is one of life’s great pleasures for any car enthusiast. No matter if you’re aiming for dinner, an ice cream, or just to make a fat lap through the local spot, the times spent sharing your passion with those closest to you is a special thing indeed. Toowoomba’s Daniel Kummerow built this killer ’71 HG Kingswood wagon for precisely that reason. While it packs a spicy turbo LS, sumptuous trim and slick bodywork, its main purpose is to transport his family around the mean streets of South-East Queensland. DAN PLANNED TO GET THE HG INTO SHAPE WITHIN A YEAR. BUT THEN HIS MATES HAD A WORD, AND YOU CAN SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING In addition to that, Dan just…

YEAH, yeah – it’s another boosted LS build! But while they’re a wildly popular option among street machiners, not all force-fed LS combos are created equal. While the internet might have told you that you can chuck a cam and some head studs at one of these engines, boost it to the moon and have it last a lifetime, that’s not actually the case. Building a turbocharged LS combo that will be reliable well into the four-digit horsepower zone takes a whole lot more finesse, and who better to show us how it’s done than the gurus at ProFlo Performance in Campbeltown, NSW. The customer’s brief for the engine you see here was that it had to be capable of 1800rwhp in his VL Commodore, could beradial-raced and street driven,…

WE’VE become accustomed to seeing the lanes at Street Machine Drag Challenge packed with new-age LS engines, Barras, turbos and high-end ECU packages. So, when Tim Laidler’s VL Calais fronted up to DC 2024, it was a refreshing throwback to the glory days of blown, analogue drag racing monsters. Instead of an LS, you’ll find a stroker 383-cube Holden V8. There ain’t no turbos either; the plastic is instead topped by a 6/71 blower, which relies on a pair of Holley 750 double pumpers as opposed to fandangled EFI. You may recall seeing Tim’s name in these pages before, as his blown fatty-powered genuine VL SV88, EXCESV, graced the cover of our November 2023 issue. And that car and this Calais are only two out of his eight early Commodores!…

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. JAMIE KOUTSOUKOS LX TORANA “AS A HOLDEN lover from a very young age, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to grab this original V8 SS Torana hatch when it presented itself in 2011. It was not much more than a sad-looking shell with very few parts, it but did have the all-important three ID plates that indicated it was a genuine, original LX VD77 SS that rolled out of the factory with a 253 V8 and auto (since verified by Holden Historical Services). Contrary to what the number plates say, it’s not a real A9X, but that’s how…

WHEN troubled teen Ellie Lansing (Grace Van Dien) cops the raw end from a school bully, she packs up her things and road-trips to her birthplace of Petaluma, California. There, she hopes to learn more about her father, Elliot (Casper Van Dien), who was killed in a car crash only days before she was born. After she gets sidelined with car trouble, an understanding local sheriff (Jack Kelly) drops Ellie at the panel shop owned by her uncle, ‘Tipsy’ Tim (Sean Patrick Flanery), who she’s never met. She soon learns that Tim has spent the past 16 years at the whim of the bottle, drowning his own pain following his brother’s death. It’s quickly apparent that Ellie is a natural at working on cars and is also a dab hand…

MARIO Busljeta remembers the exact moment he was inspired to build a wildly overpowered street machine. It was back in December 2019, when he saw Daniel Szabolics’s insane HQ Monaro on the cover of Street Machine. His eyes were suddenly opened to the possibilities. “I thought, ‘Shit, a street car with that kind of horsepower would be neat!’” Mario exclaims. “Initially I wanted to build an HZ wagon; I even bought the car. But my sons David and Marinko, and Andy and Damo at Adelaide Motorsport Fabrication, convinced me that doing all the chassis and fab work to something so plain wasn’t the right idea. They encouraged me to build a muscle car, so I bought an HQ Monaro.” The coupe Mario bought was already a stout streeter. It had…

NO ONE does retro better than the Japanese, and when you add that sensibility to the country’s homegrown car culture, you get the Mooneyes Hot Rod Custom Show. Held for one day only on 1 December at the Pacifico Convention Centre in Yokohama, the 32nd running of Mooneyes continued its tradition of bringing an astounding variety of vehicles and styles together in one place. Whether it’s customs, hot rods, mini-trucks, Volkswagen, lowriders, cool bikes or classic JDM rides that rock your world, you’ll find them all at Mooneyes, with organiser Shige Suganuma and his team packing the halls with incredible builds. As huge fan of all of the above, and having never been to Japan, a visit to the Mooneyes Yokohama show has long been on my to-do list, and…

JUSTIN Treasure has had a love of cars for as long as he can remember, and one of his first was a KE30 Corolla. Living close to the then-new Perth Motorplex, Justin soon had the car kitted out with a stout Holden V8, mini-tubs and Weld wheels, and a lot of fun was had. Around 2012, Justin purchased another Corolla, this one a KE10. It was already well known around the traps as Nathan Allen’s burnout weapon, CMEFRY. “I first saw this car at Summernats a year before and loved it, so I contacted Nathan and told him, ‘If you ever want to sell, I’m keen’,” Justin says. He got the call a short time later and was at Nathan’s workshop in Windsor, NSW the next day. “I doubt he…

PETER KANICKY VH CHARGER “HERE is my 1971 VH Valiant Charger. I bought this car off eBay around 2010 for about a week’s wage. It was a rolling shell with a white passenger door and green CM front panels. It sat in my parents’ hayshed untilmid-2023, when I finally brought it home and started work on it. About this time, a mate sent me pics of a CL panel van he’d bought; miraculously, it had the original VH front guards off my car, so we arranged to get them back. Even more amazingly, about a week later, a Charger came up on Marketplace with my original VH door on it! I was able to do a trade there too, and after 13 years of ownership, my Val had its original…

Email your favourite funnies to gday@streetmachine.com.au. GAG OF THE MONTH PUB TEST THIS bloke is on a road trip through outback Australia. He stops at a pub in the middle of nowhere for a drink. The pub is little more than a tin shed with a bar at the back, and all around it is flat, open scrub as far as the eye can see. The bloke puts away a few, but then nature calls, so he asks the barman about the facilities. “Go out the back door, walk about 75 metres, and you’ll see a hole in the ground,” comes the reply. So, the bloke wanders out, walks about 75 metres, and sure enough, he finds a hole dug straight down into the ground. He unzips, aims, and is…