Tabla de contenidos para January 2025 en Street Machine

IF YOU’VE just got back from Street Machine Summernats 37 and are all geed up for more burnout action, then good news! The Pro Burnout Series is back in a big way for 2025, boasting an epic line-up of 19 tyre-frying events spanning Australia and New Zealand. It’ll once again culminate with the Grand Final at Street Machine Summernats 38 in 2026, where competitors will battle it out for a staggering $50,000 first-place prize – part of a total prize pool exceeding $70,000! We’re also stoked to announce that the legends at the Castlemaine Rod Shop have jumped onboard as the naming-rights sponsor for the 2025 Pro Burnout Series season. The Rod Shop’s involvement in the sport extends beyond just its name, with the team having previously contested their own…

LETTER OF THE MONTH ALL’S FAIR G’DAY, I’ve been a reader and collector of Street Machine since 1985. I had every single magazine in perfect condition stacked in boxes for many years, but I lost them in a flood a few years back. I have been trying to find information about an old SM feature car that I always wanted to replicate. It was a 1966 or ’67 two-door US Fairlane with a ZD Fairlane front and rear quarters added to it. It was painted blue, had a big-block and a shaker, and was a Sydney car. I would love if you could tell me what issue it appeared in, since I can no longer consult my collection. I loved the look of that car and would love to read…

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US HIGHWAY 66, better known as Route 66, is the most romanticised road in America. There have been songs sung about it, novels written about it, movies shot along it, but never before had there been a car event dedicated to exploring it. Sick 66 was a drag-and-drive experience that took its entrants down the historic road across five US states in eight days. From Ozark, Missouri to Roswell, New Mexico, there were six drag strips, 34 checkpoints and hundreds of largely forgotten towns to explore along the way. It was both an epic nostalgia trip and a heck of a bumpy ride. Sick The Mag masterminds Tom Bailey and Luke Nieuwhof have changed the drag-and-drive game over the past few years. When Hot Rod Drag Week started it all…

WHILE we all love a good muscle car, full-size American pick-up trucks are currently hotter than a stolen doughnut in an outback cop shop in summer. Classic trucks are everywhere, and their simple construction means it’s pretty easy to build them into any style you like. Judging by his low-riding, smoothed-up long-bed ’69 F100, Queensland’s Daryl Willsher is all for that. “I’ve always been into utes; even with my model cars, I’ve always had pick-ups,” Daryl laughs. “The F-truck was the right thing for me to build because of this. I chose a long-bed because everybody does short-wheelbase, and I chose a ’69 because I was born in 1969.” Daryl tapped Gold Coast car crafters Rides By Kam to handle the entire build, including sourcing the truck itself from South…

Girls — wanna be famous? Become an Iron Maiden! Email car details, pics (2MB+) and contact deets to gday@streetmachine.com.au. You and your ride could appear in the mag! JUDI KARAKA MELBOURNE, VICTORIA PILOTING rumbling-engined machines has become Judi Karaka’s way of life. The New Zealand expat is a copper recycling facility supervisor and excavator operator, while her spare time is spent behind the wheel of either her neat 322ci nailhead ’55 Buick Century or stout, Hemi-powered ’34 Ford three-window, as she promotes, runs or attends car meets. Sounds like you’re a keen revhead, Judi! I take one of my cars to an event every weekend, and I don’t mind travelling to get there. If I miss a week, I get itchy feet. Also, I run the All Things Classic Facebook…

AS THE son of Drag Challenge ace Dominic Pelle, it’s no surprise that 16-year-old Luke Pelle is already throwing together cheap-as-chips LS combos. Dominic is the master of going seriously quick on a budget, and that talent’s been passed on to Luke if his first build, this HZ ute, is anything to go by. Luke chatted to us about the mad thrash to get the ute done, his first drag-and-drive event, and the car-mad sickness he’s inherited from his old man. It’s an awesome ute, mate! How did you come to own it? Dad purchased two of them in 2018, and I was only nine years old back then! We built one with an LS and sold it off, but he kept this one – which was the cleaner, more…

To have your product featured here, call Kim Simonsen on 0439 422 285 or email kim.simonsen@streetmachine.com.au. 01 THANKS FOR THE LIFT! THIS awesome new motorcycle lift table from Hare & Forbes Machineryhouse lets you raise your prized hog with ease thanks to its air/hydraulic operation and 454kg load capacity. It features an extra-large 2200mm x 680mm platform, perfect for larger bikes, a detachable full-width loading ramp, four platform tie-down points, and a removeable cover for convenient rear wheel changes. You can use either the pneumatic hydraulic cylinder or the foot pump to lift the platform, while a foot-operated lever lowers it again, and it comes standard with a two-position platform-locking device to prevent accidental lowering. Check it out now at machineryhouse.com.au, or scan the QR code to order. 02 HELPING HANDS PROFLOW’S…

FRESH from a third-place class finish at Street Machine Drag Challenge 2024 in the 1100rwhp Carnage VS ute we call ‘Grimace’, our own Scotty Taylor kept the ball rolling with a runner-up trophy at the Kenda 660 Radial Series Nightmare at The Bend event in mid-December. It was an awesome showcase for radial racing in South Australia, with hot cars from WA, Queensland and Victoria joining the SA locals to throw down on the world-class Dragway at The Bend surface, and there were plenty of Drag Challenge regulars in the mix. Scotty contested the Radial Renegade 5.50 index class at the event. “The car runs 8.50s down the quarter easy, so I knew that’d calculate out to a 5.50 on the eighth-mile,” he says. “The biggest difference was the style…

BACK in our November 2024 issue, Simon Major reviewed The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift in our regular Fanging Flick column. Set in the underground Tokyo drift scene, the third instalment in the long-running film franchise certainly doesn’t lack for hot-car action, particularly the climactic drift race featuring a cool, RB-swapped Mustang fastback. Simo rated the flick pretty highly, although he did note that “Tokyo Drift has some early glimpses of the sometimes questionable directions the future movies would take”. Still, there are some who say it’s the best film in the entire franchise, so we were interested to know how you feel about Tokyo Drift these days. Here is a selection of your thoughts. Greg Broderick – Some say that having someone defecate on you is nice, too……

AS SOON as you clap eyes on Greg and Jenny Jones’s 1961 EK Holden Station Sedan, you’ll find yourself thinking about all the professional work and big bills that were no doubt required to create such a quality machine. But in truth, other than the interior trim, Greg built this whole thing himself with his own two hands in his home shed! The 69-year-old has built around 30 toughies in his time, and this EK is his latest. “I’ve done quite a lot of hot rods and a few old Holdens like our HT and EH,” Greg says. “On the EK, I did the fabrication, wiring, panel work, paint, fitting the driveline – all of it. I had the LS rebuilt, and Adrian Morgan from Kool Trim did the interior…

WE ACTUALLY STARTED BY TURNING THE POWER DOWN 60HP, BUT I’D ALREADY HAD A TASTE OF THE POWER, AND I WANTED MORE! SYDNEY’S Sam Caruana is fairly familiar with the process of having cars featured in Street Machine. Whether it’s his own Summernats Top 10 HJ Premier from the cover of our March 2011 issue, or any number of customer cars in his role of shop manager at Sydney-based feature-car factory ProFlo Performance, he’s been in the SM orbit for decades. Perhaps that’s why his story plays out like so many we’ve heard before. “I built the Prem as a driver, but Paul and I got carried away!” he laughs. “It still hasn’t done a single street mile, and I don’t think I’m motivated to use that car on the…

RON Barclay has accumulated an impressive catalogue of street machining accolades, including Street Machine of the Year, Summernats Top Judged and Summernats People’s Choice – and those were just in 1990 alone! His greatest hits include a super-neat XG panel van, a show-winning ’32 Ford (SM, Mar ’05), an iconic, SMOTY-winning HQ ute (SM, Apr-May ’90), and his latest build, a stunning, elite-level ’67 Chevy Camaro (SM, Dec ’24). Ron is well known as the king of detail, and that trait can be traced all the way back to his very first major build as a fresh-faced 23-year-old – this Nutmeg Metallic, 253-powered HQ Premier known as LOPREM. We caught up with Ron for a great chat about the car that started it all. What was your background before you…

DRAG Challenge is a real car breaker, with the 2024 event having 40 non-finishers from the 179 starters. For that reason alone, Mopar specialist and Dontex Performance head honcho Lee Forward saw it as the perfect arena to break in his twin-turbo kit for the factory-supercharged RAM TRX. “We thought it’d be a good place to show it off and give it a good test, so four weeks out from the event, we started the build,” says Lee. “MPW Performance helped with the fabrication to fit the Turbosmart turbos, and since Drag Challenge, we’ve already fitted out two customer cars with the same kit.” So, why twin-charge a RAM? “In a nutshell, it’s about driveability,” Lee explains. “We did a bigger blower on this TRX right before the turbos 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. CHRIS WROE XP FALCON UTE “I WAS looking for something to build for Chopped 2024, and this XP popped up on Facebook Marketplace. It was on a farm in Leeton, NSW, and I paid $2000 for it. Other than a tweaked front rail from a hit with an old bullbar, it had solid bones – there was barely any rust. I had a clear vision of what I wanted my first gasser build to look like, and I was intent on doing it with as many recycled parts as I could. I wanted to build this just…

AFTER literally blasting out of the gates of hell behind the wheel of a ’64 Buick Riviera, a one-time mortal bad guy, Milton (Nicolas Cage), is back in the real world and on a mission. While languishing in the fire pits at Satan’s pleasure, he learnt of his estranged daughter’s murder at the hands of local devil-worshipper and general nutjob, Jonah King (Billy Burke), and now has only 24 hours to save his granddaughter from being sacrificed by King during a full-moon ritual. Packing a steaming case of weaponry and (ironically) a devil-may-care attitude, Milton chances upon a suitable hell-spec chariot in the form of a black ’69 Dodge Charger owned by local waitress and tough-girl, Piper (Amber Heard), who’s down on her luck and trying to manage demons of…

ASSEMBLING this year’s finalists for Eagle Auto Parts Street Machine of the Year, supported by Enthusiast Motor Insurance, was a truly daunting task. We’ve seen a year-and-a-bit of mind-boggling builds since we handed the legendary trophy to Gary and Jake Myers back in 2023, and shortlisting just 16 finalists involved some tough choices. We ended up with a super-varied roster that mixed home-built hotties with proven elite-level showstoppers. In the end, you picked Heath van der Waerden’s self-built, LX-converted UC Torana to top them all – and by quite a margin, we might add! Starting life as a humble ‘Shitbird’ – as the car was known to Heath and his mates – this September 2023 cover hero features an LPG-breathing 383ci Holden mill paired to a TKO manual, backed by…

FORD Australia’s XA/XB/XC Falcon coupes of the mid-70s are some of the toughest-looking cars ever to pound Aussie roads. With fat haunches and an aggressive front end, Jack Telnack’s curvy body design for these cars remains a favourite shape of street machiners to this day, but Melbourne’s Bekim Bilbilov admits he was a late convert. “I’d never had a passion for the XA; it was all the XW and XY for me,” he says. “At the age of 13, I owned my first XY GT replica. I’d just started my apprenticeship as a panel beater and spray painter, so I painted it yellow, did the blackouts and put five-slotters on it. It wasn’t until I reached my 30s that I started to appreciate the XAs. I love both the coupes…

WITH a car as in-yer-face as this bright pink 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, you might think its owner would be equally flamboyant. However, all we know about him is that his name is George and is related to a previous client of the legendary Wisconsin-based Ringbrothers workshop, the creators of this masterpiece. George had been involved in managing some of his relative’s previous builds, so he was no stranger to Ringbrothers’ process of building a top-shelf car and was comfortable letting Mike and Jim Ring take the car in whichever design direction they wanted. One of Jim and Mike’s boldest choices for this ’Cuda build was the bright pink paint, and it did take some convincing to get George to agree to it. But for the Mopar-philes among us, the custom…

DANIEL FITZSIMMONS’S BLOWN HOLDEN-POWERED LJ TORANA PROVES THERE ARE STILL YOUNGSTERS LIVING THE STREET MACHINING DREAM UNFORTUNATELY, there probably aren’t that many 20-somethings these days who’d spend all their hard-earned cash and time creating a wicked, Roots-blown, full-attitude street machine. Luckily, Daniel Fitzsimmons is not part of the norm, so at the ripe age of 19, he purchased this LJ Torry to do exactly that. “My dad, pop and myself all raced karts when I was younger, so I wanted something small and with a lot of power,” says Dan. “I found this Torana locally; it was pretty hammered. The engine was on the floor; the pistons were in the boot – it was a mess, but I got it fairly cheap.” What followed was a nine-year build, culminating in…

FORGET two-, three-, four-, or even six-speed automatics – the new hotness in transmissions is the ZF 8HP eight-speed. The 8HP was introduced in V12 BMWs back in 2008, and Chrysler USA builds them under licence as the Torqueflite 8. GM also produces a slightly different version dubbed the 8L, which has been used in Corvettes, Caddys and more. The alloy-cased, multi-clutch 8HP has been engineered to radically improve fuel economy in modern cars, thanks to advanced computer control and more efficient internals. Compared to a traditional Turbo-Hydramatic, an 8HP shifts faster, offers much better street manners, and can transmit more power to the rear wheels. It can be found in cars like Dodge’s Challenger SRT Demon and Redeye; RAM TRX; A90 Toyota Supra; Audi’s twin-turbo RS6 and RS7; Aston…

STEVE SERONE LC TORANA “MY FIRST crack at Street Machine Drag Challenge was the2022-’23 event in my nitrous LS-powered EJ Holden, and after successfully completing that week, I was instantly hooked. As soon as I got back, I was on Facebook Marketplace looking for something proper to build for it. Up until this point, everything I’ve built has been to smash tyres, so this Torana is the first purpose-built drag racer we’ll have done. The LC shell came down from Cairns to my shop in Newcastle. It had been half-started as a race car, but I cut it all out and started again straight away. The sheet-metal work is fairly extensive, and it’s all been done in-house. I’m building it to take as much as a 315 tyre, although we…

Email your favourite funnies to gday@streetmachine.com.au. GAG OF THE MONTH CHRISTMAS CHEER THREE men die on Christmas morning. They end up in front of the Pearly Gates and St Peter. St Peter says, “You guys drink, smoke and womanise. You shouldn’t be getting into heaven. However, it’s Christmas and I’m feeling festive. If you can each show me something Christmassy, I’ll let you in.” The first man thinks for a bit, then pulls out his keys. It’s a big keyring with lots of keys and a couple of bottle openers. He shakes them around and says, “Listen to these jingle – that’s your sleigh bells right there! Very Christmassy.” St Peter chuckles and says, “That’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s clever. Very well, I’ll let you in.” The…