Table of contents for May 2023 in Custom Car

Custom Car|May 2023

Very inviting

Custom Car magazine has been a staunch supporter of Dragstalgia from the outset and has been involved with the RWYB invitational element of the event for a number of years. We are therefore pleased to announce the Custom Car Invitational is back for 2023. The invitational sessions on both Saturday and Sunday will showcase some of the most diverse vehicles from the UK and beyond. Successful applicants will be eligible to join this invite-only race class throughout the weekend. Spots are available for either day, or even both, and are subject to acceptance. Spaces are strictly limited, and successful applicants will be notified in time to enable them to purchase tickets. The application process is simple. Apply by emailing 2023@dragstalgia.com specifying your preferred day and including details of your vehicle,…

6 min

Custom Car|May 2023

Pod cast

The annual NSRA Nostalgia Nationals has become the traditional season-opening nostalgia event at Santa Pod, and the 2023 edition is shaping up to be better than ever! The nostalgia drag racing scene has been going from strength to strength in recent years, with new faces and vehicles appearing all the time. Nostalgia Nationals represents the first big hitout for many of these racers to show off the hard work they’ve put in over the long British winter. A bumper line-up of invited race classes will be out to put on a show, with last year’s quartet of Outlaw Anglia, Gasser Circus, Supercharged Outlaws and Nostalgia Superstock being joined by the Wild Bunch. After many years as an invited class at Shakespeare County, this will be the first time the famed…

2 min

Custom Car|May 2023

Finders keepers

In the run up to this year’s NSRA Swapmeet, talk was mostly of thermal underwear, due to some freak snowfalls around the country and daily temperatures only just into the positive side of the scale. I personally quite like North Weald as a venue for this event. Sure, the wind whips through it like the north face of the Eiger, but it’s dry under foot, the access in and out is better than it was at Arena Essex and it’s relatively easy to navigate your way round all the stalls when you’re there. Add in a revolving impromptu car show in the adjoining car park and it’s a cold Sunday very well spent in our book. Like all events of its kind, if you found the part you were looking…

6 min

Custom Car|May 2023

Identity crisis

Hopefully it never will. But the reality is that it could happen to any of us. Just imagine you get a tug from the DVLA for whatever reason and they insist on inspecting your car. That alone sounds bad enough. But what if the outcome is that the people with the power removed your car’s right to its registration document? With that, your car’s identity has disappeared. It no longer has a registration document so it can’t be driven and it can’t be sold as a road-going vehicle. That’s it then – it has instantly become a worthless entity as it is and the only option is to part it out for spares. Don’t make a rash decision, though. There may be another alternative. Without doubt, best practice is to…

6 min

Custom Car|May 2023

Cars are made to be used

AS YOU’LL HAVE FIGURED OUT BY NOW, I’m a firm believer in giving every car a chance. Not everything we include in Custom Car floats everybody’s boats, and I don’t half get it in the neck for that sometimes, but in my eyes if you’ve given it your best shot you deserve praise. Don’t let’s forget that the custom car scene grew up from young lads doing what they could with limited skills and limited money. Most fell by the wayside, some never lost the faith and a few grew into the customising legends of today. One thing they all seem to agree on is that it’s essential for new blood to be encouraged into the scene. Most young kids now head straight for what we like to call chav cars,…

2 min

Custom Car|May 2023

Once upon a time, in a Galaxian far, far away..

‘The style embodies that ’60s custom era, which I love so much’ It’s fairly obvious that the whole point of customising cars is to turn them into something unique and personal to you. The hobby is all about expression, creativity and having the freedom to craft a ride that expresses your own personality. As always in this world, there are people who think the only purpose of someone else’s imagination is to give them a target to take shots at, but if you dig the car scene you’ll get that even if it’s not to your taste, a good car is not to be sneered at. And this is a very good car. Very good and very wild, and as far as we’re concerned that makes it even better. In…

9 min

Custom Car|May 2023

Auto focus

Certain cars can attract much attention before they even move a wheel. One of those is the Two Much dragster of Norm Wheeldon, which truly is in a class of its own. Harking back to the days of twin-engined gas dragsters, in the days when the NHRA banned nitro, this stunning creation is only one of the cars created by Norm over some 50 years. Norm’s own exposure to drag racing first came at the momentous July 1973 International, where funny car racing came to life; but it was a certain Jag powered Minivan with the exhaust pipes exiting the roof that served as inspiration for the young spectator. The following year, ‘Its the Wheel Thing’ was born. Originally, Norm had been putting together a crashed E Type with a…

6 min

Custom Car|May 2023

the CUSTOM CAR years

MAY 1977: A dip into history from Custom Car and the rest of the world Istanbul, 1 May: 36 people are killed in Taksim Square when rightwinch gunmen open fire during Labour Day celebrations. Tel Aviv, 18 May: Menachem Begin becomes Prime Minister of Israel. Paris, 19 May: After 94 years, the direct Orient Express service to Istanbul sets out from the Gare de l’Est for the final time. Nevada, 25 May: The US detonates a 51 kiloton nuclear bomb half a kilometre below the desert surface as part of the Operation Fulcrum test programme. Not to be outdone, the USSR carries out a test of its own at Semipalatinsk, Eastern Kazakhstan, four days later. Exeter, 27 May: Prime Minister James Callaghan officially opens the M5, following completion of the final section of…

6 min

Custom Car|May 2023

Pulling them in

Since the age of four, for Martyn Lee owning a Beetle was always a fantasy. Until one day, at long last he became the owner of the kind of Beetle that IS a fantasy. Martyn lives in a town with a lot of seagulls, which is tremendously hazardous when your car has no roof. But the upside is that he can go cruising by the seafront whenever he wants. That’s what he was doing on the sunny Sunday afternoon when we hung out with him, just a week or two after the Beetle of Dreams had become his. The car had only just been finished a couple of months before that, having been built by its previous owner, David Southam. David is one of these people who, by his own…

12 min

Custom Car|May 2023

Events

APRIL 15 Run What Ya Brung Santa Pod Raceway. www.santapod.co.uk 15-16 Straightliners Race Meet Melbourne Raceway, York. www.straightliners.events 15-16 Wagon UK Offset Show Royal Cornwall Showground, Wadebridge. www.wgnuk.com 17 Top Speed Monday Elvington Airfield, Elvington, West Yorkshire. www.straightliners.events 18 VW Air-Cooled Night. Ace Café, London. www.acecafe.com 20-23 Race the Waves Bridlington. www.backfirepromotions.com 22 Drag & Drift Dakota Raceway, Honiton, Devon. www.straightliners.events 22 Run What Ya Brung Santa Pod Raceway. www.santapod.co.uk 25 All American Cruise In. Ace Café, London. www.acecafe.com 29 Barnstormer Weekend. Kay’s Barn, Dunnington, York. www.backfirepromotions.com 29 Spitfire Raceway Drag’n’Drift. Parranporth Airfield, St Agnes, Cornwall. www.perranporthdrivingcentre.com 29–1 Springspeed Nationals Santa Pod Raceway. www.santapod.co.uk 30 Drivers Collection Show. Wakefield city centre. www.wakefieldbid.co.uk 30 Wakefield Classic and American Car and Bike Show. Magna Centre, Rotherham. www.thedriverscollection.co.uk MAY 1 BHP Show Kent Showground,…

8 min

Custom Car|May 2023

SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND?

Collective gathering The Drivers Collection Show takes place at Magna Science Adventure Centre in Rotherham on Sunday 30 April. The organiser’s aim is simple: ‘To provide a high-quality modified car show built around the community. Our passion has driven us from the beginning and continues to drive us into the future.’ Public admission tickets are priced at £15, with children under 16 admitted free. Show vehicle entry is by online application. www.thedriverscollection.co.uk Going retro The Retro Rides Weekender rolls into the Goodwood Circuit on 20-21 May. The event will bring together a mix of retro cars, classics, restomods, hot rods, race cars, drift cars and show cars. The organisers promise a laid-back atmosphere, together with good food, and if you arrive in a pre-2000 car on either day they will…

2 min

Custom Car|May 2023

Show me heaven

Paradise Road first opened in 1987 as a visionary enterprise with which Junichi Shimodaira hoped to bring US-style hot rod culture to Japan. He started importing cars and parts alike, alongside everyday spannering and project work, as he started to build up a list of happy customers – and a fast-growing reputation as THE man to go to for all things custom. That wasn’t the only collection he was putting together, though. Today, Paradise Road is part workshop, part retail shop – and in its image, all clubhouse and all museum. There’s memorabilia everywhere – posters, neon signs, car parts, merch, books, accessories, more models than you can count… we even spotted a couple of pinstriped toilet seats hanging on the wall. As always, there are the project cars, too,…

1 min

Custom Car|May 2023

Angliaphile

When speaking with Stewart Johnston it is immediately apparent that he has a penchant for all things early Ford. We’re not talking Ts, As or Bs though, Stewart’s focus is most definitely on sit up and begs that were assembled in Dagenham, and the earlier the better as far as he is concerned. The seed for Stewart’s passion was sown many years ago, with hot rodder and Outlaw Anglia racer Colin Millar having a hand in things. Together with the late Gerry Treit, Colin formed the Fife County Cruisers. Regularly seeing Colin driving his rodded Morris Minor in the locale Stewart decided he wanted a piece of that fun and joined the club. His first rod was a yellow Ford Pop, followed by the ex-Shug Hanchard Pro Street ’32 coupe…

9 min

Custom Car|May 2023

READERS’ RODS

Of all the American cars you can think of owning or importing, a 1968 Chevrolet G10 Sportvan 90 is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. But it certainly was for Tanz Lees when he was looking to purchase a car in 2018. ‘Every time I walk away, I look back and say to myself “damn, that’s cool”’ ‘The story is that it was first registered in Arkansas,’ says Tanz. ‘Then it goes a bit hazy, until it was rescued from a field in Kansas where it had lain for around seven years. ‘It was then moved to California, where it received a full recommission including new power plant and ancillaries. That was in 2017. ‘I purchased it in June 2018. The owner was concerned that it was…

3 min