A Cobra is a pretty sweet street car. A Cobra covered in candy apple paint is even sweeter

“I clearly remember saying to my mate Geoff when he first bought the car that he was the luckiest guy I know. Now I’m that guy,” says Barry Tetley, the owner of this stunning candy-coated Cobra replica. I don’t think many people would disagree with that assessment.

He had wanted a Cobra for as long as he can remember, so when Geoff bought one, Barry was understandably a bit envious. Throughout the time the car was in Geoff’s ownership, Barry always thought of it as his future car. With its rough-and-ready black finish and yellow nose cone, there was no doubt the Cobra meant business, especially with the roll bar extending down between the seats.

It’s Now Or Never

Although the car was Geoff’s dream machine too, it wasn’t long before he figured out it wasn’t quite right for him. With a young family but just the two seats in the car, it didn’t work. “We couldn’t even leave the kids at home and the wife and I go for a drive, as she would have to look after the kids,” Geoff says.

He knew his friend had always dreamed of owning the car, so Barry was the first person it was offered to, and although it may not have been the perfect time for him to be buying, he knew it was now or never. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand the thought of someone else driving ‘my car’ if I passed the opportunity up,” Barry says now. Needless to say, the deal was done and Barry was living the dream

Although at the time Barry didn’t know it, he’s since found out that when the car was built back in 1987, it was as a street-legal race car. Apparently the owner went to Graham Berry (now Kiwi Race Cars) with $80,000, which was a lot of money back then, and specced the car with the best bits available at the time.

As with all the Berry cars of that period, the chassis is built out of RHS and is fitted with a Jag rear end. According to everyone who has seen the underside of the Cobra, it’s quite impressively built, which is no doubt the reason for its superb handling.

After its racing days the car was moved on to another owner who proceeded to fit the engine bay with the 351ci Clevo it sports today. The bottom-end was fitted with TRW forged pistons, a 4MA polished crank and a Crower Street Beast camshaft. The heads are two-valve items ported for four valves by Mick Webb, and atop them sits an Edelbrock manifold and 750cfm Holley carb. With a Mallory ignition system and Ford Motorsport oiling setup, the combo is good for a reported 415hp, which in a lightweight Cobra is more than enough to get the heart pounding.

“I’m kind of an old school-type guy, so I like the fact it has a clunky, heavy-shifting top-loader gearbox in it,” Barry admits. “I know I could fit a Toyota box, and everyone says to, and even though it would give it an extra gear, it just wouldn’t be right.” It takes a hard man to drive a roadster, especially one that sees regular driving in the rain like the Cobra does…

“I’m sure Carrol Shelby didn’t design them to sit in the garage,” Barry reasons. “Driving them often does come with its share of problems though. I’ve been caught out many times with the weather. Once the road is wet she’s got a mind of her own. There have been many instances of her stepping out and me with my heart in my mouth. For a wild ride, just add water.”

If the car were still in as rough and ready a state as when Barry purchased it, I’m sure it wouldn’t be as much of a problem to repair should the car leave the road. These days, however, thanks to the absolutely gorgeous candy apple red finish on the car, Barry is understandably nervous. He feels the result is worth the extra caution, though. “I believe colour choice and finish is critical; I’ve seen many beautiful cars that could have been spectacular let down by an average paint choice and finish. Mine, however, proves an old race girl can be revitalised and get serious street cred by making the right choice.” It was with this knowledge that Barry took the Cobra to Jason and the team at Auto Colour Matrix on Auckland’s North Shore.

Thanks in part to the head-turning colour, the car now fits in wherever it goes, yet stands out at the same time. “It’s a chameleon, it fits into any event, be it hot rod, muscle cars, sports cars, classic cars, race, show or cruising.”

If the looks it got while on our photoshoot are anything to go by, it also generates a crowd wherever it goes. People who know what it is love the stance and the colour, while those who aren’t familiar with Cobras love the curves and contrast the colour gives around various parts of the body.

Inner Beauty

As well as the paint work, Barry has also had the interior tidied up and modified to be a bit more cruising friendly. Gone is the diagonal roll bar, and a second roll hoop has been added. He also commissioned Auto Upholstery and Canvas in Otahuhu to retrim the interior to a level far more suitable for a car that people will be looking at.

Beyond the cosmetics, Barry has sorted out various reliability issues and tidied up bits and pieces that were changed over the years; it’s now a turn-key car that is a pleasure to drive.

The three-piece spun aluminium wheels suit the car’s heritage and were on the Cobra when Barry bought it, although they were black at the time. Measuring just 15-inches in diameter, they fill the bulbous front guards nicely when wrapped in 245/50R15 BF Goodrich tyres. Up the back they are slightly wider at 265/50R15.

Can’t Wait For Summer

Although Barry’s not too put off by driving the car in winter, chances are he can’t wait until summer when he knows he won’t be caught out by rain. Living in Pukekohe, he has the ultimate driving roads on his doorstep just waiting to be cruised. If you live out that way and see a low red blur in the distance, it may very well be Barry and his very sweet candy-coated Cobra heading out to play.

1987 Graham Berry Cobra Replica – Specifications

Engine: Ford 351 Cleveland (5752cc), Edelbrock manifold, TRW forged pistons, polished/shot-peened rods, 4MA polished and balanced crankshaft, Crower Street Beast hydraulic cam, 2v heads ported out for four valves by Mick Webb, Holley 750cfm vacuum secondary carburettor, Mallory 110 fuel pump, Mallory Unilite ignition, Ford Motorsport oil pump drive, gated sump with windage
Driveline: Four-speed Ford Top-Loader close-ratio gearbox, Hurst shifter, Jag open diff
Brakes: Jag rear discs and callipers, Holden steering, front discs and callipers with a booster
Suspension: Koni adjustable shocks all round
Wheels/tyres: Three-piece spun aluminium wheels, 245/50R15 and 265/50R15 BF Goodrich tyres
Exterior: Candy-red with silver/black pin-stripes by Auto Colour Matrix
Interior: Auto Upholstery & Canvas (Otahuhu), Smiths reverse speedometer and gauges, leather trim. Complete with soft-top, hard-top, tonneau cover
Performance: 415hp (309kW), 13.5-second quarter mile

Barry Tetley – Owner Details

Age: 39
Occupation: Technical manager
Previously owned cars: ’78 twin carb SR coupe, ’68 VE Valiant
Dream car: Was a Cobra, now a ’62 Ferrari 250 GTO
Why the Cobra: “I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand the thought of someone driving ‘my car’ if I passed the opportunity up”
Barry thanks: Miller Motors Tuakau for its mechanical services, mods and repairs. Auto Upholstery and Canvas in Otahuhu for the trim. Auto Colour Matrix for the panel and paint work

Words: Todd Wylie Photos: Dan Wakelin

This article is from NZV8 issue 52. Click here to check it out.

What do you get when you mix one police-spec Studebaker Commander with a 500hp Chev and eight years’ hard work? One tough Stude, of course.

When I think of a commander I think of strength (at times in the face of adversity), power, order, guts and glory, certainly not Studebakers. I had a think about it and took a good look at what’s out there being modified and came to a conclusion: Studebakers are custom cars sitting still. Some cars look menacing sitting still, some cars look ugly sitting still. But Studebakers, well, they look like they’re waiting. Waiting for an owner to bring out their true spirit, that custom car spirit; I’ll stick my neck out here and say that rodding spirit. Their owners are like Mopar fans, an eclectic bunch who probably believe that if it’s not a Studebaker, it’s just a bread baker.

Kimball Thomson is a collector, he likes Studebakers, and parked in his garage amongst other models he has a totally cool 1964 Studebaker Commander. This particular Commander started life as a police cruiser, and after an extensive eight-year body-off rebuild by the previous owner in Melbourne, it was purchased by Kimball when he spotted it at a car show. But it wasn’t a straightforward sale. “The owner originally didn’t want to sell it. I wanted this one, it said something the others I looked at didn’t have.” The sale was eventually concluded and the latest addition was imported into New Zealand in 2009 to become part of Kimball’s collection.

Step inside, walk this way, you and me babe, hey hey!

The interior, with its full complement of new glass and screens fitted around a retrimmed bench seat interior, heralds a classic feel. The metal dash was resprayed to match the upholstery, the doors were tricked up with some Falcon armrests, and the seats rebuilt, then the whole lot got re-covered in a low-key mix of top-shelf embossed grey fabric and marble grey leather.

The Quicksilver shifter fits with the curves of the ’60s interior and could almost be overlooked, it really does blend in that well. But the masterstroke has to be the wood rim Mustang-style twirler with the billet centre. It completes the subtle interior, tying it all together perfectly right at the driver’s fingertips.

The only post-importation modification has been the interior sound install, which was taken care of by the crew at Street Soundz in the capital.

You step out of the Commander after checking yourself in the XY-GT mirrors and are greeted by an exterior covered in a deep ocean of Honda Forensic Red. Laid on by Melbourne sheetmetal ace Guido Grima, the top coats are the crowning glory to the bare metal respray that graces the Studebaker’s body.

The trim curves gently along the car’s exterior, the flared guards adding feature to the flanks against the subtle arc of the bonnet, roof and boot line. The sharp lines frame the flat sections of the doors and pillars, and from the smoothed and re-chromed steel bumpers over the smoothly fused XR8 bonnet bulge, around the flared guards and onto the ledge that is the rear light treatment, this car oozes cool in a way other cars ooze muscle or speed.

Stepping back you see a vehicle that the uninitiated could walk past and not notice. It has a tough stance, clean lines and straight panels that all scream quality, but it doesn’t have the huge, whining blower or the wide rubber behind the ground-scraping guards to shout for attention: no loud stripes or wild wings adorn this Commander. I did say cool, not raucous. Yet once you look for the first time you are drawn back to the car time and time again.

But if the mirrors and power bulge, along with XB bonnet pins, draw you in, it is the rolling stock that hooks you. The choice of wheel, so critical to the final package, was bold, and akin to the twirler in terms of capping off the exterior. Polished and smooth, the Centreline five-spokers at once add contrast to the Forensic Red and enhance the body trim, which was so painstakingly restored to factory glory. The 16×7 and 16×8-inch front and rear split shod in GT Radials looks tough, with just enough dish to make you second-guess a traffic light duel, but not so much as to be budget busting when it comes to getting new liquorice rings after a few antics at the charity burnout comps.

The eternally fashionable twin chrome tailpipes cap off the exterior picture.

The work on the Commander’s body and cabin set the scene, they get you dialled into the rest of this car, piquing your interest, begging the question of how good the rest of the Studebaker must be based on what is already apparent. However, it’s the hard work you can’t see that sets this car apart from its peers.

Here comes the truth, baby!

The underside of the Studebaker is as meticulous as the topside. A Navy man would be proud. Signs of usage aside, the car would win trophies at any show on undercarriage alone. The shortened nine-inch diff housing filled with 3.1:1 gearing dominates the underside. These Commanders aren’t actually that wide, so the big diff housing makes itself seen. Traction bars and a rear sway bar keep the back tyre contact to a maximum at all times, and good old drum brakes out back with Leyland callipers gripping XY Falcon discs up front keep the friction on tap as well.

A custom twin two-inch full-length exhaust is ceramic coated to the tailpipes and stands out underneath, with a beefy custom tail-shaft nestled between a pair of massive free-flow mufflers.

Gas shocks all round keep those Centrelines and GT Radials planted on the tarmac, while freshened factory leaves and coils keep the body up off the rubber.

To ensure the suspension and steering work properly, the spring towers were also strengthened with extra reinforcing. That custom tail-shaft slots into the back of a John Marshall Transmissions-beefed Turbo 400. These things are good for plenty of street power, as well as inspiring confidence with their reliability. Extra clutch packs were fitted for positive shifts to transmit the fat torque this engine makes.

Graham Extreme Engines in Melbourne screwed together a stout 400ci small block Chev for the car. C’mon, the factory 289 was never gonna cut it, so why bother? A standard bore, four-bolt mains block was found and given a clean-up, then stuffed full of CP custom pistons and H-beam rods. The 18-degree aluminium Bowtie cylinder heads were fitted with titanium valves and Jesel shaft mount rockers.

With an ICE ignition system firing all cylinders, reliability counted when this engine was built. A 750cfm carb fed by a BG220 fuel pump was fitted to a Weiand intake manifold, with a K&N filter dropped down over the top. The engine bay is impeccably presented, with the braided fuel lines, alloy rocker covers and ceramic-coated headers all combining to provide a silver lining behind a Forensic Red cloud. A flexi fan blows onto a heavy duty four-core radiator to keep it all at a safe operating temperature. The engine bay, while dominated by the silver centrepiece, is clean and understated with custom inner fenders and a smoothed firewall surrounding the engine, while ancillaries like the battery and wiring are all hidden elsewhere.

How does this Commander rule the roost? “It’s great to drive. Everywhere you go people are looking at it, it gets attention,” Kimball says. He has been enjoying the fruits of Guido Grima’s labour, and the Studebaker has been hitting the streets regularly. It’s smooth on the road and there’s no sign of its age, especially not up against all the clones that populate our roads these days. And while it’s a long way from its beginnings as a police cruiser, this is one Commander that gets my allegiance. Yes sir!

In Hot Pursuit

Another of Kimball’s Studebakers is an immaculate 1963 Lark Police Special.

In the days before flower power and muscle cars, hoons in Australia had it easy. They could outrun the local constabulary with little worry that they’d be apprehended if the cruise suddenly went all cannonball run. The police cars supplied by a particular four-letter manufacturer were no match for the boy racers of the day, and it wasn’t until the appearance of the Studebaker Lark in the early ’60s that the playing field was evened up in favour of the boys in blue.

The Lark was in service with the Victorian Police from 1961, initially as a four-door, but from 1963 a two-door variant was released for use primarily in pursuit roles. It was powered by a 289ci, 225hp V8 motor lifted out of the Studebaker Hawk, backed by a three-speed manual with heavy-duty brakes and uprated suspension.

Kimball’s car is a genuine Victorian Police pursuit special. After undergoing a meticulous restoration, the Studebaker Lark was refinished in the car’s original police standard colour option, Powder Blue. Aside from a four-speed manual slotting in where a three-speed once resided, the car is as it was when it entered service with the Victorian Police.

Studebaker had an illustrious motorsport career in Australia, which was at one time run alongside its career in the police force; the Victorian Police Motor Sports club raced the same cars they used to chase the crims, and the Lark went on to racing greatness at Phillip Island, Sandown and Bathurst.

The Studebaker Lark is fondly remembered for its days as a police chaser in real life as well as on TV, with a starring role in the early cop show Homicide. Eventually it went on to become a cultural icon in the West Island city of Melbourne, where the Studebaker Lark is said to be as well-known as the green trams that once populated the city centre.

1964 Studebaker Commander – Specifications

Engine: 400ci (6555cc) small block Chev, four-bolt mains, custom CT pistons, H-beam rods, 18-degree aluminium Nascar Chev bowtie heads, hydraulic roller cam, Jesel shaft mount rockers, titanium valves, 750cfm Holley, Barry Grant fuel pump, ICE ignition, two-inch pipes, 3.5-inch collector, handmade extractors, four-core radiator, de-loomed, fabricated inner guards, de-seamed firewall
Driveline: Turbo 400 transmission, extra clutch pack, shortened Ford nine-inch diff
Suspension: Original Studebaker with 24mm stabiliser bar, rear sway bar, traction bars, gas shocks
Brakes: Falcon disc, Leyland callipers, XB pendulum pedals, drum rear
Wheels/ tyres: 16×7-and 16×8-inch Centerline Convo Pro rims, 205/55R15 and 225/55R15 GT Radial tyres
Exterior: New glass, Honda Prelude Forensic Red paint, bumpers de-bolted, de-chromed boot and panels, bonnet pins, XR8 bonnet scoop
Chassis: Reinforced around the spring towers
Interior: Stock interior with new trim and dash painted to match, Mustang wheel with handmade billeted centre, shortened steering column, Falcon arm rests, Pioneer head unit, amp, and speakers
Performance: 290kW at wheels at 6000rpm (approx 373kW/500bhp at flywheel)

Kimball Thomson – Owner Profile

Car club: Studebaker Drivers Club
Age: Old(er)
Occupation: Self employed
Previously owned cars: Nash Metropolitan, Dodge Kingsway, Oldsmobile Cutlass, Chev Malibu, Mercedes 280SE, Plymouth Fury, Subarus, two Sierra Cosworths, MkIII Cortina GT, three Studebakers, Mazda RX-4, Ford Focus XR5, Suzuki Wagon R, Mini Cooper, two Ford Sierra XR 4x4s, Ford Cortina Ghia MkV, two Ford Telstars, two Ford Mondeo V6s
Dream car: My supercharged Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk
Why the Commander: The history as a Victorian police car is unusual, and the superb custom job is a change from my other original restorations. Studebakers make great custom cars. Studebaker parts are readily available at a cost much more friendly than other marques, and with the ease of fitment of modern GM components, they open up a whole new world for people wanting something a little different
Build time: Eight years
Length of ownership: Eight months

Words: Kim Murray Photos: www.slotmedia.co.nz

This article is from NZV8 issue 63. Click here to check it out.

If there was one car that stood out on South Island drag strips this season, it would have to be the Alsop brothers’ Willys coupe

“What the..?” is a common enough reaction. This car doesn’t meet everyone’s expectations of what an Altered should look like, or what a Willys coupe looks like for that matter. Exactly what the doctor ordered then. In a sport where everything is screaming, “Look at me!” something that screams even louder.

It was a then unknown drag racer from South Carolina that sparked off the Willys drag racing resurgence in a class called Top Sportsman, a fast dial your own bracket that was full of interesting machinery including dragsters, Altereds and Doorslammers. Intense media attention was focused on the class while everyone waited to see who would break the six-second, 200mph barrier in a doorslammer.

Scotty Cannon, successfully racing a rear-engined dragster, was getting none of that attention and wanted it, so he picked on a body shape that stood out from all the slippery late-model stuff and shoebox Chevs the class was famous for, a little red Willys coupe with a Top Fueller-style wing out behind it. The ploy worked, magazines fell over themselves to photograph the thing and Cannon, acutely aware of the value of being in the media spotlight, courted controversy at every step.

One of the ways he did this was to modify that classic Willys shape. His next Willys had a chopped top, was wider and lower and featured a wing on the back that resembled an implement shed. But the next one is what got the pundits jumping about. In a class full of chopped, diced, sliced, wedged, stretched and generally mutated body shells, this thing stood out like a hooker in church.

Christchurch-based Nigel and Johnny Alsop loved the shape, and after getting out of their quick small block Chev-pushed RX-7 that was built to the old Street Machine class, they decided to purchase one to base their new car on. While it was underway the decision had to be made as to where to run it. The body was not really in tune with the Top Doorslammer rules, so Nigel decided the Altered class was best suited to their needs. “There was a cost appeal with the Altered chassis, no front/rear suspension components were required, no full door car chassis was required. With the lack of suspension, swing arms and all that extra tubing came the bonus of getting a lightweight vehicle. I liked the idea of doing something a little different from the traditional T-Altered body style, our theory was: build a chromoly lightweight chassis, use an aluminium lightweight Mark Williams rear end, lightweight Weld wheels, etcetera, just save as much weight as possible during the build process to compensate for having a full body on an Altered chassis. Theoretically, with a super-lightweight chassis, even with a heavier than normal body a strong small block should still be able to power it to some competitive times.”

The choice of chassis builders wasn’t too difficult, either. Murray Buckingham has an impeccable drag racing pedigree and lives in the Mainland, but he got the nod for another reason. “Ron Collett had recently got an Altered chassis built by Buck Engineering,” explains Nigel. “And if Buck was good enough for Ron it said a lot!”

Using a Competition Engineering steering box, front spindles and some pre-bent roll cage tubing, Buck stitched together a traditional centre steer Altered frame, then mounted and modified the Vanishing Point Race Cars-built plastic Willys body to it. There are 115 inches between the Hoosier-shod Weld wheels, and the flamed little red coupe goes straight and launches hard.

Ron Collett built the wheelie bar that stops the coupe from tipping over backwards. It’s attached to a modular, super-strong, ultra-light Mark Williams nine-inch based third member, which in turn is joined to the TCI-based TH400 by a solid Mark Williams coupler. Auto Trans has taken over the maintenance and modifications to the reverse pattern not-so-slushy ’box, something that was left over from Johnny’s Mazda.

The plan of this team was clear: do it once, do it right, build it strong and make it light. It’s that same rationale that sees the use of the killer small block Chev. Dick Powell, another southern man with impeccable drag racing credentials, built the 388-cube motorvator, once again using only the best components.

One of the weaker links in a supercharged small block Chev is the crank snout. Once racers welded on a big block one, but nowadays specialist crankshaft builders can make ’em the way racers want ’em, and all sorts of girdles and supports are available to make those issues a thing of the past. Dick used a Callies crank and an RCD support in a Dart block, while JE pistons swing off the ends of Oliver six-inch rods to make sure the short block will not cause any reliability problems.

The cylinder heads are currently a pair of Iron Eagle Dart castings filled with Comp Cams and Manley components. An aluminium pair could be on the wish list. Similarly, the smallish hi-helix 8-71, currently overdriven at only 11.3 per cent, is another area where the team could make changes.

“I’m really impressed with how well it runs, still running on a relatively tame combination with just the cast iron heads, not a massive blower and only 11 per cent overdrive,” Nigel claims.

Of course, the fuel system is the key to going fast in any supercharged vehicle, and this Kinsler-based Enderle setup is doing the business. Mallory supplies the spark to kick the combustion process off; Buck built the two-inch headers that dump the residue. Engine management is down to “Johnny’s foot and the size of his balls on the day,” says Nigel, laughing, and I don’t think they’d do it any other way.

With a best elapsed time of 7.11 at better than 190mph, the Willys has already exceeded expectations, but the guys still have room for improvement. Stuck in the middle of BB/Altered, they could add or remove weight for a class change, and there is still plenty of scope for engine modification.

Nigel, a graphic/web designer, is confined to a wheelchair and lives and breathes drag racing. The Bedford van that was modified to take him to school ended up with a B&M low blow super sucker on a 355 Chev that made runs in the high 12s, while Johnny the joiner has gone round and round in an RX-2 before building the aforementioned RX-7, a machine that got into the high eights on gasoline and carburettors.

As in any car project, half the enjoyment is in the building, and lots of grins can be had while racing. “There are no funny stories in particular,” says Nigel, “just many days and nights while building the car and then while getting the car ready with mates, having a drink or two, talking bullshit, and having a laugh.” Which is what we should be getting out of racing, isn’t it?

There are a few southern drag racing legends who have had input and labour into the building of this radical departure from the norm, one of the country’s standout drag race machines that performs as well as it looks different from its competition. In a sport that prides itself on its diversity, this wild Willys is quickly clawing its way to the top of the heap.

Check out www.alsopracing.co.nz for more info on this car.

What A Willy

Back in the early ’60s, before drag racing became all corporate sponsors and factory involvement, there were only two sorts of race cars: those that ran fuel and those that ran gas.

While rails and roadsters were generally stripped to the barest essentials, there wasn’t much the guys in the gasoline-burning coupes and sedans could do about it. Lightweight components just didn’t exist, so the trend was to grab the lightest car you could.

That is how cheap, basic and small Austin A40s, Anglias and Willys coupes came to be popular choices for race cars. And being longer and wider, the Willys became the most popular choice of all.

Then along came the cam wars, in which the cam grinders of the day picked their personal champion, supplied them with a camshaft (which they may or may not have even used) and then touted their racer’s superior performance through the periodicals of the day.

Such actions cemented two Willys coupes deep into the sports psyche: the Stone, Woods and Cook candy blue car; and ‘Big’ John Mazmanian’s candy red machine. Then along came the funny car, and Willys coupes faded into the history books and street rodding. Until 25 years later…

1941 Willys Coupe – Specifications

Engine: 388ci (6358cc) small block Chev, Dart ‘Little M’ block, block o-ringed and using copper head gaskets, JE Pistons, Oliver rods, 4340 forged, Perma-tough heat treated Callies Racemaster crank, RCD Engineering crank support, RCD Engineering gear drive/timing cover with fuel pump extension, Milodon Pro Competition full sump, Melling high-flow race oil pump, System One reusable oil filter, ARP fasteners, Taylor Motorsports engine diaper, Dart ‘Iron Eagle’ cylinder heads, 230cc port volume, 2.08-inch intake valves, 1.60-inch exhaust valves, Jesel shaft rockers, Manley valve springs, titanium retainers, Comp Cams custom roller camshaft, Comp Cams rev kit, HPC coated rocker covers, The Blower Shop comp manifold with large ports, The Blower Shop 8/71 Hi Helix, 3.90-inch billet snout, 8mm 1440 belt, 59-tooth bottom pulley, 53-tooth top pulley, 11.3 per cent overdrive – 25lb boost, RCS Engineering blower belt guard, complete Kinsler fuel injection system, eight hat nozzles plus eight port nozzles, Kinsler barrel valve with nitro metering valve, main bypass, high-speed bypass, secondary bypass, pump relief check valve, and port nozzle feed, aluminium fuel tank, Mallory Super Mag IV, Dunn Services offset mag drive, PSI rev limiter (9000rpm), Mallory coil, Mallory leads, HPC coated two-inch zoomies
Driveline: Race Ready TH400 from TCI Transmissions, reverse pattern manual valve body with trans-brake, converter originally from A1 Converters but since tweaked and modified to suit by Kevin and Tim at Auto Trans – 5000rpm stall, deep aluminium pan, trans cooler mounted behind the driver seat, TCI Transmissions trans shield, SFI rated/ hardened flywheel, Mark Williams Modular nine-inch floater rear end, heavy duty 3.812-inch bore aluminium case, 40-spline steel milled spool, Richmond 3.89:1 gears, Mark Williams solid shaft/coupler
Brakes: Lightened discs with Mark Williams callipers
Wheels/tyres: 15×15 and 15×3.5-inch Weld Racing Aluma Star 2.0 rims, 24.0/4.5-15 and 32.5/16.5-15 Hoosier tyres
Exterior: Pro Mod style 1941 Willys coupe body imported from Vanishing Point Racing Cars
Chassis: 115-inch (2920mm) wheelbase, full chromoly Altered chassis by Buck Engineering, Chassis Engineering chromoly spindle mounts, steering box, pre-bent six-point roll cage, single wheelie bar built by Ron Collett, custom-made aluminium breather catch tank, Sparco onboard fire extinguisher system
Interior: Aluminium sheet metal fabricated seat, Taylor Motorsports seat padding with fire resistant Nomex, Chassis Engineering steering wheel, anodised hand grips, B&M Pro Ratchet, Auto Meter gauges
Performance: 7.11 at 190mph (306kph)

Nigel and John Alsop – Owner Details

Driver name: Johnny Alsop
Age: Nigel 36, Johnny 32
Occupation: Nigel: graphic design, website design and development. Johnny: Joiner
Previously owned cars: CF2 Bedford van with 355 Chev and B&M low blower, RX-2 circuit car, Mazda RX-7 ‘Street Machine’
Dream car: (Nigel) “To be honest, the look and the performance of the Willys has turned out better than even I dreamed. At the time we started building the car the national record for the class was 7.46, so that was the ultimate goal/dream, I never imagined she’d have a 7.11, 7.13, and 7.19 under her belt before the end of our second season.”
Build time: Just over two years
Length of ownership: As above
The Alsops thank: “A big thank you to our sponsors: Grant Silvester and his team at Silvester V8 Performance, Alsop Joinery, Unique Designs – www.uniquedesigns.co.nz, South Island Wholesale, Forward Planning, Circle Track Engineering, Performance Hose Centre, Thornz Trees and Landscapes, Demon Energy Drink, Dirty Dog Eyewear. “A huge thank you to our crew: Kade, Franky, Shane, Sy, Sam, Matt, and their wives and families (that includes Suzy, Hanna, and Daniel — Johnny’s family) for the weekends the boys are away racing, or around home getting the car ready for racing. Also a special thank you to mum and dad for their help behind the scenes, catering on race days and when the car is being worked on, and for helping take Nigel around the country with the car. Dick Powell for the initial engine build, but also all his time, advice, and help with maintenance, etc. The same goes for Buck since building the chassis. There have been many, many other friends and acquaintances who have helped along the way to get this awesome-looking Willys coupe to where it is now. Thank you.”

Words: Trevor Tynan Photos: Dan Wakelin

What the Trevor Crowe/Rodger Freeth Starlet lacked in size, it made up in Kiwi ingenuity. It has since become an icon of New Zealand Motorsport

New Zealand ‘big banger’ sedan racing was going through huge changes in the late 1970s and early ’80s. The first half of the 1970s saw domination from heavy metal American iron such as Jim Richards’s ’69 fastback Sidchrome Mustang, the Paul Fahey/Graham Baker/Leo Leonard-driven, PDL-owned 1970 Boss Mustang, Red Dawson’s beautiful gold Kensington Carpets sponsored 1970 Z28 Camaro, Rod Coppins’s ex-US Trans-Am ’69 Pontiac Firebird, Dennis Marwoods ex-US Trans-Am ’69 Camaro, and so on.

But by the mid-1970s, teams had clued on to the fact that a small car with a big engine is usually better than a big car with a big engine, being lighter, more nimble, and better on brakes. And so, by the late ’70s, the engines were being pulled from the Mustangs, Camaros, and Firebirds, and squeezed into heavily modified Ford Capris, Cortinas, and Vauxhall Victors. But then, in 1980, a guy in Christchurch by the name of Trevor Crowe decided to push the parameters further still.

Crowe had been competing in both circuit racing and rallying since the ’60s. In the early ’70s he built a mad circuit racing car for the South Island OSCA (Open Saloon Car Association) series, in which he fitted a Toyota Corolla coupe with a 327ci small block Chevy. To be blunt, it was wild. And very fast. But its impossibly short wheelbase, combined with the hefty iron block Chevy, made for attention-grabbing handling. Even still, the little Corolla proved to be a pretty successful race car.

Crowe ran the Corolla for a couple of seasons before selling it and moving back to rallying. There he raced a Datsun 1200, then a Hillman Avenger fitted with an Oldsmobile V8.

By 1980, Crowe was looking to build another circuit car to compete once again in OSCA. Despite the general consensus at the time being that a wheelbase of around 102 inches, such as that of a Capri or Victor, was the ideal length for a V8 sedan, Crowe had other ideas. He maintained that if the car was light enough, with the weight evenly distributed throughout, the wheelbase could be even shorter still, and the car nimbler and faster than a V8 Capri or Victor. And with that, he set about building a Toyota Starlet fitted with an alloy Oldsmobile V8 engine.

Crowe had a limited budget and was always pretty frugal when it came to building cars, opting to use parts he already had lying about. For $400 he picked up the body of a Starlet that had previously been used for rallying, and began his new circuit racer around that.

The Olds motor was developed by Bob Slade, who now lives in the US and is still very much in demand for his engine development skills. Slade built the Olds with very clever, very effective dry deck heads. Initially, the motor ran with a four barrel carb, but that was quickly replaced by a Hilborn fuel injection system. It had a 12-inch set-back for better weight distribution (the maximum allowed under OSCA rules), was backed by a Muncie four-speed gearbox, and had a Jaguar independent rear end with a limited slip diff.

Big Opposition

Against the 600-plus horsepower 6.0-litre Chevy motors the opposition were all armed with, the little alloy 4.2-litre Olds was always down on power, but the Starlet was built as a complete package, and emphasis went in to making the car as light as it could possibly be. Inside it was fitted with an alloy roll cage, and wherever possible throughout the rest of the car, alloy replaced steel. The bonnet and boot were fibreglass, and wide fibreglass flares, crafted by Foxton Fibreglass, were created to house the 13×13–inch alloy wheels. Meanwhile, Crowe raided his stockpiles wherever he could to keep costs down, like fitting a Hillman Avenger steering rack, Capri front brakes and Avenger rear brakes.

When complete, the little Starlet weighed in at under 700kg. Mission accomplished.

The total build time was six months. The Starlet wasn’t quite ready for the start of the 1980/’81 South Island OSCA championship, so Crowe raced his V8 Avenger for the first two rounds. OSCA had three different classes, based on engine size, and Crowe’s Starlet fitted into Class B, up to 4200cc. The Starlet retired on debut, but then won every class race throughout the remainder of the season, easily winning the Class B championship. But such was the little car’s pace, Crowe was often in amongst the 6.0-litre cars in Class A, the small block Chevy-powered Capris of Inky Tulloch, Ian Munt and Graham Baker, plus the Chevy-powered Victor of Garry Jenkins and John Osborne’s mighty Camaro. Through incredible consistency, Crowe was also able to take out the overall ’81 OSCA championship.

Continual Development

Over the next four seasons the Starlet continued to be developed. Crowe fitted a turbocharger early in its second season, which produced huge power, but it was soon removed, being something of an unknown. The Olds was then fitted with a flat-plane crank for more power. Crowe fitted better brakes, plus a large double-plane rear wing, which became just one of many advantages the car had over its opposition.

The wing was from a March Formula Pacific single seater, left at Crowe’s workshop by a visiting international race team in New Zealand for the summer International Series. Aerodynamics were something of an unknown at the time, and Crowe’s rivals didn’t know how the wing worked, or if indeed it worked at all. Crowe himself was quick to talk it down, saying it was really only there as somewhere to place sponsorship decals. In fact, the wing produced incredible downforce, keeping the stubby little rear end planted firmly on the tarmac at high speeds. At Wigram alone, lap times improved by 2.5 seconds.

Until its final season in 1984, the Crowe/Starlet combination became an almost unbeatable force. No longer just a class car, the Starlet would become the fastest sedan of any type in New Zealand, both in the South Island OSCA series, and in the North Island Sports Sedan series, where it regularly beat some impressive machinery, including Wayne Huxford’s Chevy V8-powered Capri, Ian Algie’s mid-engined V8-powered Alfetta, and the amazing V8 powered Charger of Graeme Addis.

It was an incredible sight. The Starlet didn’t have the legs on the straights that the 6.0-litre cars had. But invariably it would qualify on pole, and be holding a comfortable margin by the time the field hit any straights long enough for the big cars to be a threat.

While the 6.0-litre monsters kicked and bucked, locked brakes and over-ran the corners, Crowe and the Starlet would simply dart off into an unassailable and often unchallenged lead. On the occasions where the Starlet was out-dragged to the first corner, as the race wore on, with its lighter weight, ability to save its tyres and brakes, it would often simply wear down the opposition. It was a phenomenal combination.

Getting Dirty

Being the rally enthusiast he is, Crowe also took the Starlet off-road on one occasion, when he entered it in the annual Ashley Forrest Rally Sprint. He raised the ride height, removed the deep front spoiler and fitted rally wheels and tyres — and proceeded to win the event overall. He also won the OSCA championship again in 1982 and ’84.

Following its ’84 OSCA championship win, Crowe decided to build a new Starlet, for no other reason than he always likes to have a project on the go. The new version would be slightly heavier than the original, using a later model Starlet body, but utilising most of the guts from the first Starlet. The new version featured different-style wheel flares, these being designed by Gus Burke, who crafted them out of alloy from which fibreglass molds were taken.

Crowe, by his own admission, didn’t spend a lot of development time on the new car, having begun to lose interest a little in racing the Starlet. He was instead enjoying a new challenge, running a BMW 635CSi in international Group A racing. Yet despite that, he won the OSCA championship again in 1985, and once more trounced the top North Island machines at most events when he crossed the Straight. He also beat off a squadron of radical Australian Sports Sedans brought across for a New Zealand versus Australia grudge-match at the 1987 Wigram racing event. Here he defeated the 600-horsepower machines of Bob Tindall, Des Wall (Toranas), Keith Carling, Bill Attard, Greg Crick (Mazda RX-7s) and Laurie Attard (Ford Capri Turbo), plus the top Kiwi machines.

Selling Up

Following the ’87 season, Crowe decided to sell the Starlet and concentrate on his Group A commitments. He found the perfect buyer in former motorcycle racer Dr Rodger Freeth.

Freeth was a brilliant racer and an even better engineer, having gained a PhD in astrophysics. He loved the challenge of tinkering and improving. In 1977, when he was 22, he designed a very effective and very clever set of front and rear aerofoils for his Yamaha TZ750 using Auckland University computers and printing off reams of figures on downforce and drag. The aerofoils became one of New Zealand motorcycle racing’s most controversial experiments, and were eventually banned by the governing body NZACU.

In 1987, having retired from motorcycle racing, Freeth purchased the Crowe Starlet. He changed very little about the car for the first couple of seasons, except replacing Crowe’s successful Olds with a Tom Walkinshaw-built Rover V8. One of Freeth’s most interesting developments on the Starlet was the fitting of a video camera inside the car. It filmed electronic readouts on the dash to record what the car was doing at various times, mostly with the rear suspension, which bottomed out due to Crowe running the car very soft in the rear. Freeth would then play the videos back in the pits to learn more about the car’s behaviour, and how he could improve its handling. This was pretty trick stuff 20 years ago. And it received plenty of attention. Freeth and the Starlet, which was now finished in the colours of long-time sponsor CRC, won the 1988 New Zealand Sports Sedan Championship.

He narrowly lost the title the following season to Wayne Huxford, then returned for the 1990 championship. The Starlet had undergone a major facelift, with the fitting of all newly developed bodywork in an effort to make the car more aerodynamically efficient.

This title went to Kieran Wills in his Chevy V8-powered Mazda RX-7. But the season was notable for the arrival of the Mark Petch/Greg Lancaster-owned Nissan 300ZX turbo, a radical IMSA machine imported from the US. The Nissan was driven by a young Kayne Scott. It was built from the ground up as a race car, its rigid chromoly spaceframe chassis being far more advanced than the locally built machines, which were based around road car bodies.

The Nissan pointed the way forward for modified saloon racing, and within a couple of years all the top teams had imported their own versions. Freeth himself bought the Kayne Scott Nissan, which he ran for a couple of seasons before swapping his driver’s seat for the co-driver’s spot in Possum Bourne’s Subaru rally car.

The Starlet was sold to John Harcourt, who raced it for many years in OSCA, before it eventually came into the possession of current owner, John Stevenson. John handed the by-now fairly tired little Starlet over to Motorsport Solutions in Christchurch, which restores and race prepares a wide variety of cars, including mighty Formula 5000 single seaters, for several clients.  The Starlet received a new 4.6-litre Rover block, stretched to 5.0 litres, while the bodywork was fully refurbished and restored to the guise Freeth ran in the 1990 season.

This little Toyota Starlet was one of the last racing saloons built during the 1980s, when Kiwi ingenuity still dominated the sport. It is one of a growing number of local racing saloons from our past being restored for future generations to enjoy. John will be racing the car at historic events, where enthusiasts can get to see close up one of the most ground-breaking cars in New Zealand saloon racing history.

Fittingly, the first Crowe Starlet is also currently being restored.

Toyota Starlet OSCA/Sports Sedan – Specifications

Engine: 4998cc Rover block, forged pistons, steel crank, Oliver steel rods, roller cam, Wind Cat Stage II heads, 1.6 ratio roller rockers, fuel injection, Bosch pump, Porsche injectors, SX regulator, MSD LS1 coils and leads, Motorsport Solutions exhaust system
Driveline: Geartrac Sierra Cosworth 5-speed gearbox, triple-plate clutch, Speedway Engineering quickchange rear
Suspension: Coil-over MacPherson strut front, coil-over 4-link rear, Koni shocks and Eibach springs all-round
Wheels/Tyres: Arrow wheels, Avon slicks
Performance: 512hp

Words: Steve Holmes Photos: Sean Craig

This article is from NZV8 issue 61. Click here to check it out.

Craig Stacey’s Javelin may be a rarity on New Zealand shores, but with their huge race history, Javelins are no strangers to victory

Making a Nash into a Race Car.” That was how Penske Racing driver/engineer Mark Donohue headed chapter 16 of his brilliant book, The Unfair Advantage, when describing his and Penske’s involvement running the factory AMC Javelin TransAm team. Through a combination of Roger Penske’s negotiation skills and Donohue’s driving, engineering, and development skills, the AMC Javelin became a TransAm race winner in 1970. But as a marketing success, the TransAm Javelins were already winners thanks to an unlikely hero, a relative unknown called Jim Jeffords, and to American Motors Corporation chairman Roy Chapin, who had the foresight to invest heavily in marketing the model.

Bad Reputation

AMC was one of the first companies to respond to Ford’s release of the hugely successful Mustang, when it began producing a pony car of its own; the Javelin went on sale in late 1967. Dick Teague was American Motors’ vice president of styling, and in charge of the Javelin. Teague and his design team crafted a superb-looking car, with crisp lines, a fastback roof and clean nose treatment.

Press reports at the time of its release were extremely favourable towards the Javelin’s styling, but Chapin knew the model needed to shrug off the dowdy image it would automatically be labelled with purely through association.

American Motors Corporation was formed through the amalgamation of Nash and Hudson in 1954, and while the ‘big three’ were busy building larger, more powerful, more extravagant models, AMC focused on economy and restrained styling. Sales figures were encouraging until the early ’60s, when chairman George Romney resigned. His replacement, Roy Abernethy, introduced a line-up that confused customers, causing sales to drop, and Abernethy’s position was soon taken by Chapin.

The TransAm sedan road racing series was formed in 1966, and by 1968 there were factory teams entered for Ford, Chevrolet, Pontiac and AMC, which debuted the new Javelin.

Despite being a smaller company than its rivals, American Motors went in with a healthy budget, determined to offload its stodgy image. When the company announced its plans to enter the TransAm class, many were surprised by the choice of Jim Jeffords to run the programme. But Jeffords, a clever advertising guy and former National B Production Champion in a Corvette, knew marketing. Jeffords signed Ron Kaplan as crew chief, and Kaplan hired top-flight pedallers George Folmer and Peter Revson to drive the cars.

Rather than build their own engines, the team instead enlisted Traco engineering. Traco had a wealth of expertise building race engines for a long list of customers, including Bruce McLaren and TransAm competitor Penske, which at that stage was running factory Camaros.

Destined For Victory

The ’68 TransAm Javelins were light, and their drivetrain and suspension/brake components were as similar as they could be to the ’68 Penske Camaros, while Traco coaxed a competitive 400hp from AMC’s 290ci V8, which had been bored to the TransAm maximum of 304ci. Jeffords worked closely with AMC’s marketing team to create a distinctive three-tone red/white/blue colour scheme, which proved so popular it was retained for the entire period the Javelins ran in the TransAm class, and was also carried over to AMC’s Nascar and drag racing campaigns.

The Javelin team placed third in the ’68 TransAm series, and almost beat the far more fancied Shelby-run Mustang factory team to runner-up spot, behind the Penske Camaros. American Motors sold nearly twice as many Javelins in 1968 as it had forecast, and much of that success was thanks to Jeffords’ TransAm programme.

Sadly for Jeffords and Kaplan, they went and undid much of their hard work in ’69, running uncompetitive cars, less experienced drivers and in-house engines, which proved disastrous.

Fresh Blood

However, that paved the way for Team Penske — which was tired of GM’s lukewarm approach to racing and its lukewarm attitude to funding a competitive racing programme — to switch brands to AMC. It cost American Motors US$2 million to have Penske run its TransAm team in 1970, but Penske and Donohue turned it into a race winner.

Donohue wrote of the ’69 Javelin package in his book: “The first step — of about 10 million — was to find out what Kaplan had done. We inherited his entire operation right after Riverside (the final round of the ’69 season), including cars, trucks, trailers, and parts. Compared to what we were used to, it was the sorriest mess I’ve ever seen. The most valuable asset they had was an International tow truck, which we used for many years after that.”

Donohue started afresh, building complete new cars for the ’70 season. Against factory teams from Ford, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Dodge, and Plymouth, he won three races and placed second in the 1970 TransAm, behind Parnelli Jones in a Bud Moore-run Mustang. Donohue then went on to win the title the following season with the newly styled ’71 model Javelin, a somewhat hollow victory as the other manufacturers had withdrawn from the series, but regardless, the ’71 Penske Javelins were absolutely state of the art.

Those ’71 Penske Javelins were considered by many to be the best TransAm racers of the era. And it was the ’71 Penske Javelin that inspired our feature car, owned by Craig Stacey. Craig found his ’71 Javelin in Trade & Exchange back in 1999.

Of all the American pony cars of the era, the Javelin is probably the most left-field and misunderstood of the bunch. When Craig acquired his car it had been in New Zealand since 1973, had had more than 20 different owners, had been painted several times, and was fitted with a Ford 302ci motor and C4 trans. Originally a mustard yellow colour, it was maroon by the time it came into Craig’s possession. He paid $2200 for it.

Rare Racer

Craig was already enjoying a bit of tarmac action in a numbers-matching Mustang with the Production Muscle Car group when he bought the Javelin. The Production Muscle Car series is, as the name implies, a production-based road-racing series in which modifications are extremely limited. Competitors can hop-up their engines, although parts such as aftermarket blocks and alloy heads are not permissible, and they must run a wet sump, while other areas such as the brakes must remain stock, other than upgrading the rotors and pads. It makes for a fun class.

Craig blew the Javelin apart and began a three-year rebuild. He set about having 20 years’ worth of paint jobs stripped until the Javelin was back to bare metal, and had the body painted in the factory TransAm Javelin colours of red, white and blue.

Prod-Muscle rules don’t allow for body mods or lightweight panels, so the Javelin runs original sheet metal. Craig replaced the lame Ford donk with a correct AMC unit built by his brother Alan, who played a pivotal role in building the car. A pair of race seats was installed, while the suspension was beefed up.

The Javelin eventually made its race debut in late 2004. It was a nightmare. “After purchasing the car,” Craig recalls, “I was talking to a person about building the Javelin to race, and he told me a rumour that the car was involved in an insurance job, in which it was backed into the tide with a boat on the back. In the early days racing it, the thought crossed my mind too!” However, Craig persisted, and kept up development of both the handling and the power. “My brother Alan sent back three 401 blocks/heads/cranks from the USA, and he built a flat-tappet cam engine with factory standard steel rods and factory steel crank. We had endless oiling issues under hard racing conditions. It was a standard joke when back in the pits for people to say they saw my large red oil light come on from the grandstand at Puke X-amount of times as I would shut the engine down, wait for the oil to get back to the sump, crank the engine up again and charge on for the finish line. This engine lasted one-and-a-half seasons then it ran a big end, cracked the factory crank and put a gudgeon through the block. We built the current engine with Moldex steel crank, aftermarket steel rods, CP pistons, roller-cam and more oiling mods to the block and sump. To date it has been great. Now I am starting to concentrate on driving it instead of watching for the red light!”

Initially Alan maintained the engine. Sadly, he has since passed away, and Craig now has Tony Marsh on the job. The stonking 401 produces 600hp, more than enough when you consider it runs standard brakes. The car now handles pretty well, and absolutely bombs around the fast, sweeping Pukekohe layout. An impressive low-67-second time is the car’s best to date, amazing when considering the limitations of the Prod-Muscle rules.

Talking Point

For Craig, one of the joys of racing the Javelin has been that it is very unusual, and therefore massively popular with punters and fellow competitors alike. But rarity comes at a cost, and Craig has learnt to prepare for his racing in a way teams running GM and Ford products don’t have to worry about. Through necessity, he has amassed a seriously large collection of AMC spares, plus an entire ’74 Javelin. Even so, just before Craig was about to load the car on a boat for Australia, where he was to compete as part of the first Kiwi invasion at the Muscle Car Masters in 2007, the engine let go in testing. He was without a car until Sue Golding generously lent Craig her Commodore for the event, but he was determined to return in 2009 with his Javelin.

Not only did the Javelin make it the second time around, it won one of the handicap races, won the round for the Group 2 class, and proved massively popular with the Aussie crowd. Kiwi racing legend Jim Richards was an interested observer, as JR is well advanced building his own Javelin for the Australian Biante Touring Car Masters series. Craig had JR sign the roof for him, as did Jason Richards, who was also a big fan.

That Eastern Creek victory topped off a successful 12 months for Craig and the Javelin, as the pair went to Aus as reigning Production Muscle Car champions, having fended off Mike Oldham’s XC Falcon Cobra in the final race at the final round of the 2008/’09 season.

I’ve always maintained that classes like Central, Northern, and Production Muscle Cars are more about the cars than the results, and many seem to agree with my sentiments. Few spectators (except maybe one or two anoraks) remember the race results, but many will remember certain cars, and that’s what makes classes like these so popular.

Craig had a mountain to climb with this project, but the enthusiasm of the fans makes it all worthwhile. One enthusiast in particular, at Eastern Creek, stands out. “A guy came up to me,” Craig recalls, “and he was all excited. He said, ‘I got to ride in Mark Donohue’s TransAm Javelin in 1971 at Riverside Raceway [in the US] when the Penske team was there testing. I was 14 years old and I nearly shat my pants! Seeing your car brought the memories flooding back.’”

Isn’t that what old cars are all about?

1971 AMC Javelin SST (TransAm replica) – Specifications

Engine: 401ci (6571cc) AMC V8, factory AMC block, Moldex steel crank, CP pistons, Childs & Alberts rods, roller cam, factory cast iron dog-leg heads, ported with stainless valves, roller-rockers, 850dp Holley carb, Torker manifold, Carter mechanical fuel pump, Hooker headers, three-inch system, Flowmaster mufflers
Driveline: Steel flywheel, Tilton triple-plate clutch, four-speed Richmond T-10 gearbox, two-piece driveshaft, Ford nine-inch diff, Strange head, Detroit locker, Moser Engineering axles
Suspension: Front – A-arm/control-arm, urethane bushes, heavy duty sway bar. Rear – leaf springs, Koni shocks all round
Brakes: Front – Standard AMC 10.5-inch rotors, single-pot callipers, race pads. Rear – standard XD Falcon rotors, single-pot callipers, race pads
Wheels/ tyres: American Racing wheels, 17×9-inch front, 17×11-inch rear, Pirelli P-Zero 285/40-17 front tyres, Pirelli P-Zero 335/35-17 rear tyres
Performance: 600hp (447kW), Pukekohe 1:07.41

Craig Stacey – Owner Profile

Age: 47
Occupation: Company director Mayceys Confectionery
Length of ownership: 11 years
Craig thanks: Brother Paul, the late Alan Stacey (Stace), father Gordon Stacey, family Shona, Amanda, and Scott Stacey, Mike Price, Robert Horne, Tony Marsh (Marsh Motorsport), Craig (Glenburn Tyres), Ashley (Sherlock Signs), Pat (A1 Autofinish), Mark (Alpine Panelbeaters), Shane (Cheap As Chips) at Segedins Dominion Road, Ray (Just Plane Interesting) for photo shoot location.
Sponsors: Craig at Glenburn Tyres, 
Mayceys Confectionery

Words: Steve Holmes Photos: Dan Wakelin

This article is from NZV8 issue 58. Click here to check it out.

Neil Gray’s Hypercar is the closest thing to a complete scratch-built vehicle in the country, engine included.

Plenty of people claim to own custom cars. And to a certain degree, they are telling the truth. But when Neil Gray says he has a custom car, he’s talking about an entire vehicle that has been fabricated in his South Auckland shed.

Neil’s desire to build a custom car started when he was in his late teens. He decided to buy a kit car, and as with a large proportion of kit cars, it was never completed for a number of reasons. Some years later, after becoming sick of having motorbike accidents, he decided to sell the bikes and play with cars once more, again purchasing another kit. By this time Neil was spending his days working as a tool maker and CNC machine operator, occupations that allow no room for error and require serious attention to detail. So none too surprisingly, he quickly became more and more disgusted with the quality of the kit he had purchased.

Rather than fix the kit’s inadequacies, Neil decided to build a car from scratch. That way he knew it would be up to his strict standards, not to mention completely unique. 
First up was the task of constructing the body. After hour upon hour of shaping the body panels using foam and many tins of bog, a fibreglass plug was taken of the body which would be used as a mould for the final shell. Although no roof has as yet been built, the theory is that one could be constructed in the future if desired.

From the outset Neil knew that at some stage the car had to become road legal (or a road legal version of it would need to be constructed), so an open wheeler was out of the question. The other main requirement was that the car had to be fast. Not just averagely fast, but insanely fast. As such it would have to be as low, light and sleek as possible, while maintaining a good wheelbase for stability.

12,000RPM Of Screaming V8

Through his day job, Neil had previously worked closely with Simon Longdill of Prototipo. Simon is well known in speedway circles (no pun intended) for designing and building his own 2400cc V8 engine. Neil machined the prototype engine components and crankshafts for Simon, including the original twin crank V8 engine. With Simon’s hand-built engines pumping out 390hp and, at 95kg, weighing in at a fraction of any similarly performing motors, a deal was done that would see a Synergy 2400 used in Neil’s car.

With a dummy block loaned from Simon, Neil could work out exactly where the intake trumpets, air box and ancillaries such as the dry sump tank and headers would go. The body of the car was made before the idea of the engine, so it was a tight fit to get decent intake lengths, that is the bonnet is the top of the airbox and the crank centre is 110mm from the flat floor.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Once construction of the body was completed, Neil began designing and building the mild steel chassis. As with all circuit cars, it was a combination of ensuring driver safety and chassis rigidity, and keeping the car as light as possible. Although he’d never used a tube bender before, Neil was impressed with how easy it became to twist metal (good software helped, apparently), and little tube was wasted when learning the techniques.

Rather than just designing the chassis as he went, Neil first drew the car using CAD software. Similar software helped him work out the suspension geometry. When he was happy with the design, the suspension arms were CNC machined from billet aluminium, a process that is far from cheap but which produces stunning results.

For maximum adjustability and performance, both the front and rear shock absorbers have been mounted in-board, and rely on rocker arms for movement. Again, specialist computer programs were required to work out the ratio of each rocker, and the CNC machine was used to create them from billet aluminium.

Russell from George Stock & Co happily custom-built a set of Koni adjustable shocks for the vehicle, which have been fitted with King springs. There are custom hubs at the opposite end of the pushrods that operate the shocks. Neil was originally going to use Nissan Skyline items, but due to the number of Nissan drift cars around the price was just too high. Instead, he once again machined his own from scratch. 
A wide range of wheels was available with a 5×114.3 stud pattern, and after looking at the options Neil decided upon 17×7 and 17×8-inch MAK XLRs. The big wheels are a tight fit on such a small car, but despite looking as if there is no room for them to move, there is more than enough suspension travel — for the circuit at least.

Although the idea of building his own diff appealed to Neil, it was more cost effective to source one from a Nissan. However, the axles and rear arms are all custom made to suit the car’s width. As with the front, suspension is by way of vertically mounted Koni coil-overs operated by a bell crank and pushrod.

The list of components not built by Neil is easily counted on one hand. The AP Racing brake callipers are included in that list, as is the Tilton pedal box, Mazda steering column and Subaru steering rack.

A Tin Of Angry Wasps

The engine itself is a work of art. At just 2400cc it can happily rev to 12,000rpm to produce 390hp. After testing the engine in speedway cars, it has proved extremely reliable, and managed to take out the Australian Midget Championship. With eight individual 46mm throttle bodies gasping for air up top, the engine has a sound unlike any other, which only adds to its appeal.

One of the reasons for the engine project was that Neil would love to put the Ariel Atom to shame, and with that much power in such a lightweight package (the car is around 600kg all up), it shouldn’t be a problem.

When mounting the engine, plenty of calculations were made to ensure the car had as near to 45:55 front/rear balance as possible, which required various parts of the car to be weighed before they were installed.

Like the engine, the gearbox is a Synergy unit. It’s a six-speed sequential complete with billet flywheel and Powertrain Technology 140mm heavy duty clutch. With custom ratios inside the ’box, the car should do the 0-100kph sprint in somewhere around the three second mark.

Scary Fast

I guess I’m one of the few people in New Zealand who has driven a motorcycle-powered car. The one I drove had a Kawasaki 1200cc motor, and I must admit I was sceptical that the bike motor would have the power to move a comparably heavy car. When the motor is in a car you can hold full throttle without fear of tipping over backwards, whereas on a powerful sports bike, throttle modulation is required or you’re in imminent danger of ending up on the road. As Neil’s car has literally twice the engine of the one I drove, it can only be described as insane.

One of the goals for the project was to have the car run sub-60-second laps around Pukekohe Park Raceway. My guess is the car will manage to do that easily enough, even with a passenger on board. Being the first to admit he’s not a driver, Neil has enlisted the help of Angus Mcleod to propel the car for development and race duties. He hopes to be allowed to race in the GT1 class, but rules about how many vehicles must be produced to become eligible may put an end to that.

Marketable Prospect

Throughout the build period, Neil became more and more aware that what he was constructing would be marketable, and that there would be a demand for more of the vehicles to be made. By the time this issue of NZV8 goes to print, the prototype you see here will have just been completed. Even so, there has already been worldwide interest both for street and circuit cars. To get the name out there and get orders rolling in, a website has been set up (www.hypercars.co.nz). Make sure you take a look; there are plenty of build photos to check out. As it’s a marketable product, Neil required a name for the car. The one he selected is the Hypercars DSN390. DSN390 stands for Don’t Stop Now 390hp. “Don’t stop now” was obviously something Neil was saying to himself as he worked away in the garage until all hours of the night for months on end to get the car completed in time for the recent Big Boys Toys event.

While Neil was in the shed, his wife Georgina was looking after the business side of things, organising the website, t-shirts, posters, and all the behind-the-scenes details required when you take on a project as large as this. “Without Georgina organising that side of things and being so patient with the amount of time I’ve been spending on the project, it just couldn’t have happened,” Neil says.
With Hypercars’ quality of workmanship, innovation and desire to succeed, it won’t be long until Neil and his DSN390 achieve the same hero status as John Britten. When that happens, don’t forget where you read about it first.

Neil and Georgina Gray – Owner Profile

Occupation: (Neil) CNC machinist/tool maker
Previously owned cars: Nothing special
Build time: 2.5 years
Length of ownership: 2.5 years
Dream car: This one, with more power and less weight, 500kg, 500hp
Why the DSN: Unfinished business from my youth
NEIL thanks: His wife Georgina, Callum and team at Classic Auto and Body Centre, Simon Longdill at Prototipo, Nick Speedy at Frank Allen Tyres, Anton at BG Marketing, Russell at Koni, Kerry Jones at Kerry Jones Engineering, Anthony Candy at Franklin Powder Coaters, Brian Bellingham at Carbon Force, Russ McIntyre at ACME, Angus McLeod for the s/s headers and patience in the future

Hypercars DSN390 (scratch built) – Specifications

Engine: 2400cc 32-valve Synergy (custom-built) V8, billet machined block, compartmentalised dry sump, billet crankshaft, forged steel rods, Nikasil- plated aluminium cylinders, Kawasaki DOHC four-valve heads, 46mm throttle bodies, Bosch 044 fuel pump, carbon air box, Denso coil-over plug, custom 304 stainless steel exhaust, PWR radiator, Mocal oil cooler, Aeroquip fittings, DTA engine management, Barnes four-stage dry sump pump
Driveline: Synergy six-speed sequential gearbox, billet flywheel, Powertrain Technology 140mm twin plate clutch, Nissan LSD, custom axles, custom driveshaft
Suspension: Billet aluminium double A-arm, custom push rod/bellcrank operation, Koni adjustable shocks, King springs, custom uprights, custom hubs
Brakes: 315mm AP Racing floating front discs, AP Racing four-pot callipers, 300mm rear discs, AP two-pot callipers
Wheels/Tyres: Mak XLR 17×7 and 17×8-inch rims, Dunlop Direzza 03G, semi-slick tyres
Exterior: Prototype GRP body, removable front, custom windscreen, gunmetal paint
Interior: Racetech seats, OMP Superquadra steering wheel, sequential shifter, AIM MXL datalogger/digital dash, carbon dash, remote brake bias, billet switch gear, OMP five-point harnesses, Tilton pedal box
Chassis: Tig welded mild steel, triangulated with crumple zones
Performance: 390hp-plus (291kW-plus), aiming for 58 seconds at Pukekohe Park Raceway

Words: Todd Wylie Photos: Adam Croy

Big motor, no roof, small car and Carroll Shelby’s endorsement. What could be better?

The day was cold. Not the pleasant, crisp cold that fills your lungs with a slight sting as you draw in a deep breath, but the type of cold that comes heavily laden with its own howling wind, always seeming to find the weak point in your armour of hooded jumpers and woolly socks, in an apparent effort to make your day as miserable as possible. In any other situation, I would have been an exceptionally displeased man. But this wasn’t any other situation. Today was a good day.

I tried to get comfortable as I took in my surroundings, the biting wind long forgotten. Deserted industrial street, soft leather underneath and a thin, almost comical wooden steering wheel in my hands. “The keys are in the ignition, mate, fire it up,” said a voice from somewhere off to the side. I could only let out a grunt as I reached under the wheel. I twisted the key to the right, one click, two clicks and then a third. The 2009 Superformance AC Cobra I was sitting in burst into life as the body shook with in menacing side-to-side motion. Seven-and-a-half litres of Cobra Super Jet motor growled angrily mere inches ahead, exhausts bellowing either side.

In my head, I was looking pretty damn cool right about then. Photographic evidence suggests I was looking nothing of the sort, but I don’t care. Because ever since I had first become interested in cars, I’d always wondered what it would be like to ride in a Shelby Cobra, a car with so much motor and yet so little body. In a few seconds I wouldn’t just be riding in one, I’d be driving it.

Reach For The Stars

For his entire life, Rowan Tonkin had wondered that very same thing. When he was a just a child, a poster of a Shelby AC Cobra 427S/C took pride of place on his bedroom wall. “I loved that car. I wanted it so badly, and told myself that one day, I’d own one, and nothing else,” Rowan remembers. A fair few years on, and he has kept that promise to himself, never once straying from the dream. “This is the first V8-powered car I’ve ever owned, and only the second V8 I’ve ever driven. I didn’t want to touch anything that wasn’t my own dream car, so I didn’t. I just waited.” That’s patience.

A couple of years ago, Rowan was finally in the position to fulfil his dream, and after a very long time spent meticulously researching the subject, he came to the decision that the Superformance MkIII, the only replica to be officially endorsed by Carroll Shelby himself, was the way to go. “There are plenty of replicas out there, but in the end the Superformance cars suited me the best,” Rowan explains. “They come as a complete car, tailored to your exact specifications rather than a kit that needs assembly, plus they most closely resemble my 427 S/C dream car, whereas many others are based on the earlier 289 models.”

Just Add Power

The only part of the car that needed installing was the engine. Rowan decided that bigger is better, and went with a massive 460 cubic inch Super Cobra Jet big block. The crate motor, which Stu from Aero Automotive installed, came direct from the States, and runs fully forged internals, high-flowing Ford Performance alloy heads, polished valves and a hydraulic flat tappet cam. Fed by a K&N filter and Holley fuel system, the Holley 850cfm carb provides gas and air for combustion by a complete MSD ignition system. Once the big block has made its 550hp, the resulting waste gases are extracted via two-inch ceramic-coated headers, and in turn a pair of barking 3.5-inch side-pipes built to exact factory Shelby specifications.

Tremec was the way to go when it came to backing up the motor with a reliable driveline. At first, Rowan purchased a TKO600 five-speed box from eBay, but it all went horribly wrong.

“It’s a bit of a cautionary tale, really,” he warns. “I sent the money and never received the box. Even getting the FBI involved didn’t help, so that was a fair few thousand dollars down the drain.”

Gutted but undeterred, Rowan turned to local merchant Fast Parts, which found him another, somewhat more tangible, TKO600. This was mated to a Ford Racing flywheel and McLeod clutch plate, and spins a custom driveshaft bolted to a BTR Dana limited slip differential out the rear.

The indestructible diff spins a very special set of wheels — genuine 17×12.5-inch Halibrand knock-off rims, complete with fat 315/45R17 Goodyear Eagle F1 treads. Although the big feet provide excellent traction, it still gets very slippery on the drag strip, although that hasn’t stopped Rowan powering over the line in a very respectable 12.4 at 120mph at the Fathers’ Day Drags, especially noteworthy considering it was his very first time. To slow the car down to a reasonable pace after the finish line there are some very nice four-pot callipers and discs from Wilwood.

Job Well Done

When Rowan committed to Superformance and ordered his car, the body and interior options were endless. After much umming and ahhing, he finally decided on Indigo Blue with Ivory stripes for the exterior, and a nice but simple leather interior, complete with period-perfect steering wheel, gauges and Hurst shifter.

That was far from the end of the journey, though, and as a perfectionist, Rowan had to have the look of the car just right. “I had a guy in the States hand-fabricate the badges, then looked up the factory specifications of the original car to see exactly where they were positioned, right down to the millimetre,” Rowan says.

Some might call this car the classic midlife crisis story. I gingerly put it to Rowan, who laughed. “Yeah, I get that a lot. I’m not really sure if there is such a thing. I think the reason guys get to my age and start buying and building cars like this is because they finally can. They’ve got a job that pays well enough, the house is sorted and they have a bit more spare time available. I don’t think it’s a crisis at all; it’s a final fulfilment of a lifelong dream.”

Back at the photoshoot, the sun beginning to dip, I depressed the clutch and shifted into first gear. A few revs later and the Cobra and I were heading down the deserted street. Second gear slotted nicely and, with a deep breath, I stomped the accelerator to the floor. The Cobra’s nose lifted into the air as the rear end squirmed underneath me, eventually finding purchase and heaving a grinning journalist down the road at frightening pace.

The acceleration was immense (an official 0-100 of 3.8 seconds), and the hulking 460 cubic inch big block roared underneath the bulging bonnet.

I had no clue of my speed and had no real desire to know. All I needed to be aware of was that I was in control of a very small fibreglass tub with a very large motor — and I was loving it.
The Cobra rounded a corner with surprising ease, sling-shotting out of the apex in third gear with a monstrous howl. Sure, my face stung from the cold, and I couldn’t help but feel a little unsafe in the roofless machine, but I could not have cared less as the Cobra and I flew down the road. This was about as pure a driving experience as is possible. All motor, very little car and an elegant wooden wheel in your grip.

I might never own a big dollarcar like Rowan’s, but at least I can say I’ve driven one. It was one of the better experiences in my career as a motoring journo thus far.

2009 Superformance MKIII AC Cobra 427S/C replica – Specifications

Engine: 460ci (7500cc) Ford Cobra Super Jet big block, two-bolt main short block, .030 overbore, hypereutectic pistons, forged connecting rods, Ford Racing Super Cobra Jet alloy heads, Ford Racing Super Cobra Jet valve train/roller rockers, Jon Kaase port design with 72cc combustion chamber, polished s/s valves, Ford Performance hydraulic flat tappet cam shaft, 10.5:1 compression ratio, Holley 4150 street/strip 850cfm 4-bbl carb, K&N oval filter, Ford Racing Victor Junior single-plane manifold, Holley Blue 110 GPH electric fuel pump, 64-litre stainless fuel tank, MSD 6AL ignition with 6000rpm chip, MSD Blaster coil, MSD Pro-Billet small diameter distributor, MSD Black super conductor leads, Optima battery, custom ceramic-coated headers, two-inch into 3.5-inch side-mounted stainless steel exhausts, oil cooler and braided oil lines, alloy radiator
Driveline: Tremec THO600 five-speed manual transmission, Ford Racing billet steel flywheel, McLeod 500 Series 305mm diaphragm disc and pressure plate, hydraulic throw-out bearing, Lakewood steel bellhousing, BTR Dana limited slip diff, Ford Racing 31-spline driveshaft yoke, custom driveshaft
Brakes: Front Wilwood four-pot callipers with 305mm discs, rear single pot Wilwood callipers with 279mm discs
Suspension: Fully independent unequal length A-arms, custom Bilstein adjustable coil-overs, HR springs, custom front and rear sway bars, rack and pinion steering
Wheels/ tyres: Genuine 17×12.5-inch and 17×9.5-inch Halibrand knock-off rims, Goodyear 315/45R17 and 245/45R17 Eagle F1 tyres
Exterior: Fibreglass body, Indigo Blue paint, handmade aluminium 460 badges, Cobra emblems, traditional Monza fuel cap, chrome quick jacks, Stainless steel engine louvres, triple wipers, original Lucas P700 Tribar lights, roundels
Chassis: Jig-welded parallel ladder frame chassis, heavy wall 50mm x 100mm rectangular tubing
Interior: Handmade seats in German leather, RJS five-point harnesses, Motolita wooden wheel, traditional Cobra shifter and handbrake, original style Smiths Cobra instrumentation, twin chrome roll bars
Performance: 550hp (410kW) at 6250rpm, 738Nm torque at 5000rpm, 1200kg, 12.4 at 120mph on street tyres

Rowan Tonkin – Owner Profile

Age: 40
Occupation: GM, HR at Gen-i
Previously owned cars: Nothing worth mentioning
Dream car: This one
Owned: Nine months
Build time: Nine months
Thanks: Co-drivers Eleanor, Campbell, Hamish and Jack, Shelley at Cobra Technology Centre in Melbourne, Stu at Aero Automotive, Scott at Fast Part

To the uninitiated a naked dragster may look like a farm gate with a big motor on it

People who love dragsters tend to be on one side of the engine or the other. Either you love front-engine diggers or you hate ’em. The desire to strap oneself tightly behind a motor which, given the forces it is subjected to, will in all probability expire with potentially catastrophic consequences seems somewhat alien to those who believe the driver should be in front of such a calamity. Racing anything that doesn’t have the engine out front where God intended it to be is almost blasphemous to the other type of disciple.

Old History

When it comes down to where the motor should be in a digger, Rodney Benjes claims he doesn’t really have a preference: “I just went with what I knew.” After learning how to mess up a perfectly good four-door LJ Torana, he progressed to an 11-second, nitrous-sucking T-bucket, and another 12-second Torana, before taking some time out to crew on Vinnie Borowictz’s Wild Bunch Holdens. “It was a great experience and learning opportunity,” Rodney says. “It was the beginning of blown doorslammer racing in NZ. After that I eventually returned to racing with a front-engined dragster (FED) I built at home in my garage.” Using a mild supercharged big block Chevy running on alcohol, Rodders and crew soon had the rail running in the low eights at over 160mph. They were having a ton of fun, but, “the addiction, the need for speed, kept pushing my goals up and eventually we decided that for where we wanted to go, we needed a new car. My homebuilt masterpiece had reached its maximum for its design. Although my passion is the pure performance of drag racing rather than the nostalgia aspect, I enjoyed racing my FED and chose to stick with that style of car.”

Updated Dinosaur

To the uninitiated, a naked dragster may look like a farm gate with a big motor on it, but there’s a lot more chassis science involved than that. Graeme Berry was commissioned early in 2000 to build the new chassis, and lightweight chromoly was the material of choice. The wheelbase is 198 inches but looks longer. Both the front end and the diff are solidly mounted to the chassis; the flex of the long frame and the big Goodyears provide the only form of suspension. Traditionally, a FED uses a bell crank arrangement for steering, but Rod opted for a slightly slower-reacting rack and pinion unit, like a rear-engined car would use.

Rod’s legs straddle a nine-inch diff housing, equipped with an aftermarket nodular iron head, Romac floating hubs, 35-spline axles and spool. Wheel choice was Weld Racing offerings all round.

Roll cage design is pretty much mandated by the rulebook to give 360-degree protection. 
Originally the car was constructed in the traditional style, with the seat at roughly the same level as the bottom of the diff. Once the car was together, Rod found his forward vision was obscured. “I couldn’t see anything but the back of the blower, it made for some… interesting rides in my first season. People think these cars are easy to drive, but the car would start drifting left or right and I wouldn’t realise until it was too late, and by then it’d be all over. Worst one was at Masterton, when I took out the finish line cones, buckling a wing and a front wheel. We took the car back to Kiwi Race Cars, raised the seat and roll cage 150mm — that made a huge difference .”

It’s a 
Windsuckin’ Chevy

Rod is quite proud of the fact that the motivation of his rail is all basic Chevrolet. No aftermarket block or heads are used here, although that’s more down to finances than ideology. “Sure, the block is grout-filled and has Milodon steel caps on it, and the heads have been ported, but this stuff was designed and built by Chevrolet for passenger cars some 30-odd years ago, and we are pulling about 1800hp out of it! I’m not trying to prove a point with this stuff; it’s just what I have. It won’t last forever and I don’t want to push it, so will be moving to an aftermarket block when the budget allows,” he says, with a grin.

The team has had some crank and bearing issues, but at present the reciprocating assembly consists of a four-inch stroke Eagle crank, and Venolia rods and pistons with a relatively low eight-to-one compression ratio. The big port Chevy heads have stainless valves, triple springs and roller rockers, while a custom ground Crow roller cam gives the valve train its orders via Crower lifters and beefy 7/16-inch push rods.

This motor is almost street car material, but the parts that ensure the Chevy engine makes big power reside up top. “While looking around at all the things I couldn’t afford, I came across a full billet 14:71 hi-helix retro blower built by SCS. It was fresh and the price was good, so I had to have it. I built an adaptor plate to cater for the additional set-back in the retro style, and made a few mods to the fuel system based on advice from [fellow dragster racers] Bert and CJ.”

There’s a bird catcher hat with a 110 pump, it has been plumbed up, but the high speed lean-out has never been used. The ignition system is all MSD gear, and once it’s done its job, all the burnt stuff is exhausted from a set of zoomies. Well of course there are zoomies. Would a blown FED look right with anything else? A Crowerglide centrifugal unit is used to launch the digger. Similar to what you might find on a motor scooter, the Crower unit is a highly refined and infinitely adjustable piece of equipment that is strongly favoured in nitro-burning applications. Behind it is an ever reliable air-shifted three-speed Lenco transmission. All this gear is required to get the car off the line quickly and cleanly, but when looking at a blown FED, none of that stuff matters; what hits you right between the eyes is the engine.

Recent History

With all the new components in place for the ’07/’08 season, the team started pushing the combination. As Rod tells it: “With some tuning changes in place at the November Central Nationals, we went out and clocked a PB of 7.3 at mid-190mph; previous was 7.7 at 182mph. We were still killing rear bearings though, so had to change them between rounds. The second pass was rather tragic, pulling a wheel stand and coming down really hard, slamming into the ground, buckling both front wheels and bending the forward section of the chassis. The car hit so hard it jarred my body, pushing my foot back on the go pedal and pulling the wheels up a second time! The saddest part of the story, though, is I had the wheelie bars sitting in the trailer. I hadn’t needed them on the car for years and didn’t realise what an impact the new blower would have. Lesson learned.

“With the NZ Nats coming up in February for the first time ever at my home track, I was determined to get the car fixed. I owe a great deal of thanks to Colin Welch at Kiwi Race Cars, who worked through the Christmas break to cut out and replace about six feet [1.8 metres] of the chassis, inserting new top and bottom rails to get it straight again, as well as straightening the front wheels. While all that was happening, we found that the rear journal of the crank was cracked, and likely the cause of the destroyed bearings.”

Crankin’

“With a new crank and support from Collier Motor Engineers we got it all machined and balanced quickly,” Rod says. “At the same time, Independent Liquor came on board to support us, an excellent opportunity for a new paint job. With a lot of hard work and late nights, we were able to get it all back together with a day to spare. With the new look Woodstock paint job and crew, wheelie bars on, off the trailer we clocked a surprising 7.06 at 195mph, a personal best. We checked the filter and all looked good, but to be safe we dropped the sump and checked the bearings — perfect. Finally this problem was sorted. It dawned on me that maybe we were able to run a six with this combo -very cool. I didn’t even consider a 200mph pass at that stage.

“On day two I came up against Mark Vincent for the semifinal. We had made some more tuning changes, focused on getting all the cylinders running evenly, so all I wanted to do was get down the track with a full hard pass. I did just that, watching Mark fly by me at 3/4 track, it felt like a good run. Coming back into the pits, Rhys Harrison stopped us and handed me a beer, congratulating me on a 200mph pass! It didn’t really sink in at that stage. As we approached the pits, a crowd of racers and supporters gathered round, and I still had no idea what I had done, but I knew it must have been good. Then my crew told me: I had just run a 6.87 at 202.88mph. My first six and 200mph all in one. The best race I ever lost! I was buzzing for weeks.

“From there, with more track time and opportunity for tuning, it just kept getting better. At the Nostalgia drags in April we clocked a 6.74 at 200mph, followed by a 6.67 at 200mph; PB after PB. We’re still tuning the car, so we hope to find a little more without breaking it. We’ll make a few other changes to let me cautiously step up the boot to see how much further we can take it.”

Carnage

Rod is cautious for a reason. Through the years the car has had its fair share of trauma. The list of casualties includes buckled front wheels (twice), a destroyed front wing, bent rear wing, buckled rear wheel, four cracked crankshafts, a popped blower manifold (twice), blown burst panels, a cracked intake manifold, a broken blower belt, a disintegrated clutch, a destroyed bell housing, twisted blower rotors three times, four boost and two oil pressure gauges killed, a broken ignition box, and a bent chassis.

And on top of all that you can bet there’s a bit of blood, lots of sweat and a few pairs of undies.

Rod Benjes Owner Profile

Age: 41
Occupation: Manager of IT Services, BNZ
Previously owned cars: 1973 four-door LJ Torana, 350 Chev T-bucket, LH Torana, 1965 Chevrolet Caprice
Dream car: This is it
Length of ownership: Seven years
Rod thanks: “Firstly my wife Lisa, whose support has been invaluable. Current crew: Darren Curtis, John Dillion, Lawrence Pritchard and Stephen Philpott, without whom race day just wouldn’t happen. Two other crew members in the early days that really helped get things going were Zain Hardcastle and Alan ‘Water Boy’ McCarthy. Vickie — Independent Liquor, Alan — AMC Electrical, Bert — Powder Surfaces, Colin — Kiwi Race Cars, Stephen and Vicky — Fusion Art, Denny — Colours on Glass”

2001 FED (Front Engine Dragster) Specifications

Engine: Supercharged 468ci  (7669cc) Chev, 454 cast iron Chevy four-bolt block with Milodon steel caps, Eagle crank, RCD crank support, Venolia aluminium rods and pistons (60 thou over), approx 8:1 compression, Melling high-performance oil pump and custom sump carrying 10 litres of Redline oil, rectangular port cast Chevy cylinder heads, stainless steel valves, triple valve springs, titanium retainers, Harland Sharp roller rockers, Crane stud girdle, Crow cam, Crower roller lifters, 7/16 pushrods, 14:71 SCS high-helix retro supercharger over-driven 22 per cent, 32psi boost at 8400rpm, Enderle Birdcatcher, 110 pump, 10 hat and eight port injectors, MSD crank trigger, MSD AL7-2 electronic ignition box, low profile billet distributor, 8mm leads and NGK plugs, zoomies, DL10 data logger
Driveline: Air-shifted three-speed Lenco transmission, directly coupled to the rear end, two-disc Crowerglide centrifugal clutch, Ford nine-inch housing, nodular diff head, Mark Williams pinion support and Romac spool, full floating hubs, and 35-spline axles, 4.30:1 diff ratio
Suspension: None
Brakes: Primary braking via twin 250mph Deist chutes. Rear brakes only – Wilwood four-pot callipers over drilled steel rotors. Brake is controlled by hand lever
Wheels/ tyres: 17×2.5-inch spindle mount and 15×15-inch Weld Alumastar wheels, Goodyear front runners, Goodyear 33.5x14x15 slicks
Exterior: Alloy panel body with front and rear (canard) wings
Interior: Custom alloy seat with five-point Simpson harness, butterfly steering wheel, air shift buttons; rpm, oil and boost gauges, shift light, oil warning light
Performance:
Approx 1800hp (1342kW), best ET – 6.67, best speed 202.88mph (326.5kph), best 60ft 1.1 seconds. Currently quickest and fastest blown alky FED running in New Zealand

Words: Trevor Tynan       Photos: Adam Croy

Dean Cadman is a guy who likes to show off his Willys. No, that wasn’t a typo and Dean doesn’t have more than one set of genitals, or if he does, he’s not saying. What he does have, however, is one of the toughest street cars in the country — a 1941 Willys coupe replica with more bells and whistles than a bell and whistle factory during peak season.

The Willys company started out life way back in 1908 when a man by the same name stormed into the Overland Motor Co in search of the 500 horseless carriages he’d ordered. What Mr JN Willys found were piles of parts, unfinished cars, and a company with less money than those little skinny kids on the World Vision TV commercials. JN wasn’t too happy about the thought of losing his hefty deposit ($10,000, which equates to roughly $50 trillion-billion and fifty-three cents in today’s money — or approximately the price a litre of petrol will set you back this time next year). He was also unnerved at the prospect of not receiving any of his cars, so he did what any rich guy would — he bought into the company. The newly crowned Willys-Overland Corporation went on to design and build one of the most successful vehicles of all time, the Jeep. Starting life in World War II, the Jeep soon found a home in the hands of mere civilians — hence the title CJ (Civilian Jeep). As you know, the Jeep is still being manufactured, albeit by a different crowd with a slightly less humorous name. Besides making Jeeps, Willys knocked out a few passenger vehicles. In fact, the pre-war Willys Americar 441 has become a huge icon in the modern hot rod world, so much so that a late ’70s action movie was even based around it — a film brilliantly entitled Hot Rod. How’d they think of that one?

From The Big Screen

It was that film which got our modern Willys pilot behind the wheel of this very vehicle. I won’t go into detail about the movie, as truth be told it’s not exactly a masterpiece and, unlike me watching the film, I don’t want you falling asleep reading this article. Dean liked it, however, and it’s lucky for you NZV8 patrons that he did, for born in his brain was the dream of procuring a Willys coupe and transmogrifying (gotta love the thesaurus) it into a fire-snorting, road-melting, wallet-emptying street weapon. And that’s exactly what he went on to do.

JN Willys would be lubricating the inside of his early 20th-century Levi’s if he saw what a monster Dean’s created. His Willys, as produced, had four-cylinder engines that developed a mind-boggling 47kW (63bhp). Mind-boggling because, let’s face it, these old cars were pretty much carved from solid blocks of granite — how the hell did 47kW even shift them? I have been known to fart with more power than that, although it’s a bit of an unfair comparison as not even many modern engines can compete with the combination of my bowels and a strict protein diet. Dean’s Willys, however, makes well over 20 times the power of the original.

99 per cent Isn’t Enough

Not one to do things by halves, Dean slam-dunked a whopping great Chevy 548ci (8980cc) big block mated to a 8-71 Littlefield supercharger into the awaiting engine bay. With the motor plucked out of a race boat, it’s built for huge power and is as reliable as your average Corolla. The internals of the motor are as good as they get, with items such as Manley rods, a BRC crank, Arais pistons and Isky roller cam all finding their way into the mill. The exhaust system has more than enough storm drain-proportioned piping to lose several small children for weeks at a time. With a Hilborn ECU controlling a vast array of MSD products (read, the whole MSD catalogue), the Willys is currently running  1150hp. Nope, again, that’s not a typo. But it is a whole lot of mumbo. It’s also only what this car runs when cruisin’ the streets on low boost. With the boost wound up to race spec, this tarmac shredder is reportedly capable of around 1600-1800bhp, with an estimated quarter-mile time in the eight-second range. That makes it (on paper at least) one of the fastest street cars in the country, if not the fastest. This car has so much power that every time Dean drops his right boot, the Earth either momentarily stops rotating or increases velocity, depending on whether Dean is driving east or west. He never drives north or south as that would send the planet into an unnatural, off-centre orbit around the sun, eventually shaking it free of its grasp, sending us all to our fiery doom. Dean doesn’t want that — he likes driving his car too much.

Dean Cadman is a guy who likes to show off his Willys. No, that wasn’t a typo and Dean doesn’t have more than one set of genitals, or if he does, he’s not saying. What he does have, however, is one of the toughest street cars in the country — a 1941 Willys coupe replica with more bells and whistles than a bell and whistle factory during peak season.

The Willys company started out life way back in 1908 when a man by the same name stormed into the Overland Motor Co in search of the 500 horseless carriages he’d ordered. What Mr JN Willys found were piles of parts, unfinished cars, and a company with less money than those little skinny kids on the World Vision TV commercials. JN wasn’t too happy about the thought of losing his hefty deposit ($10,000, which equates to roughly $50 trillion-billion and fifty-three cents in today’s money — or approximately the price a litre of petrol will set you back this time next year). He was also unnerved at the prospect of not receiving any of his cars, so he did what any rich guy would — he bought into the company. The newly crowned Willys-Overland Corporation went on to design and build one of the most successful vehicles of all time, the Jeep. Starting life in World War II, the Jeep soon found a home in the hands of mere civilians — hence the title CJ (Civilian Jeep). As you know, the Jeep is still being manufactured, albeit by a different crowd with a slightly less humorous name. Besides making Jeeps, Willys knocked out a few passenger vehicles. In fact, the pre-war Willys Americar 441 has become a huge icon in the modern hot rod world, so much so that a late ’70s action movie was even based around it — a film brilliantly entitled Hot Rod. How’d they think of that one?

From The Big Screen

It was that film which got our modern Willys pilot behind the wheel of this very vehicle. I won’t go into detail about the movie, as truth be told it’s not exactly a masterpiece and, unlike me watching the film, I don’t want you falling asleep reading this article. Dean liked it, however, and it’s lucky for you NZV8 patrons that he did, for born in his brain was the dream of procuring a Willys coupe and transmogrifying (gotta love the thesaurus) it into a fire-snorting, road-melting, wallet-emptying street weapon. And that’s exactly what he went on to do.

JN Willys would be lubricating the inside of his early 20th-century Levi’s if he saw what a monster Dean’s created. His Willys, as produced, had four-cylinder engines that developed a mind-boggling 47kW (63bhp). Mind-boggling because, let’s face it, these old cars were pretty much carved from solid blocks of granite — how the hell did 47kW even shift them? I have been known to fart with more power than that, although it’s a bit of an unfair comparison as not even many modern engines can compete with the combination of my bowels and a strict protein diet. Dean’s Willys, however, makes well over 20 times the power of the original.

99 per cent Isn’t Enough

Not one to do things by halves, Dean slam-dunked a whopping great Chevy 548ci (8980cc) big block mated to a 8-71 Littlefield supercharger into the awaiting engine bay. With the motor plucked out of a race boat, it’s built for huge power and is as reliable as your average Corolla. The internals of the motor are as good as they get, with items such as Manley rods, a BRC crank, Arais pistons and Isky roller cam all finding their way into the mill. The exhaust system has more than enough storm drain-proportioned piping to lose several small children for weeks at a time. With a Hilborn ECU controlling a vast array of MSD products (read, the whole MSD catalogue), the Willys is currently running  1150hp. Nope, again, that’s not a typo. But it is a whole lot of mumbo. It’s also only what this car runs when cruisin’ the streets on low boost. With the boost wound up to race spec, this tarmac shredder is reportedly capable of around 1600-1800bhp, with an estimated quarter-mile time in the eight-second range. That makes it (on paper at least) one of the fastest street cars in the country, if not the fastest. This car has so much power that every time Dean drops his right boot, the Earth either momentarily stops rotating or increases velocity, depending on whether Dean is driving east or west. He never drives north or south as that would send the planet into an unnatural, off-centre orbit around the sun, eventually shaking it free of its grasp, sending us all to our fiery doom. Dean doesn’t want that — he likes driving his car too much.

This Tauranga-built supercharged and bagged GMC pick-up is probably the last thing you would expect to see cruising the streets of Tahiti

Picture this. You’re lying on your sun-lounger on your own secluded beach in Tahiti, without a care in the world. After working hard for many years, it’s nice just to be able to relax and not worry about working for The Man. But something is missing from this peaceful idyllic lifestyle. The hustle and bustle of a combustion engine. The whine of a supercharger. The pish pish of deflating airbags. Oh yes, these would really complete the picture and make this dream even better. At least that’s what the owner of this 1985 GMC pick-up thought. Known to Andy and the team at Tauranga’s Etchells Race Partz simply as Boosie, the relaxed Tahitian decided he wanted a cool truck, and that Andy’s crew would build it for him.

A Long Way From Home

Having family in New Zealand, and lacking anything performance-related back home in Tahiti, Etchells was the logical choice for Boosie. Because he was only in New Zealand for limited amounts of time, he needed a one-stop shop that could not only build exactly what he wanted, but source a car to start with. The starting point for the project was found not too far away in Rotorua, and was your run-of-the-mill truck. While Boosie could have simply exported it back home as it was, he had a far grander plan. Despite limited English, he informed the Etchells team that it must be low — very low — must have good power, must look great and most of all, must be reliable and driveable, as the chances of getting anything fixed in Tahiti are slim.

Like the beginning of an episode of Monster Garage, the truck was quickly turned into a pile of parts. With the chassis stripped bare, the team started on the construction of a monster c-notch to allow the rear diff to rise far higher than standard. With the notch in place a custom four-link was welded in, and before you knew it, the chassis could sit on the ground. To allow the front end the same courtesy, tubular A-arms were fitted with 2-inch dropped spindles. Both the original rear leaves and front coils were sold off as scrap, and in their place is one very trick airbag setup. For peace of mind as well as ride quality, the system is controlled through a digital touch screen in the cab.

From factory the GMC had a fuel tank below each seat. However, given the truck’s new-found ability to hit the deck, the tanks had to be ditched. Instead, tucked away out of sight there’s an air tank setup for the bags on one side and a couple of Optima batteries on the other.

Seeing the chassis sitting on the ground with small steel wheels was impressive, but nowhere near as cool as seeing it with the new rims that Andy had sourced. Measuring in at 10 inches wide up front and a massive 12 inches at the rear, the 20-inch-tall Intro Twisted Vistas are perfect for the truck. Here’s hoping Boosie doesn’t wear out the 325/25R20 Michelin rear tyres too quickly, as who knows if there’s even a tyre machine in Tahiti that can change one of those monsters.

Build It Tough

While the chassis was off getting painted, work began on the motor. Starting with a four-bolt 350ci small block Chev, a bulletproof combination of H-beam rods, forged pistons and the like was pieced together. The no-expense-spared build features all the brands and parts we know, love and wish we could afford. Items such as Edelbrock Performer RPM alloy heads and, of course, the pièce de résistance (Boosie speaks French remember, so we’re allowed to be cheesy), a polished Weiand 6-71 supercharger. But that big butter churn isn’t just a show piece. With a couple of decent-sized Holley carbs sitting on top and a hydraulic cam turning below, the combination is good for around 450 to 500hp. Unlike many blown street cars, there’s no under-drive going on here, in fact quite the opposite, as the supercharger is currently seeing eight per cent more revolutions than the crank.

With the standard fuel tanks now crushed to make baked bean cans, an RCI fuel cell has been fitted under the rear of the tray. Feeding the expensive octane from here forward is an electric Holley fuel pump, and metres of braided lines and Goodridge fittings. There’s just a Mr Gasket street scoop sticking out of the bonnet, so you wouldn’t know the truck was blown — until you hear it fire up, of course. From the front end, all you hear is that wide supercharger belt whining away. From the rear it’s a different story. The twin three-inch exhausts are fitted with Forza Flow mufflers, and thanks to the ‘x’ designed pipes, the sound created is music to any petrol-head’s ears.

Moving Forward

The truck’s driveline is relatively simple, yet stout enough not to cause our Tahitian friend any trouble should he decide to impress the locals. A TH350 trans fitted with a shift kit and 2000rpm stall work with the factory column shifter.

Down the rear is the stock LSD diff, which is more than up to the task. Speaking of which, the brakes have also been left alone thanks to GMC’s over-engineering at the factory.

Smart Thinking

Taking a look inside the cab, you start to think that perhaps Boosie is from the future — or maybe he just wants to be ahead of the times. To get this effect he’s installed a Windows-powered computer in the cab. This is not only handy for storing music and movies that can be played through the touch screen, but has virtually unlimited uses. The computer is even fitted with internet access, so no matter where you are in New Zealand or Tahiti, you can check out what the surf’s like at your private beach back home. For surround sound when watching movies there are two sets of component speakers, as well as a pair of 1500W subwoofers and Alpine amps all fitted into the small cab. When the exterior of the vehicle was painted, Andy sent the interior upholstery off to be retrimmed in a colour to match. Auto Meter gauges and a bunch of billet accessories also brightening up the interior. On the road the truck drives far better than it did in stock form, not to mention it’s a whole lot of fun with that much power at your disposal.

By the time you read this, it should be cruising the streets of Tahiti, where Boosie will no doubt be the new king of the road. Hell, with a truck this good, he should really be the king of the whole island! Where to from here? There’s always the chance of a big block finding its way into the engine bay, but for now, Boosie is happy cruising the streets, soaking up the sun and the looks.

Good thing he decided to keep the bench seat, as finding passengers keen on heading back to his private beach shouldn’t be a problem. Now that’s the life.

1985 GMC Pick-Up -  Boosie

Occupation: Man of leisure

Why the Truck: Always liked pick-ups and will be taking it back to Tahiti

Build time: One year

Length of ownership: One year

Boosie Thanks: Etchells Race Partz Ltd for all the work; Andy and the team have a great one-stop shop. Phone 07 578 0042

Engine: 5735c (350ci) small block Chev, four-bolt block, H-beam rods, forged pistons, dual key crank and balancer, Edelbrock Performer RPM alloy heads, Lunati hydraulic cam, Mr Gasket air scoop, Holley Weiand 6-71 supercharger, two Holley 600cfm carbs, Holley HP150 electric fuel pump, Holley regulator, RCI fuel cell, stainless braided fuel lines, MSD billet distributor, MSD 6AL ignition, MSD leads, MSD coil, twin three-inch exhausts, Forza Flow mufflers, Afco radiator, Proform valve covers

Driveline: TH350 transmission, shift kitted, 2000rpm stall converter

Brakes: Stock disc/drum

Suspension: Four-link rear, tubular A-arms, airbags, two-inch drop spindles, digital controller

Wheels/Tyres: 20×10 and 20×12-inch Intro Twisted Vista wheels, 285/30 R20 and 325/25 R20 Michelin tyres

Exterior: Billet grille, LED taillights, chequer plate deck

Interior: Full re-trim, Billet Specialties steering wheel, billet shifter, billet gauge surround, Auto Meter gauges, Windows XP touch screen, Alpine head unit, Sony Xplod subwoofers, Alpine amplifiers, four 6-inch components

Performance: 335-375kW (approx 450-500hp)

Words: Todd Wylie Photos: Adam Croy