RICHARD AND JACQUI THOMSON’S Classy boosted CHEVY BEL AIR

Some of you might think I’m coming out of the closet talking about this Chevy here, being a socalled Ford man and all, but I’m thinking this would look pretty damn cool parked in my shed.

Richard and Jacqui’s Bel Air grabbed my attention as soon I spotted it parked in a field full of cool rods, but when I actually got over to check it out, that’s when I knew it had me for sure! There isn’t anything on this automobile that hasn’t been dressed up, modified or had some sort of custom trickery done to it to make it classy yet not over the top and in your face. The interior exudes luxury like a top of the line sports car, but looks as if it came from the era with the chrome handle window winders and door handles still protruding from the tan leather door trims. It honestly looks straight out of its packaging from 1957! The upholstery is leather throughout and looks completely at home in the Bel Air. The seats are comparable to a modernday leather lounge suite to give you comfort and style when cruising the highways. Bel Airs are already elegant, with extra chrome and stainless steel trims dressing them up from your average every day Chevy, they are a high class looking automobile for sure. The paintwork on this build certainly takes on the sophistication of the styling with the two-tone colouring. The champagne coloured roof flows down the sides to the stainless window surround and somehow lifts the car from being a hot rod to a luxury car. When I mentioned the custom trickery before, this is when the “oh WOW” kicked in. Tucked away under the bonnet so no one knows is a tricky little Weiand 144 Supercharger feeding air into a stroker 383 small block Chevy. This little honey feeds air at 7.3psi into that small block, so you know when that gas peddal gets pushed down, this thing is going to jump like no standard 1957 Bel Air ever did. If you’ve seen my build, you will know I love these under bonnet blowers. The everyday practicality of having it tucked away yet there to keep the torque on tap whenever you want it makes for a cool build, and yes this thing does push you

AWESOME WILLY Turtle’s

Like a dream hot rod straight out of American Graffiti, this awesome build screams the early era of home built drag cars cruising the streets and looking for trouble! In my opinion, this is such a cool shape and I love it!

You either hate this model or you love it, but it gets in your face with that huge aerodynamic bonnet pointing at you saying “want an automobile race”. It just can’t help itself but look like a drag car, which is bound to be why a heap of them ended up on the drag strips back in the day. With huge tyres jammed in under the extra wide rear guards and a set of skinnies up front, they looked totally at home with that nose in the air and smoke rolling off the tyres. When Craig first hit me up to photograph his Willy, my first thought was, I better grab the wide lens for this job! (ohhh I know, but he’ll buy me a beer for that!) I’ve always fancied one of these Willy’s, and like Craig we probably got bitten by the bug as kids watching old hot rod movies. Craig’s search to find one of these rear bodies was getting pretty hard so the decision was made to build his own and what an awesome call that was. After finding a body in Palmy, the mission began building everything into and around it. A roll cage was snuck into the interior along with a heap of custom fabrication to build the massive stereo in behind the seats and roll the centre console up to the dash to install the necessary switch gear and stereo head unit! Being a full build like this, the bonus is, you can do pretty much what ever you like as far as custom bits go. If you get the chance to check out underneath this thing, you’ll see it’s pretty staunch with all the stability and strength that’s been built into hanging onto that 9” diff! It’s bound to need it too, as up front the tricked up Big Block 454 Chevy is bound to shove some twisting down the line!

31 YEARS OF MADNESS! MUSCLE CAR

MADNESS 2021 The Build Up...

ALRIGHTY - Take a few thousand people, around a thousand cool old school cars and hot rods, live bands, retro pageants plus a burnout pad and you have one full-on amazing action packed four-day event you will just love!

So this is it “Muscle Car Madness 2021”. Sit back for some old school fun and laughter like the old days right here! This is truly how life used to be before political correctness got involved and I love it! This is my third venture down south to this awesome event and I’m certainly going back again. This isn’t for the faint hearted and definitely not for the tree huggers, this is way too much fun for that! But don’t think it’s just rough as guts tho, the rule here is “don’t be dick - and you’ll be all good!” and that’s how the whole event rolls. In my opinion, this is what makes it such a cool event. The Rangiora Domain gets packed full of cool, like-minded people, simply there to catch up with mates, make new mates and have a good time and it rocks! The event officially starts on the Thursday but the gates open late Wednesday for setting up with campers being able to slip in and set up as well. This is always me, in on the Wednesday to get amongst it and capture it all as it happens. Awesome luck for me really, as I get to camp up with the famous Garage Crew and enjoy the southern hospitality and atmosphere right from the word go! It’s so relaxed and chilled that without even realising you have kicked off your shoes and you’re wondering around chatting to everyone as if you’ve been mates for years! Thursday is fully all-go in the domain. Food trucks, trade stalls, kids rides and the endless stream of campers rolling in to set up keeps the place pretty busy. The perimeter road-way slowly turns into the cruising strip as everyone settles in, makes themselves at home and now the weekend really cranks in. It always cracks me up to see what creations people have built to drag into the grounds and cruise with!