WE MEET THE STARS OF WILD BUNCH
P R O - S T R E E T M A L I B U + B I G B L O C K C H A L L E N G E R + T W I N -T U R B O E L C A M I N O + T H E DA R R E L L S
DEC. 2019 ISSUE 175
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ISSUE 175 ∞ DECEMBER 2019
WAGON OBSESSION
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S U N D AY S
MUSCLE GARAGE
EL CAMINO
TWIN-TURBO
ONE FAMILY’S
M A L I B U C H E V P R O - S T R E E T
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contents DECEMBER 2019
The Cars
20: SCORCHER — PRO-STREET MALIBU 28: NEVER GIVE UP — BIG BLOCK CHALLENGER 70: BLAZING THE QUARTER — TWIN-TURBO EL CAMINO 82: RATICAL GOALS — BELLARAT GOES GLOBAL 108: PRACTICAL JOKERS — ONE FAMILY’S OBSESSION
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Events
40: KAIKOURA HOP 78: AEROFLOW FUEL ALTERED CHALLENGE 88: BONNEVILLE SPEED WEEK 96: ROCK’N’WHEELS
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The Other Stuff
04: SHORT SHIFT 08: NEWS 10: JUST QUICKLY 14: DAILY GRIND 16: IN THE BUILD 18: EVENTS 36: SUBSCRIBE AND WIN 38: STRAIGHT TALK 56: DRAGGED UP 58: NZ’S QUICKEST 60: AEROFLOW RACE DIARY 100: SOCIAL SCENE 102: CONCEPT CORNER 118: CMC NEWS 120: CARGO 124: A DECADE AGO 126: LOCAL SPECIALISTS 128: COMING NEXT MONTH
Special Features
46: WE MEET THE DARRELLS — THEIR MOTHERS WOULD BE PROUD 62: WILD BUNCH, THE RETURN — WE MEET THE DRIVERS 104: DREAM SHED — SERIOUS SHELTER
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FEATURE 1965 CHEV CHEVELLE MALIBU CAR
WORDS: TODD WYLIE  PHOTOS: TESSA FLOWERS-MORRELL
RO SP T I H T EE STR LIBU T A M O HO IS SAT IT LF TH ITSE SET FIRE Y ON RT WAH PA ROUG D TH E BUIL TH
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hen Bill Flowers decided that the time was right to relive his youth by purchasing a pro-street ’65 Chev Malibu, he was intending for it to be an easy ride. Sure, seeing that he’s an elite-level car painter by trade, cars built to his standards aren’t exactly thick on the ground, but he did manage to find what he was after. It came
in the form of a tubbed ’65 two-door that had recently been traded on a Plum Crazy Plymouth Cuda. The fact the car’s new owner had been happy to let the Cuda go for it gave Bill some confidence that it must have been a good car. He was right too; when it landed from Florida, he had no complaints — although the trip home was a dramatic adventure that Bill would rather
not have to relive. A day later than expected, the fresh purchase was towed into the driveway only for Bill to notice that one of the strops securing the car to the trailer was cut almost all the way through. A few more miles and chances are that he would have ended up with the front of a Malibu embedded in the rear of the tow vehicle.
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SPECIAL WHO ARE THE DARRELLS? FEATURE
WORDS: CONNAL GRACE PHOTOS: ROD DUNN
WORLD FAMOUS IN THE SOUTH ISLAND CAR SCENE, AND TO MANY READERS OF THIS MAGAZINE, WE DECIDED TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE WILD BUNCH WHO CALL THEMSELVES ‘THE DARRELLS’
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t usually starts later on in the year, as summer begins to approach. Pick up a copy of NZV8 at the right time of year, and you will probably notice it — you could even do the same with NZ Performance Car, if you’re that way inclined — but, if you get a magazine covering the right events, you’ll find mention of a group going by the name of ‘The Darrells’.
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The wild boys from Canterbury have made a bit of a name for themselves, predominantly for their rough-looking cars that put V8 grunt in a Japanese package. And, with an expanding haul of trophies and a reputation for bringing the party to the party, we figured it was high time to find out just what these lads are about.
The Darrells are made up of Hamish Pankhurst, Michael Ledgerwood, Callum Mckay, Jamie Hurley, Johnny Buchanan, Aaron Pirie, Jonny Bogue, Connor Gillan, Jody Thompson, Hamish Mann, Jed Chesmar, David Hunter, and Daniel Ramsay, and we managed to get a few of them, and their cars, together to ask them the really important questions.
Hey guys, we’ve got a really important question to ask — what’s up with the name? Hamish P: When I was at school, we used to call people who thought they were a tough c*** ‘Darrell Tuffy’ after the Black Caps player, just because of his last name, obviously, and ended up shortening it to just ‘Darrell’. This would have been around 2006. We’d started using the name again as a bit of a joke again in 2013 before heading up to Nelson for the 4&Rotary show, and it just stuck. That explains that. So, what is The Darrells about? Michael: The Darrellnats event. Paddock jumps, V8 Japanese burnout cars, Trev the ram, 3.8 mangas, bulk yarns, helicopter rides … Hamish P: And Goon, bro. Goon [Muscle Car Madness] is what made us get together as this group called ‘The Darrells’ when it comes down to it. We’ve got to shout out Koozie [Michael] in the article for making the ‘Camp Darrell’ sign. Michael: Yeah, definitely the Rangiora show — the holy grail. I guess that’s what inspired most of our builds too — being different to the rest. Rough and ready. Coming back to the campsite to find your car’s not even there cause ‘dem boiz’ have taken it! Hamish P: Definitely our … distinct style, I guess you could say. I mean, no one else was doing rusty Jappas with V8s, and some people will say there’s
a good reason no one was doing it [laughs]; it’s definitely not a style for everyone, but if you’re striving to be different, you’re not going to please everyone! And who the hell wants to please everyone anyway, right?! I was kinda hoping my car would piss more people off than impress them when I first built it. Owning cars like these, you can clearly see the younger generations are a lot more open-minded than the older … Michael: Agreed, Hamish. Our camp stands out for that reason. We’re all about good banter and ripping the crap outta each other, but will always be ‘dem boiz’. Yeah, Muscle Car Madness definitely seems to be peak Darrell season, so to speak, but you guys get to loads of other events, and seem to be quite well known in both the local V8 and import scenes, would you say? Hamish P: Yeah, for us it all started one extremely drunken weekend in Nelson around 2013 [at the 4&Rotary South Island Champs]. Old mate Koozie was staying with his Toyota homies at the same accommodation as us older Darrells — one night of antics later, best friends forever. The end! Nah, that was only the beginning. The following years heading back up to Nelson for the South Island 4&Rotary events became arguably the golden years of The Darrells. It felt like we could get away with anything, and we basically did.
ONE NIGHT OF ANTICS LATER, BEST FRIENDS FOREVER themotorhood.com
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SPECIAL BONNEVILLE 2019 FEATURE
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WORDS AND PHOTOS: KERRY HOLLAND
A BUNCH OF KIWIS HEAD TO THE SALTS OF BONNEVILLE IN THE QUEST TO HIT 311MPH
’ve been building race cars for various employers and customers for more than 20 years now, and, in that time, I’ve built hundreds of roll cages — yes, hundreds. It is one of those jobs that reminds you how old you are every time you climb in and out of a car for a week or so putting together a chromoly jungle gym. That’s why I no longer build roll cages other than for cars that I am building from the ground up. It is also why, when my old mate Paul Manuell asked me if I wanted to put a cage in a Corvette for his mate Stu, I thought, Yeah, nah. At the time, I was flat out running two NZ V8 utes for a customer and two V8 super tourers in the North Island Endurance Series, so I didn’t need any extra work. Paul talked me into coming to meet Stu and having a quick chat about the car
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by telling me that Royce McCort at Autospeed Engineering would be building the engine for it. I had worked with Royce on various projects and always enjoyed it. OK, I’ll come and drink your beer, I thought. The meeting was at Paul’s house. Following introductions, Royce began telling Stu about his progress so far in regards to his initial planning of the engine. It would be an iron LSX block filled with the very best gear money could buy with a couple of hair dryers hanging off it. Power would be well into four-digit territory. I started to get a little more interested. Next discussion was which car to use. Stu had decided to use a Corvette but hadn’t confirmed which shape would be best. The decision was made to go with the latest-shape (at the time) C7. Talk then turned to Stu’s targets for the car.
Mid sentence he just casually mentioned “five hundred” without skipping a beat. Hang on. I stopped him. “Five hundred what?” I asked. “Kilometres per hour,” he replied with a grin. Sheesh! Things just got really serious. “OK, I’m keen to build the cage. Who’s building the rest of the car?” “You,” said Paul. Now, as I said at the start, I build race cars. It’s all I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember. I’ve built some cool stuff. From sports cars to rally cars, drifters to drag cars, NZ V8s — when they were still relevant — to three V8 super tourers, and a whole lot in between. Throughout my career, I have been constantly striving to find new challenges and keep things interesting. I don’t want to get stuck building the same thing over and
THE DRIVESHAFT WAS A TWO-PIECE. IT HAD TO BE, TO HANDLE THE 11,500RPM THAT IT WOULD ENDURE AT 500KPH over again. So, when someone I had known for 10 minutes completely out of the blue handed me the job of turning a two-year-old Z06 C7 Corvette into a salt-flat racer capable of going 500kph (311mph), I shook that man’s hand and said, “Yes”. While Stu went to the US to find a suitable donor car, I finished off the NZ V8 Ute season — we won the championship for the third time in a row, by the way! — and tidied up some other loose ends so that I was ready to get into it when it arrived in New Zealand. The car went straight to the lads at Eastern Automotive, where they stripped the interior out of it along with the engine ready for me to pull the rest of it apart. I worked out of Eastern Automotive during the early stages of the build; it’s not a bad place to be when working on a Chev — mock-up parts galore! The first few weeks were spent deciphering the Southern California Timing Association’s (SCTA) rule book and figuring out how it applied to our car. This is no easy task, and the best advice that I can give anybody thinking of building a car to compete at Bonneville is to get in touch with the appropriate people in the US and begin the process of asking endless questions to clarify some very vague rules. This was easily the toughest part of the build. Comprehending what the rule book is trying to tell you and then talking to someone in the States about it to get clarification takes up a ton of time. Even with clarification, things sometimes aren’t all what they seem. The other problem with a project like this is that no one else has done anything like this with a C7 before — as far as I know, we are the first. My biggest concerns were drivetrain and cooling. I
could find no aftermarket gear or diff ratios for the stock seven-speed 6070 Tremec transaxle, or an LSD or spool for the diff. I didn’t want to get something custom made, as that would mean we would be using untested parts, and the thought of going halfway around the world with parts that had never been tested was of no interest to me. I had a customer’s sequential Holinger RD6 V8 super tourer gearbox available to test fit, and I decided to try it in the front of the car bolted to
the back of the engine, as this would shift weight forward — yes, forward; more on that later — instead of in the back as the standard transaxle is situated. It fitted perfectly; just fabricated a mount to suit, and it was a done thing. In the rear, I went with the Holinger HFD IRS diff, which is an independent diff head with Ford nine-inch internals. This gave me the option of any ratio I like and a spool or LSD, all well and truly up to the job. The driveshaft was a two-piece. It had to be,
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FEATURE FORD WAGONS CARS
WORDS: CONNAL GRACE  PHOTOS: STRONG STYLE PHOTO
STATION WAGONS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN PRACTICAL, BUT DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN THEY WERE COOL, TOO? THESE FELLAS DO
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ow cool are station wagons?! Actually, let’s rephrase that a little. How cool were station wagons? Countless geezers have decried the natural progression of — well, just about everything — with the famous words, “They don’t make them like they used to”. They are usually right too. They’re extraordinarily right when those words are used when discussing the topic of station wagons, because
they really don’t make them like they used to. In the 1950s and ’60s, the world was different: the future was full of promise, and American vehicle manufacturers produced the vehicles that people wanted. Over the ensuing decades, the world changed. Vehicle production shifted to what people needed, or thought they needed, and cars became less like automobiles and more like appliances — a disappointing trend easily encapsulated by the station wagon’s fall from grace.
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