Issue #2 of Australian Hot Rodder picks up the story of Australian Hot Rodding where #1 left off, with 152 glossy, full-colour pages jam-packed with great in-depth stories and stunning photography of some of the best hot rods built in this country.
It starts with Colin Bate’s beautiful ’36 Ford coupe, which features on the cover. The coupe caught Colin’s eye when he first saw it in the late 1960s and when it came up for sale in the mid-’70s he jumped at the chance to own it.
In the years he’s been able to call it his, Colin has twice rebuilt it, he’s also shown it, drag raced it, and driven it daily. We chronicle the absorbing story of this true classic of Australian hot rodding.
With the ’32 Ford turning 80 this year, we reckoned it was timely to look at the icon of hot rodding in Australia; it’s history, its appeal to hot rodders, along with a selection of some of great Deuce roadsters.
Included are the Buhagiar/Azzopardi ’32 roadster that wowed show-goers in the 1960s, as well as the stunning channelled ’32 roadster built by Kevin Daley, the sizzling hot road racing roadster of Ray Sprague, and the new highboy of AHR’s publisher, Graham Smith.
Drag racing is now a high tech, big dollar sport, but back in the 1960s when it was just getting started here it was possible to race your everyday driver.
Back then Eddie Thomas was the king of the drag strip in his big, blown Chrysler rail. He dominated local drag racing, set record after record and beat all comers, and took the fight up to the visiting American team of drag racers when they came here for the Dragfest in 1966. Old ‘ET’ is still powering on as we discovered.
Bob Keith was the captain of the American team who visited our shores for that Dragfest series and raced a stunning big-block Chevy rail. A chance meeting between Keith and Brisbane-based drag racing writer, Lex Swayn, led to the idea of re-creating Keith’s old car. We went to Willowbank in Queensland to photograph the result.
In a feature-packed issue we also look at the new ’34 Ford coupe Leno Pirotta built the old way, we also chart the history of Neil ‘Ned’ Kelly’s well known ’35 Ford coupe, and look at the flamed ’40 Ford convertible Leo Spessot has driven to every Street Rod Nationals staged to date.
Barry Fletcher was still a teenager when he began building his improved Model A roadster ‘Henrietta’ back in the late 1950s. A trip to America in the 1960s opened his eyes to hot rodding there and on his return he started up Flyscher Enterprises to supply local hot rodders with parts and accessories for their cars and finally built the ’32 roadster he’d always dreamt of owning.
The hot rodding was shocked when in the 1980s Lynn Arrowsmith chopped his’34 coupe, considered to be one of the most beautiful cars built in the 1960s, but as he says he had always wanted to do it, he just didn’t know how when he first built it.
Magazines have always played a pivotal part in spreading the word on hot rodding, and Australian hot rodding magazines have been a major influence on the local scene. We track the early history of some of the local magazines through the early era of the hobby.
Few cars have had the impact that the “Crimson Pirate’ had on Australian hot rodding. Built in the early 1960s by Joe Pirotta and Charlie Caruana the Model A bucket swept the show scene on its debut, taking a haul of trophies everywhere it went. After it finished on the show circuit it virtually vanished, until Australian Hot Rodder found it buried in Charlie Caruana’s garage and convinced him and Joe Pirotta that it should be returned to the spotlight as the cover car on our first issue.
Ray Charlton is known far and wide for his passion for the ’32 Ford. He has owned more than 30 ‘Deuces’ and still professes his undying passion for them. Over 50 years or more the veteran hot rodder has built, shown and raced more ’32 Fords than anyone else in this country, and shows no sign of moving into the slow lane.
In early 1969 at the Sydney International Dragway Ash Marshall blasted into drag racing history when he became the first Australian to break through the 200 mph barrier. Driving ‘Scorcher’, the ex-Leland Kolb AA/FD he imported from the US in 1968, Marshall ran a 7.66s pass with a top speed of 203.16 mph. Current owner Dennis Young and chassis builder George Bukureshliev have combined to restore the classic racer to its former glory.
