With the history of muscle cars encompassing about 50 years (always contentious when the first one was), it’s always a thrill and very convenient when a large collection of these high horse power beasts are gathered in one place. The Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne once again played host to the Gasolene TV inspired spectacle seeing a fantastic array of Australian and American muscle cars from the earliest perceived machines to the latest high tech muscle on show in all their prime and glory! Well, not quite all but more on that later! Read More →
While cruising around LA last year, I guess we had a destination mind, one of the guys spotted a cool looking yellow 32 three window up on a hoist in a garage. Jumping on the brakes in our hire car and turning around, we stopped off to check it out. It turned out to be Braun’s muscle car & Hot Rod restorations workshop and just one of a number of customer’s cars receiving maintenance.
Ford Australia never made a GT ute throughout the twentieth century, the best you could hope for was a stock V8 ute optioned up to GS specs. FoMoCo once considered a sporty ute called a Surferoo in 1969, built one out of interest and to test the waters of the youth market but that’s as far as it got. It was left up to individual owners to build their own GT workhorses and Bob’s maroon classic is one such vehicle that copped the treatment. 
Muscle cars are as popular today as when they were first conceived. The rarer the purpose built machine the more car fanatics want it. That goes for Albert Pace and his Thunderbolt clone too. He spied a 1964 Fairlane Thunderbolt in a magazine one day and decided that was the car for him but with only 100 of these factory experimental drag cars produced, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to get his hands on a genuine one so the only option was to build his own. 
Headed up to the inland city of Ballarat today for the 2nd annual GM day put on by the good folk of the Ballarat and District Early Holden Car Club. Located at the Ballarat Turf Club, it catered well for the large number of GM made vehicles that turned up. Estimations were in the order of 450 seeing many of Holden’s finest on show as well as a good array of American made GM items. The quality was high giving the punters plenty to check out while making the judges work for their keep.
On our travels, we stopped into the 401K club in Anaheim, CA to check out their work and, as it was an open day, there was a car show to check out as an added bonus! The 401K club is a hot rod shop catering for all facets of rod construction from custom body and chassis fabrications, custom paint and vinyl graphics through to electrical wiring, collision repairs and maintenance of your pride and joy. 
For only its third show, this Show N Shine event has outdone itself seeing the Werribee Civic Centre car park and surrounding grounds filled to capacity. Raising funds for cancer and supported by the Cruzin Knights car club, it holds its own among the primary events listed on our car show calendar. With perfect weather and energetic eagerness, 
G’day, checked out Longbeach swapmeet and car show on our first day in LA. Although the overcast conditions didn’t look like the LA image we were expecting, the cool rides on show made up for it. 
Caprice Photography Automotive Art 