First published in the May & June 2021 issues of Street Machine

Imagine a magical time when awesome street machine fodder was both plentiful and cheap! Mark Parsons lived this reality as a young Sydneysider in the late 1970s and 80s. Now 57 and residing in Queensland, Mark has photo albums full of cool rides that any of us would proudly own. He’s built literally dozens of cars to date, but his automotive journey is far from over. Let’s take a look at some of his favourites.

1. Mark’s first car – custom HR panelvan, 1979

Mark’s first car was this cool HR pano that he bought while still at school: “I was a trolley boy and sold newspapers to save the $900 to buy this off my brother-in-law. That was a lot of money for a 16-year-old to save back in 1979,” he says.

The pano ran a red motor with a GTR cam, HQ three-speed with a Speco floor shifter, chromies, a Lukey muffler and 3.36 gears in the banjo rear. These, along with some body mods like a moulded A9X bonnet scoop, twin-headlight front, front spoiler, HQ van tail-lights and bumperettes, set it apart from the rest and made for a perfect hot street van of that period.

“Those flutes were cut from a genuine GTR at the wreckers; there were no repros back then,” Mark says.

“It stayed in guidecoat the whole time I owned it, but man, we had a ball cruising it through Kings Cross and the like with the tailgate up and loaded full of mates whistling at the girls and waving beers at the cops.

It hummed along too, but probably no better than a stock four-cylinder nowadays!” Two years later, Mark sold the HR to his mate Ian.

2. HQ Monaro obsession

Mark was obsessed with HQ Monaros as a teen. “All I used to do in class was draw HQ Monaros; my school books were full of them!” he laughs.

“I was cruising through St Marys and spotted this at a local car yard – $2499 bought me a one-owner, 308/auto, green-with-black-vinyl-roof HQ GTS. It wasn’t long before I lost my licence for doing 122 in a 60 zone – I’d had my open licence for two days! So I took it off the road for the 12-month suspension period and gave it a rebuild.”

Mark hotted up the 308 and painted it in a new VC SL/E Commodore colour called Firethorn, and working at Bob Jane T-Marts made it easy for him to source new wheels and Lovells suspension before adding a letterbox scoop and tinted headlight covers.

“I raced it at Castlereagh for a 14.6 best, but was beaten by my mate’s R/T Charger, who ran 14 flat. I started the Nepean Street Machines club around then and we’d do drag days for $1 a pass, plus plenty of Bondi cruising and laps of Parramatta Road.

That stretch had the lot – speed shops and hi-po car yards where we would just pull up and dream. It was here that I spied a black SL/R Torana up on ramps, and across the windscreen was emblazoned: ‘Twin Turbo’. I thought: “No, it can’t be.”

3. Twin-turbo LH SL/R Torana

Closer inspection revealed that the SL/R Torana packed a 308 and – yep – twin turbos! This was a massive deal for 1983. “They gave me $6K trade-in on the HQ and I borrowed more cash to meet the $12,000 asking price – big money back then,” Mark says.

“It was originally a genuine yellow LH SL/R that someone had spent ridiculous dollars on, and it showed.” It had real race-car heritage, too; the 308 was built by Peter Molloy, who built mills for Allans Moffat and Grice, while the intake set-up – twin T4 Rajays with twin 48mm Webers – was by turbo legend Phil Ward.

“There were no wastegates, so it was simply more pedal, more boost,” Mark says. “I moved up to the Gold Coast for about six months, and made the trip up from Sydney in the Torana in under 10 hours instead of the usual 12; I drove it like a madman!

I raced plenty of the locals along the Gold Coast Highway. Word got around that I’d beaten Robin Day in his tough XT GT, and the following Saturday night a scruffy bloke in a black ’57 Chev rocked up wanting to race me; it was Victor Bray, as I found out a few years later! I had him beat and he knew it, but I blew one of the turbos and it was all over.

The night I drove back to Sydney from the Gold Coast I went straight to a mate’s party and the Torana got stolen from out the front. My whole life was in that car – clothes, tools, you name it – and I’d only had the car for 10 months. It was found stripped and burnt out, but I got shafted by the insurance company, so I had no money, no job, no car and a loan to pay off for shit.”

4. ‘The Wanderer’ EK Holden

Down but not out, Mark went back to work for Bob Jane T-Marts, saved up some cash and bought a white, one-owner EK Holden for $600 in late 1983. He took it off the road and transformed it into ‘The Wanderer’, painting it yellow and going to town on the detail.

“I painted everything underneath, including the diff and springs, in yellow – now that’s 1980s for you – and removed the front bumper and trimmed the guards to suit. It still had a stock grey motor, but it looked neat with a polished Speco rocker cover, Lynx air filter and detailed to the max.

I met my now-wife Sonja around that time, and we were approached at a burger joint by a bloke who was keen on it. I sold it for $1300 and started again!”

5. 307-Chev powered HK Premier

Mark’s mate Ian, who’d bought his HR van, now owned this factory 307-Chev powered HK Premier. “He was keen to sell it, so I bought it and got it ready for the 1984 Street Machine Nationals,” Mark recalls.

“Pro street was just getting started here in Australia, so I treated the HK to a graphics paintjob, aluminium door trims and a set of Armorlites. I dropped in a nice 327 and Powerglide, then headed to the Nats. Back in Sydney and working at Bob Jane’s, a bloke came in keen to buy the HK – he had a gold HQ Statesman that was a factory 350 car running ROH Wildfires and the usual dent in the front that makes them look like they’ve been punched in the nose.

It was a bit of a shitter, but had potential, so I hit him up for a straight swap and he agreed. I got home and Sonja said: “What the hell is that?”

6. Street/strip 350 Statesman

Mark drove his ‘new’ gold 350 Statesman for about a week before it was stripped down for a rebuild.

With a Morris Major Elite sorted as a daily driver, he focused his energies on making the Stato a tough street/strip car. The vinyl roof was axed, and a complete respray in Red Pepper gave it some street cred, complemented by a colour-coded rear bumper and bubble tail-light covers.

The front end lost its damaged bumper, while the letterbox scoop idea was unashamedly ripped off from the ’84 Nats build of Rob Beauchamp’s LX Torana.

A call to John Cain in Newcastle scored Mark one of John’s legendary ‘Saturday Night Special’ 350 Chev engines, which ran all the gear including fuellie heads, high-rise intake and velocity stack. The luxury flagship ran a 12.50 best at Canberra Dragway when it was a quarter-mile – very stout for a 1985 streeter.

7. Tunnel-rammed 308 HQ Monaro

Mark loves to tinker, which might explain why he tended not hold on to cars for too long. “I always knew there was something better out there!” he laughs. “I’d done everything I’d wanted to the Statesman, so I sold it on for $6500 and decided I needed another Monaro in my life.

I bought this HQ and soon added an HX Statesman front, GTS guards and flat-blacked it. I rang John Cain again, who sorted me out with a tunnel ram for the 308, which I backed with a Trimatic and the stock 10-bolt Salisbury. It looked fairly tame, but I went to town on the undercarriage with a heap of paint detailing and chroming to all the suspension; it surprised a lot of people!” The rear GTS wheels were widened to 14x10in and shod with 265 T/As.

“One of the best things about the Bob Jane stores was that they stocked all of the cool wheels and tyres: Pos-A-Tractions, Kelly Superchargers, Center Lines – you name it,” Mark says. “And those Bob Jane HQ-WB work utes were just so iconic – mags, wings, cool stars-and-stripes paintjobs; you felt like king shit driving those around as a young bloke!”

8. One-of-a-kind MkII Cortina

“I don’t know why I built this; it kind of happened by accident,” Mark says of his one-of-a-kind MkII Cortina. “I was working at Gordon Leven Tyre & Mechanical in Sydney and stumbled across a 186S engine lying out the back. An old mechanic who worked there said he had race pistons and conrods, a Yella Terra head and all this other good stuff, so we screwed together a stout little combo. So I had a hot engine but nothing to put it in.”

Scouring the trusty Trading Post one Thursday morning on the lookout for an HB Torana or similar, Mark scored this mint one-owner MkII for $600. “It was running a 1600 and column four-speed,” he says. “I set up a gantry to see if I could swing the six-cylinder in, but it was hard-up at each end, so my neighbour came over with an oxy and made room!

“The back cylinder ended up under the dash and I couldn’t run triples because the last carb would’ve been right where the firewall was. I settled for twin Strombergs with air cleaners poking through the bonnet, which, along with a 40/80 Bert Jones cam, made it sound lumpy and it went hard.”

Mark backed the combo with a Powerglide and EH banjo diff, and set off the Corty’s look with silver frosted front wheels and fake Center Lines out back. He painted the white tinter and graphics personally and entered the seventh Street Machine Nationals in Canberra, Easter 1986. “The Powerglide shat itself and the ‘good runner’ replacement that we jammed in the morning we were supposed to leave was just as stuffed, so we never made it,” he laments. “I was gutted.

“My two favourite things about the car were that I made a hinged trapdoor in the interior side of the recessed firewall so you could change the number six sparkplug – it used to spin people out; and it still ran all of the sloppy stock floorpan and suspension, so if you nailed it at the lights it would twist and pick up the left-front wheel [laughs].

“It looked so cool. I sold it as a roller for $3500 to a bloke who was wanting to build a drag car, so I both doubled my money and got to keep the engine!”

9. ‘Osmosis’ Model A bucket

What a perfect period Australian hot rod. Mark was out buying Cortina parts at Kingswood Road Wreckers and spied this old Model A bucket on a hand-built chassis tucked out the back. “I took a couple of photos and sat on it for a bit, but by the time I got back there it had been sold,” he says. “Thankfully that was to a mate of mine, Rodney, who changed his mind about the project and sold it to me. It was a 1928 steel body cut down from a tourer, so still had opening doors and had been an A/Modified Altered drag car at Castlereagh. ‘Osmosis’ was its racing name and it was thought to be the old Ben and Joe Gatt or Greg Thomson hot rod from the 1960s.”

The bucket was set up for a Chev and Powerglide combo and had a 4.56-geared Customline diff along with Holden front drums and Cusso rears. Mark pulled it down and started rebuilding what was there, adding a Kombi steering box and a 327 Chev and ’Glide he sourced through his friend Valentine Domotor of Running on Empty ’57 Chev fame. Val also painted the Cosmic Blue hue, which was set off with a white vinyl interior and chrome 13×6 and 14×10 Elstar wheels.

“Another mate had a chrome shop, so I chromed everything, and the pipes were from Bob Bowman of Street Rod Accessories,” says Mark. “I drove it heaps and later fitted a new chrome tube four-bar front end with disc brakes.

“It was lumpy and loud and the whole time I owned it I never ran it with guards, ever. I eventually sold it as a roller to a guy down the road.”

But wait, there’s more! Yep, Mark reckons we haven’t even got to the good stuff yet, which we will cover in part two of his car journey.