Joe Kurtovic’s long-term love affair – or perhaps love-hate relationship – with his ’33 Ford coupe has spanned more than 25 years. The Sydneysider purchased the ’33 as a stalled project out of Melbourne, after heading down to attend the Victorian Hot Rod Show. “I was going to build a simple hot rod cruiser, but then I bought a 6/71 supercharger and all plans changed,” says Joe.

First published in the July 2026 issue of Street Machine

What rolled out of the garage a couple of years later was a full-fendered, tubbed, bright yellow coupe powered by a blown small-block Chev. There was one small problem, though. One of Joe’s mates, Sam Khouri, had a very similar-looking hot rod, so Chris Palazzo – another mate of Joe’s – came to the rescue and laid on a set of bright green flames.

Joe enjoyed the car like that for many years, drag racing it on both the track and the dirt, and even doing the odd burnout competition. Along the way, he was always evolving and improving it. Well, except for that one time when he almost burnt it to the ground in the burnout comp while chasing the Grand Champ award at Supernats.

“That was the start and finish of my pro burnout career,” Joe says. “I took the fenders off and it was a highboy for a few years, and I continued to do all my drag racing and dirt drags. Then I bought a nitro Hemi, and it was all over. It was a bit of a laugh; we got together, had a few beers one night and I said, ‘Let’s put a nitro Hemi in it,’ and we made it happen.”

The coupe’s body remained essentially the same, but with the nitro-snorting, flame-belching Hemi between the rails, it essentially became a cackle car, getting fired up at various events and no doubt at the odd barbecue at Joe’s place. “That sort of set the path for me to go, ‘I’m going to build this thing once and for all; it’s going to be a 70s Fuel Altered-style hot rod,’ and there were no corners cut until I achieved that goal,” says Joe.

To get the look just right, Joe knew he had to set the motor way back in the chassis. If you’re into this era of drag racing, you’ll know exactly which cars were Joe’s main inspiration: the Mooneyham & Sharp ‘554’ coupe, and the Hawkins-Webster-McLeod ‘15oz’ coupe. These legendary ’34s were both Hemi-powered and had the motor set so far back that the injector scoop only just cleared the windscreen.

While the engine in Joe’s ’33 doesn’t sit quite that far rearward, he kept moving it back until it looked right to his eyes. “I recessed the motor about 10 or 12 inches further back, which let me run the Moon tank behind the grille,” he says. “I just got the grinder out and started cutting everything that was in the way until it fit.”

The motor itself is an original 1957 Chrysler 392 block that once did duty in a hydroplane drag boat. “We rebuilt it all; went to town on it. It’s got four-bolt mains and all the killer stuff in it,” Joe says. “It’s been built to run numbers down the strip – which I probably won’t do – but I wanted it bulletproof.”
Behind the Hemi is a Powerglide built to handle 2000hp, and a massive 10-inch Winters quick-change diff that has been set up with a full-floater kit and Wilwood disc brakes. It’s going to need all that beef to handle the 1500hp the old Hemi makes at 7000rpm and 22psi of boost on an 80 per cent mix of nitromethane.

The interior also went through a transformation at this time, gaining custom bead-rolled door panels by Jarred Boskovich to match the aluminium bomber seats that Joe had fitted earlier. The door panels are highlighted by machine-turned sections, crafted by Joe, that sit behind the main panel and peek out through die-punched holes. The machine-turned theme carries through to the dash and on trim pieces that surround the door opening, as well as along the top of the console that houses the custom-made ramrod shifter.

By early 2023, the ’33 was pretty much as you see it on these pages, except it was painted in primer red, and far as Joe was concerned, the car was done. “That was the final look – until I met Brad from Cool Az Hot Rods,” he says. “He saw the car and said: ‘Mate, it’s gotta be painted. We’re going to get together and we’re going to do it.’”

So, the coupe was blown apart again and Joe went to town detailing everything. “I ended up spending months and months in the shed. Every M5 nut and bolt was polished; everything was chromed,” he says. “I went a little bit too far, but I thought, ‘If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it properly,’ and we got it finished for Summernats 38.”

The car he unveiled at the ’Nats earlier this year showed off much more than just a colour change to black – all the work Joe put into detailing every inch of the car was also on full display. Aside from the aforementioned nuts and bolts, Joe did all the metal polishing himself before sending the parts off to be chrome-plated. Wait times for chrome plating are always longer than expected, which makes Joe getting the project done in around two years a pretty massive effort.

Now, before you all start sharpening your pencils to write in to complain that you can’t drive a car on the street with zoomies – let alone one that doesn’t have a radiator – don’t worry, Joe’s got a plan. “I’ll build an exhaust that goes under the car, and it’s also set up to have a rear-mounted radiator,” he says. “There’s an 80-litre fuel tank in the boot and it feeds the Moon tank up front, so I’ll be able to drive it a bit further than I can now.”

As you can imagine, the fuel economy isn’t going to be great, and those 80 litres won’t last long, but Joe will definitely look cool as hell behind the wheel!

JOE KURTOVIC
1933 FORD COUPE

THANKS
My family for all their support over the 25 years of owning the car and my crazy rebuild ideas; Cool Az Hot Rods for panel, paint and cloth trim; Race Products Queensland; Get Buffed for buff and ceramic coating; MP and Greg for welding and fab; Pete at Motorholics; Chris for the showboard sign; Luke at Mirror Finish; Daniel at All About Auto Electrics for help with the wiring; all the bros.