Chopped is back! When it began in 2008, the Chopped Rod & Custom festival was designed as a low-key event for traditional rods, customs and bikes. The first Chopped was held as a static show on a footy oval in the tiny Victorian goldfields town of Newstead, before moving to the Newstead Racecourse. Dirt drags were added to the mix in 2010, and the event took off from there, with a heady mix of high-octane music, cocktails and camping luring back the faithful year after year.

First published in the November 2024 issue of Street Machine

In 2019, the event moved again to the more salubrious surrounds of Carisbrook Racecourse. The new venue was a big step up in terms of facilities and gave organisers Ryan and Kyle Ford the chance to add some new features, including single-lane street drags, an indoor chopper display and a mini tattoo expo.

For this year, the street drags bit the dust in a cloud of red tape, but the tattoo show was greatly expanded, and a new Muscle Car Madness class was introduced to open the event up a tad. Ryan Ford put out the call for pre-1979 cars on an expression-of-interest basis, and the vibe he and the crew were looking for was ‘ratty, but old-school’, with the general guideline being ’if it upsets people, it will probably suit this category’.

We reckon the process worked well, as it saw plenty of interesting cars filling up the class. Many of them embodied Roadkill host David Freiburger’s philosophy of “don’t get it right, just get it running”, and we very much approve! Indeed, that vibe was evident throughout the event, with a stack of cool-but-unfinished cars, bikes and trucks littering the campground. At one point, it seemed like every righteously worn Chev C10 and Ford F-truck on the continent had descended upon Carisbrook!

Over the weekend-long event, a consistent theme emerged of cars that had been pulled out of sheds and paddocks after lengthy slumbers and prepped for Chopped in a matter of days, months or years, depending on the severity of the ageing process. The result was a campground full of cool stories and wabi-sabi wonder.

Having skipped last year, the event’s return in 2024 was highly anticipated, and we were not disappointed as we rolled in under the giant Chopped sign at the entrance and down through the campgrounds to the show ’n’ shine area.

There, we were immediately confronted by some of the sweetest trad-style rods in the country, including Glenn Hogan’s Hemi-powered ’32 coupe, Ben Mulholland’s just-finished improved A roadster, and Sean Hammond’s insane, chopped-and-channelled Model A coupe.

Parked alongside these sweethearts were two of the toughest competition-style rods going around: Joe Kurtovic’s nitro Hemi-powered ’34 coupe and Chris Palazzo’s Hemi-powered Willys. Ratty muscle cars are cool, but it was clear that righteous hot rods still rule the roost.

The centrepiece of the event action-wise was the Gasser Elimination Shootout, with 16 cars turning up to Carisbrook to race on what would turn out to be a fairly muddy track. Many of the gassers in the field regularly race in nostalgia competition, while others were built solely for this kind of event. The wet conditions made for some spectacular driving styles, with the event bearing more resemblance to a drift show than drag racing.

For example, burnout legend Adam Slorach absolutely sent his ‘Trik Shot’ Torana, drifting it down the strip before pirouetting gracefully in the deep end. Corty Haig did much the same in his HK wagon before taking the reins of AJ John’s Chev gasser, the aptly named ‘Tetanus Shot’, for a three-from-three victory spree. Many folks at the event were missing the presence of Corty’s late dad Harry, but Corty and his mate did him proud in the chaos stakes.

Besides the drags, at Chopped you can cruise all day, get tattooed, have your wig snipped, sample some killer barbecue, or cook your own. Music is a big part of the Chopped formula, too, and Kyle Ford has a great eye for an up-and-coming band. This year’s line-up was quality from top to bottom, headlined by veteran Aussie punks, Cosmic Psychos.

With cruising forbidden at night, the evenings were punctuated by revving contests and plenty of key-banging. Don’t expect to get too much sleep at Chopped, particularly if you have a fire in your camp – these will attract chatterers, yarners and bullshitters deep into the night.

Many other grassroots events in the Chopped vein have sprung up over the past decade or two, including the Mud Run in NSW and the Downs Dust Up in Queensland. All have their own flavour and adherents, but for many, Chopped remains the OG, the epitome of make-your-own-fun automotive mayhem. Long may it reign.

HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Tim Pleasance’s ’62 Beetle turned plenty of heads as it spat flames out the back all weekend. Tim later added snow chains to the rear rubber for extra insanity! The VW features a Type 3 front end, 6in roof chop and a 5in engine and transmission raise.

2. Trent Crawley came down from Kurri Kurri, NSW for another crack in his LS-powered 1966 Chevy Nova gasser, ‘Sleepinova’. “We didn’t quite pull off the win in the gasser drags, but we had a blast and didn’t leave empty-handed, coming second in the Gasser Shootout to Wayne Edwards’ ’57,” Trent said.

3. Wayne Edwards took out the Gasser Elimination event in the ex-Peter Raines ‘Bad Ass Too’ ’57 Chev, ahead of Trent Crawley in the SleepiNova. Like many of the gasser entrants, Wayne does double-duty on both dirt and sealed strips and had the ’57 cleaned up to run the The Bend’s nostalgia meet a few weeks later.

4. Andrew Bell’s 1964 Humber Super Snipe had people scratching their heads all weekend! Powered by an AU Falcon Intech motor, the Humber absolutely howled on the dirt drags – and spat flames through all six pipes at night.

5. James Robinson and Bec Bruce are long-time Chopped fans. James organised for his LOROLA HR to ‘stall’ on the startline of the dirt drags, giving him the chance to pop the big question to Bec on sacred ground!

6. Shane and Matt Corish created headlines when they debuted their twin-turbo, Barra-powered John Goss Special at Summernats 36. And while purists may decry what the lads have done with a genuine JGS, the coupe was right at home with the Hard Metal muscle car vibes of the current-day Chopped.

7. Chris Wroe of Old Cool Customs put the ‘Looney Tunes’ XP Falcon gasser together in eight weeks of spare time, specifically for Chopped! Sorry, Ford fans – she’s 400ci Chev-powered!

8. Cal Scott brought his BRUTAL AP6 gasser all the way from Brisbane to muck up. The Val is powered by the staunch old-school combo of a 477ci big-block Chrysler and New Process four-speed, managed by a Hurst vertical-gate shifter. Out back is a Dana 60 on ladder bars with leaf springs on quad sliders.

9. Peter Tofant resurrected this XT Falcon for Chopped after it had sat in a paddock for nearly 40 years! “I had the car, I had the motor fresh off the dyno, and I knew Chopped was coming up, so it had to be,” he said. “I did two front floorpans and an inner sill, and put another boot on it.” The XT runs a 347ci Windsor, with a welded 9in out back.

10. Drag Challenge regular Simon Moir was running amok in his Willys gasser at Chopped. Simon has a fleet of awesome rides, including a blown Hemi-powered ’33, a stunning ’53 Hudson Hornet and his DC-proven F-truck.

11. With owner AJ John on the injured list, Corty Haig stepped up to take the wheel of AJ’s ‘Tetanus Shot’ Chevy gasser for this year’s Chopped. Corty did AJ proud, winning three from three in the Gasser Elimination Shootout.

12. Brad Yates’s extensively slammed Commer van is an exercise in understatement, with the weathered duco distracting the casual observer from a stack of engineering smarts and cool details. Powered by a 3RZ Toyota four-pot, the Commer’s faded ‘Brandy’ signwriting dates back to its days of transporting a Benalla rock band to gigs.

13. Gearbox guru and Pro Burnouts legend Adam Slorach saved this HB Torana 80s drag car from oblivion almost a decade ago, preserving as much as the original Trik Shot signage as possible and treating it to a Weiand-blown Holden six that blew minds on debut at Summernats 30. The HB suited the new muscle-car Chopped vibes perfectly, and was one of the best-sounding cars in the dirt drags.

14. We spotted Ben Mulholland’s then-in-the-build early Model A roadster at Chopped 2015, and it was one of the stars of the show in its finished form this year. Sitting on a ’32 frame and packing Oldsmobile power, it took home the much-coveted Vultures’ Top Pick trophy.

15. Johnny Wolfman and Captain Reckless are Drag Challenge regulars in Johnny’s Mercury Cougar. Now variously dubbed ‘Mrs Robinson’, ‘Stifler’s Mom’ and ‘Karen’, the Cougar didn’t lose a race in the Chopped dirt drags.