Australia hasn’t traditionally been great at preserving the history of our go-fast sports, with many famous hot rods, street machines, vans and drag cars being pulled apart for parts or rusting into the ground after their five minutes of fame ends.

However, we are slowing seeing a trend to give these old warhorses some more love, with an increasing number of old race cars being brought out of hibernation so new generations can enjoy them, either back on the track or just on display. There must be 1000s more super-cool drag, speedway and circuit cars sitting in sheds ready to blow minds, just waiting for the owners to find some inspiration to drag them out.

The Bangers & Mash Vintage Gas meet (20 September 2025 at Sydney Dragway) is promoting a Retired Race Car Corral, so hopefully that will lure some cool old rockets out of retirement.

A killer example is this wild flamed XP Falcon drag car time capsule that was resurrected to race at Chopped 2024! It was brought down to Carisbrook from Mildura by its current owner, Kevin Mann.

“The car was previously owned and raced by Robert Traeger,” said Kevin. “That was back when they raced on the 5th Street track, which was a public road the drag club were able to close for weekend meetings.”

Then he ran it at the Sunset Strip for about 10 years, before the car went into a decade’s hibernation.

“The XP was Robert’s pride and joy,” Kevin continued. “I kept asking him if I could buy it, and finally, he said yes! I came to Chopped a couple of years ago and wanted to come back with a car, and the XP was the perfect candidate.

“I feel like I’m just the custodian of the car. I wanted to change as little as possible – just get it up and running. The driveline is a 302/C4/9in deal, with drum brakes all ’round.”

Robert Traeger is stoked to see the XP back out and about. “I stopped racing in the mid 1990s and the car sat in my shed for about 10 years before Kevin go it,” Robert told us when we contacted him after Chopped. “It was a ton of fun to race and was a pretty good Super Street/Super Sedan car.”