If you’ve ever flicked through the pages of 50s and 60s Rodders Journal magazines, Wagga’s Bolton Park Stadium may have looked somewhat familiar over the King’s Birthday long weekend. 

The first-ever Kings Kustoms Kick Back paid tribute to the mid-century American show scene, with masses of fake fur and mirrors under jacked-up, chromed T-Buckets or the latest Roth masterpiece. The polished timber boards were adorned with an extraordinarily diverse range of automotive art. According to organiser Howard ‘Doo Dar’ Brown, it wasn’t as meticulously selected as it looked, but it certainly had me fooled!

As Doo Dar explained, the seeds of the Kick Back were sown on the same June long weekend, in the very same stadium, forty years earlier, when he visited the Wagga Motor Show as a nine-year-old. 30 cars and 15 bikes from local and interstate owners were showcased, in Bolton Park’s first time hosting a show since way back in 1985. 

Working alongside a small but dedicated family of organisers, Doo Dar is the guy behind the ever-popular Riverina Rumble events, which have operated since 2019. The Kick Back had been planned for a long time, and it intelligently and deliberately broke a lot of the rules you’ll find at other shows. Importantly, there were no trophies or other forms of competitiveness, as with the Riverina Rumble. Doo Dar describes the Kick Back as an “indoor art gallery” rather than a conventional show ‘n’ shine. 

It wasn’t about the best, the fastest, the most traditional or the most desirable – it was all for the glory of the catch-up. Meeting with friends old and new while surrounded by pretty much every bodystyle, brand and concept – whether dusty and rusty or polished and pimped – made the inaugural show an honour to attend.

Being in a venue other than the car park of a burger bar (not that there’s anything wrong with that) let the team stage the machinery in a way that offered different and interesting perspectives, no matter where you were in the arena. People naturally spread out and mingled instead of walking up and down aisles while competing for a vantage point. This was important, given the variety of the content – a period chopper with a long rake and peanut tank demanded to be seen from many angles, as did the ’51 Buick sled it was parked beside, floating on a bed of pristine white salt. 

From blown Aussie six-packs to rails, Dragsters (the pedal kind), fuel altered cars, magnificent Ducatis, 40s Harleys, panel vans and good old hot rods, the list of rides was as diverse as it was cool. Our host has form when it comes to the illumination of old cars, and he didn’t let us down. The festoons he uses have an incandescence like a desert sunset, caressing the rounded lines of the vehicles rather than simply illuminating them.

The Kick Back opened at 4pm on both Saturday and Sunday, which gave attendees the opportunity to sample the rest of what the Riverina had to offer, or simply wrangle another weekend into shape if they were locals. Held within walking distance from everything in town, I’ll bet that more than a few galleries, pubs and coffee houses felt the love from Doo Dar without even knowing it. 

A lot of our communities are blessed with people for whom community is a strong concept. They work quietly in the background to make sure things run smoothly, but sometimes you never really know much about them. Doo Dar seems to be one of them. I don’t live in Wagga, but I’d bet he’s got fingerprints on a whole array of groups that benefit from his belief in community, though he’d probably spell it with a ‘K’ and have it draped in festoon lights! I’ve only ever witnessed his handiwork from the viewpoint of raucous car and bike gatherings, but even those are engineered to spread the good vibes out into the wider world surrounding them. 

Mark next year’s Kustom Kick Back on your calendar, taking place on 7-8 June 2025. With an all new lineup of fresh exhibitors, no two years will ever be the same!

Highlights:

1. Wagga local Casey Johnson brought along his badass gasser-style XR and XC panel van for a killer one-two punch! The van combines the XA Superbird motif with XC Sundowner stripes, an XD-style wing and epic rake. 

2. Norm Hardinge is street machining royalty, and his blown Hemi-powered ’32 Ford sounded incredible as it started up in the stadium. It’s still wearing a Radial Blown class sticker on its headlight from his crack at Drag Challenge 2023!

3. We spotted Jake Willis’s EH wagon at Summernats a couple of years back, and quickly fell in love. It’s powered by a tall-deck Chev six, topped with a mech-injected 6/71 blower. A fabricator by trade, Jake zapped in a beautiful set of floors and tubs while leaving the paddock-find exterior intact.

4. Mardi Smoother’s 50-fronted ’51 Buick is on the verge of hitting the road. She and hubby Jon have been busy with undercarriage and boot work of late, and the car look resplendent on a bed of salt.  

5. Doo Dar had a couple of his own cars on show, including the ’48 Chev he dubbed Delilah. It’s a great family taxi, with a patina look Doo Dar has cultivated himself.

6. Jarrad Watson’s 1934 Ford coupe brought a real racer vibe to the Kick Back. It’s not just lip service, either – it recently won Top Car at Rattletrap!