ONE of the best things about Red CentreNATS is that it exposes the local car scene to a national audience.

Each year we discover more cars from Alice, Darwin and all points in between. One of our favourites so far in 2020 has been Phil Anderson’s bare-metal ’37 Chev coupe utility.

“It is a 1937 Chevrolet half-door coupe, body by Holden.” says owner Phil Anderson. “I’m lead to believe there were around 51 of these made and 260 full-doors. The half-doors were very basic, they came without windows or door locks.

“The ute is a very well-known car in Alice. Chris who owned it before me was the publican of the Bojangles pub and it was always parked out the front. So I’d like to keep it local.

“It’s a great thing. It sits on a HQ chassis and runs a tunnel-rammed, 360-cube small block Chev and a TH400. Of course, it has the beer keg fuel tank. It holds about 35-litres, so I get about 10 laps of town before I have to do a refill. It’s pretty thirsty with twin 650s [laughs].”

“I pull it out about once a month, you can’t leave them shedded too long. I’m in the Eights and Aces Car Club up here, so I get out and about with those guys.”