The Street Machine VIP Park-Up at April’s Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge attracted all kinds of rad cars, from retro muscle to stance-y Japanese stuff, and Bailey Anstis delivered more than a touch of mini-trucking cool with his 1995 TF Rodeo. It was the ute’s first show, with Bailey slapping the custom plates on just five days beforehand, and he followed up with a trip to Real Street at this year’s MotorEx.

First published in the August 2024 issue of Street Machine

How’d the Rodeo come into your life?

I bought it about 11 months ago. It had been repainted and lowered on blocks, but nothing really special had been done. It had been damaged on the front and side, so I had to fix all of that up during the process. A lot of people have wrecked them, and it’s hard to find one in decent shape – they’re either really nice or really shit!

Rare Spares doesn’t exactly carry Rodeo stuff yet – was it a struggle to find all the bits?

A lot of the stuff comes from Thailand: bolts, mirrors, tail-lights. I can still get a lot of that. Some of it’s a little bit harder to source, but it’s all out there somewhere! I bought a two-door Holden Frontera as a donor, because the front guards are the same, and the dash, seats and door cards in the ute are all from that.

Surely the big flares on the tub aren’t stock?

The rear is all custom metal; all the fabrication and bodywork was done at home by me, with help from my dad. I’ve seen people take the rear quarter of a Frontera, cut it out and patch it into the tub. After trying to find a way to make mine unique, I decided to make it a custom widebody by cutting along the tub and pulling it out; then I had to reinforce the back of the panel before welding in a plate on the top. It’s now about 2½ inches wider than stock on both sides.

With heaps of dish!

Yeah, it’s got a pair of 17x10s with -44 offset in the rear. I didn’t touch any of the body until I got the wheels, so the widebody is perfectly fitted to them.

I see you’ve got it even lower than its first outing, too.

I’ve put two-inch drop spindles in the front and wound down the torsion bars, and the leaf springs have been reset. I wanted to go an inch lower again, but when I measured it up, I found the sway-bar’s already 90mm off the ground! The sump and sway-bar are the same height, so I’m looking into getting a custom sump and sway-bars made. It’s a lot for an inch, but that would finish off the look.

Some people have an idea set in their mind of what they want it to look like, and they’ll say it needs to be way lower. I tell them it’s already about eight inches lower than stock!

What’s the driveline?

It’s a 2.6-litre 4ZE1 Isuzu; as far as I know, they’re a similar engine to what the Gemini had. Once I’m off my P-plates, I’ll go and source a Gemini turbo kit, but that’ll be at least a few years from now. I still need to sort out the diff gears, too – it had 31-inch all-terrains when I got the roadworthy, but with these smaller wheels and tyres, it sits at about 3000rpm at 90km/h! I only just realised how much it revs out.

How’d you decide on the purple?

With all the work I put into getting the car straight, I decided I may as well do the widebody and full paintjob, and I’d always wanted a purple car. There’s not many out there anymore, so doing one is kind of a big thing. My brother, Liam Anstis at Warragul Panels, is a painter, so he brought home all the colour chips and I just picked one out that I liked. To us, it was just a random colour, but Ultimate Finish in Warragul tracked it back to being a factory Fiat colour, which we didn’t realise until we were halfway through painting it.

How’s the reception been so far?

The thing that makes it so special at shows is little kids, older guys, whoever, walking past, and even if they don’t say anything to me, I hear them compliment it. Every single compliment means so much, because I didn’t build it to get into magazines or MotorEx – I built it because I wanted to, and that makes all these things so much better!

Any future plans?

The tub’s not perfect, as the inside has been dented as a work ute. It’s a daily driver and the only vehicle I have, so I’m still going to use it! I still have a few more things I need to do: I’m going to clean up the engine bay a little bit, and relocate the battery.

I’ve still got my full stereo system to do, too – at the moment, I’m running off a little JBL Bluetooth speaker! I need to mould the six-inch speakers into the doors, make a box for the sub, and wire up the amp and everything, but then it’s just little things. I’ve documented plenty of the build at tiktok.com/@purptf.

BE A YOUNG GUN!
Aged around 21 or younger and have a neat ride? Email high-resolution images (2mb+ each) and details of your car to [email protected].