Whether it be customer reviews of a business or your workplace performance review, a 40 per cent negativity rating is really not much chop. Well, maybe it would have been pretty good stats for my old internet dating profile, but that’s a story for another time.

First published in the August 2026 issue of Street Machine

I’ve been musing on this recently after I came across a post on Street Machine’s Facebook page, linking to a story I wrote on Bill Cooper’s Commodore-fronted HQ Monaro (Time Machine, SM, Mar ’26). This is an iconic build from the early 1980s that featured heavily in magazines and events from that time. In the decades since, Bill has enjoyed and wailed on the car in hillclimbs, sprints and at the drags, and it’s also clocked up thousands of street kays – a true street machine in every sense.

After a re-read of the yarn, I started casually scanning the comments, and was immediately struck by how much negativity Bill’s car was copping. A rare few were diplomatic about expressing their dislike, but the majority were just downright derogatory, especially regarding its body modifications. It was clear that a handful of responders hadn’t even bothered to read the story in the first place!

So, I decided to investigate further. After self-funding a research grant of two beers, I sat down to read every comment and crunch some numbers on the overall percentage that were negative. Yep, you guessed it: 40 per cent.

This is far from an isolated incident; I’ve witnessed plenty of sometimes vile online disapproval being heaped upon some of the older and/or wildly modified car builds that have graced our pages since 1981. 

Now, let’s be clear; I’m no do-gooder. I definitely don’t believe that ‘everyone should win a prize’, nor am I totally naïve or immune to the workings of both pre-internet human nature and modern-day death-by-social-media. But at what stage did it become acceptable to start eating our own? 

The hot rod and custom scenes, by contrast, laud their history and welcome their own ‘traditional’ build sub-genres; even the JDM crew respect their pioneering builds. Modern-day street machiners, on the other hand, tend to be a bit of a dog’s breakfast in this regard, especially when it comes to the cornerstone donor-car fodder manufactured here between the early 1960s and late 1970s.

I mean, your HQs, XYs, VH Vals and the like were a dime a dozen in those days; let’s not pretend they were even remotely collectible at the time. Bill’s HQ build literally began as a bare shell from the wrecker’s and was less than a decade old! It seems completely unproductive to me to judge a historic build like that in the context of modern-day thinking and trends. 

I honestly think this sort of hate began once people stopped referring to older cars as just ‘cars’ and started calling them ‘classics’, bleating on about resale value. Modifying cars is literally the raw DNA of street machining, so why do so many now behave like purists? Are there people out there struggling to identify what sort of car enthusiast they are? Or is it simply the appeal of getting on the social media hate train with no real consequences for your verbal actions?

Hot-car people are innovators by definition. Their builds are an extension and expression of their own personalities, even when the current build trend seems based around subtly modified yet stock-appearing cars that often appear to follow cookie-cutter templates at first glance.

There are still rays of hope, though. I love the passion and individuality oozing from Jay Duca’s diesel Torana (SM, Mar ’26), for instance. Modern-day builds like that are the reason I will continue to defend our street machining heritage – this is our legacy, and whether you love it or hate it, it got us to where we are today.

It’ll be interesting to see whether the current rage for 17-inch wagon-wheel front-runners starts copping mega-hate in 20 years’ time. That would seem inconceivable in the present day, but our pioneering builders of four decades ago probably thought the same about their mods. Of course, you don’t have to like everything, but there are ways to express your opinion with some sort of finesse and understanding. 

Thankfully, social media isn’t all bad. I’m finding some of the early-Falcon Facebook groups to be super helpful in determining the best way to complete our Delta Windsor conversion. I’m clueless when it comes to early-birds, but it’s a well-trodden path for many others, so I’m happy to save time and money by taking their advice and hopefully getting it right the first time.