THE MARCH issue of Street Machine is on sale now, jam-packed with cool feature cars and event coverage from across Australia and New Zealand!

On the cover of this issue is Brent Murray’s smoking Dodge Dart replica. Brent turned the local ugly-duckling Valiant into a Summernats Top 20 stunner in his own shed. Stuffed into the engine bay is 440 cubes of Chrysler big-block, with an 8/71 blower strapped on top.

Another cool car in this month’s mag is Brad Pizzi’s awesome EH Holden panel van. This thing started off as an eBay nightmare, but over time Brad rebuilt most of the body and got the car straight as an arrow. The engine is an L34-spec Holden 308 donk hooked up to a Turbo 350 which replaced the old six-pot and column-shift combo.

We also head over to Kiwi-land to check out the Muscle Car Madness show in Christchurch. What we found was a bunch of cool cars and a surprisingly relaxed atmosphere for what people are calling the Summernats of the south!

Another former workhorse-turn-mental-street-machine is Chris Wright’s XW Falcon ute. With a 2500hp twin-turbo 440 Windsor and monster radials, it’s all business up front and party down back. It’s a similar set-up to Frank Marchese’s Falcon, but with a four-link and lighter body it should go 6.90 at over 200mph.

In this issue we also check out Motorvation in Perth, where the event’s 30th birthday went off with a bang, followed by the smell of many shredded tyres. Some of the country’s biggest and best burnout rigs were smoking the place out, while a heap of gorgeous show cars chilled out at the Elite Hall.

United Speed Shop builds a pair of killer 50s pick-ups that can cruise and bruise. One is Ryan Carter’s pro touring ’55 Chevy; the other Les Elliott’s ’52 Ford. While the methods used in building each truck were different, they shared one goal: they had to be awesome street cars.

We also check out the Victorian Hot Rod Show where some of the best show cars and hot rods from around the country were on display. There was everything from brand-spanking Summernats-debuting cars to favourites from the show scene like Mal Apps’s FC (SM, Feb ’16), Gary Scicluna’s Escort van (SM, Sept ’14) and more.