Three insane builds to watch out for at Street Machine Summernats 36

For mine, the best part of the annual pilgrimage to Canberra for the Street Machine Summernats isn’t going down Skid Row or parking myself in front of a slushie van. Nor is it eating my body weight in German sausage over the weekend. Nope, it is the joy of seeing what rides our most creative car builders have turned up with.

Summernats 36 is looking like delivering a bumper crop of crazy new builds, including these three, just for starters:

Barra-powered John Goss Special Falcon

Brothers Shane and Matt Corish are best-known for their internationally-renowned V12 LS1 project.

The boys have also built a crazy variety of cars over the years, including a V12-powered Kia Pregio van, a V12-powered Statesman, Matt’s ’65 Mustang and a Mazda 929 wagon that took out the aspirated four/rotary class at Summernats 34.

But this year, they are outdoing themselves with a genuine John Goss Special!

The beast is powered by a stock-bottom-end geen top Barra, with twin turbos through the bonnet using one of Shane’s cast twin-throttle set ups. The car will run without an intercooler, switching to methanol when the boost levels go up down the track.

MORE They built a cool V12 using two LS1 engines

Ghostbusters Ecto-1 replica

Haltech’s Nathan Clark loves movie and TV-inspired builds, including a wild LS-powered Back to the Future-style DeLorean. “Ecto-1 and the DeLorean were the two childhood cars that kicked off my passion for automotive electronics, so being about to actually drive it is just surreal.”

Now he’s taken on another doozy – built with Sydney spanner man Bill McCabe – no less than a 1959 Miller Meteor Cadillac ambulance/hearse (one of around 500 made) in full Ghostbusters regalia! There is Harrop 2300-blown LS3 power, with a Haltech Rebel LS ECU, 4L80 trans, Ford 9in and Wilwood stoppers. The props include a screen-accurate siren!

Quad-rotor VL Commodore

Jay Duca has been pumping out outrageous builds at a great rate of knots recently, including a rotary-powered VN Commodore, a thrash-built Mazda RX-3 and a pair of wild mini-vans that we saw ruling at the LZ World Tour.

His project of choice for Summernats 36 is this 26B-powered VL Commodore, complete with purist-teasing stance and the glorious noise of screaming, naturally-aspirated quad rotor.