ASRF Nationals 2003

The Australian Street Rod Federation Nationals are traditionally held every second Easter long weekend. Having it over a holiday weekend means you get to hang around, talk about, look at, photograph, go for rides in and generally enjoy all kinds of cars FOR FOUR WHOLE DAYS! YEAH!!!

This year was the 16th running of the Nats which also made it, the 30th Anniversary (it's held every two years, do the maths). Out of all the people that have been to the Nats in all those years, only 3 have been to every event in the same car.

Those three people are Andy Morris, Leo Spessot and Ian Shaw. I got to meet all three of them over the course of the weekend, but most of it was spent with "Shawie" and his family as they had lots of beer and a big ol' Cadillac to drive me around in. Oh... and they're a great bunch of folks too.

So sit back and get comfortable as there's a long road ahead. You know how bad I am on a one day event, well with FOUR WHOLE DAYS to take pictures, you can imagine I went just a little bit crazy. There's over 250 photos, so you might have to do this one in shifts.

I'll also organise these pages a little differently so that they'll be easier to navigate if you decide to come back later. Across the bottom I'll put a whole bunch of page numbers and I'll keep the number of photographs per page to 10 or 15 so it won't take too long to download each page.

I hope that you enjoy my coverage of the event, which if you have a leaning towards the more "traditional" side of Hot Rodding, I'm sure you will.

 

When this is the first car you see when you walk in the gates, you just KNOW it's going to be a great weekend

According to my sources (Carps), this roadster has been pretty much exactly like this since the late 50's.

Looks like the Hot Rod Spirit is being passed on to the next generation.

When this is the second car that you see, well you just know you shoulda brought more film!

Completely different from the previous roadster, but just as cool. Not quite as "period" perfect, but it sure had a look that worked for me.

You just can't go past a white Tuck & Roll. Very neat and very clean... but probably not for long!

A very sweet car indeed.

I'm not sure what was cooler, the Jalopy racer, or the well worn tow vehicle. Sure do make a good combination and looks a hell of a lot better than some modern 4WD.

 

Here's a close up of the race car itself. Looks a bit too nice (and straight) to race.

I dig the "wide fives" and those chunky tyres too.

Here's the mighty flatty donk that powers this magnificent beast. From memory it only had a single carb manifold and the heads look like stockers.

Maybe he hoses all the competition with this combination, so he hasn't had to soup it up too much. Sure would look great with some finned heads and 2.. No 3.. NO! 4 CARBS!

 

And here's the rather salubrious cabin appointments.

It's all bidness in there. Dig the '40 wheel too. Sure must be fun sliding this thing around the dirt.

Oh well, looks like another "hobby" I'll have to get in to one day!

Now this is about as Aussie as an Aussie Hot Rod can get. A channelled '33 or '34 5 window was a pretty popular choice back in the 60's.

Many years ago I met the owner of this car on one of my first trips to Melbourne. Looks like he's tidied the car up a bit in that time. Lookin' good.

Oh... and don't worry, there's pics of the chopped Merc further along. You'll just have to keep looking.

Just a nice clean '32 roadster. I've always like the yellow and red colour combination ever since I first saw Geoff Rea's "B'ville" coupe.

I still haven't managed to convince my wife that the combination works though. I'm working on it.

There was some nice striping on the rear panel of the roadster too.

Not sure who did the work, but it looks like pretty nice brush work.

Now if you're a regular visitor to this website, you may have seen pics of this car before.

If you haven't, this car belongs to Dave Whitehead and he has christened it "Golden Idol". The latest addition is the chromed grille bar and air bag suspension.

Dave and his wife Pat actually drove this car all the way from Perth, around 3,000kms.

 

 

This way cool pickup was built by Al Burgess. His previous rod was a rough and ready A Tourer that he painted in some kind of orange house paint by the look of it.

This one turned out MUCH nicer. Nice job Al.

Now here's something you don't see too often, a Vicky Hiboy.

I'm not really a big fan of Vickys, but I really liked this one.

As much as black with red wheels has been done to death, it still looks absolutely fantastic.

And last but not least for this page is this great Willys Gasser. This guy cruising around all weekend, every now and then giving it a bit of a BLAAAAT as he lurched around the cruising track.

It's great to see more and more of this kind of stuff getting built.