January 2010

For some reason I have been getting ever so fond of Australian Muscle Cars at the moment, I’m not sure why, maybe it’s just because they’re all new to me and not the same old Mustangs and Trans-ams.

My favourite at the moment is the HZ Sandman Ute (pick up over here) which looks like a Subaru Brat from the back and a Cortina/70′s Corolla from the front. It looks amazing and I really want to book flights to Australia right now and buy this Oplaine blue version which looks mint! Sadly the $49k price tag makes realise I can’t!

Failing that I might just directly fly to Sydney and get this lovely Falcon which is a more heavy duty version of our own Ford Granada. It looks better and has a 4.1 litre engine, whats not to love? It is also a more wallet friendly $18,500.

To lose a few hours of your life you can check out the Australian Muscle Car Sales site and find your own dream car.

This video was probably one of the first I found on Youtube of a Capri and randomly I just found it again! It’s really quite funny, obviously even when your doing a proper rally if you are in a Capri you can’t help but mess around! It’s just too tempting! I have no idea what rally it is but it says it is in Spain and looks like a really nice hill climb track in some places.

Also one of the related videos was a video of a little westfield kit car advertising some sports car hire in Malaga. Surely though it’s not good practice to advertise your company with a car that has a really broken exhaust?

That is the exact same noise my car makes after I rip a whole in the exhaust…

Anyway have some more Capri videos from youtube!

Infamous Capri/Holden drag race

Fifth Gear giving away a Capri

An advert, which is hilarious

And finally the most badass Capri video on the internet!

Arguably one of the most influential custom cars ever built, the Gypsy Rose is a masterpiece of styling and shows how some off the wall ideas can be used to create something absolutely amazing. Say the idea to any car enthusiast that you are going to build a really nice Impala based lowrider and they will say yeah that sounds good. If you then say ‘… and I’m going to paint in pink and cover it in flower artwork’, I can guarantee you will get some very odd looks indeed.

The Original 1963 Gypsy Rose Impala

But yet two incarnations of the ‘Gypsy Rose’ both did exactly that. The first version of it was so popular that the original ’63 Impala won awards at every show it went to, it even got so well known that a rival car club smashed it up out of jealousy. Thankfully though the owner, Jesse Valadez, quickly made Gypsy Rose mk2 with a ’64 Impala, which was also pink and covered in flowers like the original. He got ace painter Walt Prey to do the amazing and iconic artwork again and I think he, along with tattoo artists, made flowers a much more popular image and style for men of the time.

The 1964 mk2 Gypsy Rose Impala

The massively Iconic car came back out to wow crowds again in 2007 at the Peterson Automotive Museum for an exhibit called ‘La Vida Lowrider: Crusing The City Of Angels’. Jesse Valadez still owns the car and he along with the car are both legends of the scene now.

Erm…