Retro Rides Awards 2009, 2nd place x2!

Retro Rides holds annual awards with a range of categories, from Thread of the Year to Best Magazine, letting the members have their say on what they liked and didn’t like over the past 12 months. Build Threads was nominated for Best Blog, while the below photo I took was nominated for Best Static Shot.

I didn’t tell anyone, as I wanted the voting to happen naturally, and I ended up getting 2nd place in both categories. Pretty happy with that! Retro Rides is a great forum if you’re into classic metal so I hope you all check it out, and thanks to everyone who voted!

You can see the results from all of the different categories here.

1928 Aussie Built Rod

Hot rod builds always amaze me, especially the more traditional ones. It’s not like they’re taking a complete car, stripping it down, and then rebuilding it. A lot of the time they start off with something as minor as a few body panels or even just a grille shell or firewall and somehow manage to build a complete car from such minor pieces. To watch someone create a car from practically scratch is nothing short of amazing.

This is another gem from the H.A.M.B, a bits-and-pieces Model A hotrod built at home here in Australia.

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Corrado Drag Build

Arnas emailed me a link to this build which I know absolutely nothing about, except that it looks damn serious. The link just features a bunch of pictures, so if anyone has any info please feel free to leave a comment.

Edit: Arnas just emailed me some more information on this build. The car was originally tuned to it’s limits using the factory platform until it couldn’t be developed any further. About 10 years or so ago, the Lithuanian owner decided to gut the car completely and build it into the full framed beast you see below, using a composite body and powered by the cars original engine. You can see the car in it’s previous form here.

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16v Fiat powered Morris Minor

One of the many great build submissions from Cereal, this is yet another awesome project built in true DIY-style by one man in his garage. The main page of the website dedicated to this car explains the project as…

“A Morris Minor convertible for road, race, rally, and hillclimb use, featuring 2 litre 16v engine, space frame chassis, double wishbone suspension and a 178mm widened body.”

There is so much detailed information of this build that has been categorised & documented on numerous pages, so make sure you click the link after the jump to see it in it’s entirety.

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Project IV – Wheels + Lowering

So now that the coilovers were installed, I was just waiting for my wheels & tyres to arrive. After debating over the usual Audi & VW OEM styled wheels that are available, I eventually settled on some MKIV R32 Aristo replicas in 18×8 +35 with 225/40/18 tyres. Nothing drastic, no poke or noticeable stretch, but good enough to look nice and still be practical.

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AMS 280Z 2JZ

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you had/have a great day and all the best for the holiday season, be safe on the roads.

Remember the AMS EVO X? Well the same workshop is now turning their attention to a Nissan 280Z in the form of a 2JZ transplant. The build isn’t finished yet but it’s just too good to wait. It’s being pieced together with the incredible quality of work that you can only expect from a top quality builder such as AMS Performance.

Thanks to Kyusha Kai for submiting, make sure you head over and check out his blog, it’s full of oldschool jdm goodness.

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KE70 ground up restoration

Here’s a great DIY ground-up build of a neat little JDM styled KE70 Corolla, complete with 4AGE power. I admire people who do ground-up builds at home without any major help from workshops. I’d love to do this one day to a 2-door USDM 510 shell, making everything clean and as-new from top to bottom.

Thanks to Sebatian for the submit.

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Saab 99 Quattro

Sorry guys, I know I’ve been down on content lately, it’s a crazy time of year. But don’t worry, I’ve still got heaps of tasty builds lined up, so keep the faith!

James, the editor of Car Throttle & owner of Saab Snaab emailed me this crazy Saab 99 build and told me a little bit about it. It’s received an updated version of its original B202T engine from a later model Saab 900, which has been rotated 180 degrees to enable it to mate to an Audi Quattro AWD drivetrain from a C4 generation Audi 100…those crazy Swedes! You can check out James’ article on the car here.

Just as I was writing the above paragraph I was checking out Speedhunters when I saw this article detailing Saab’s demise, what a sad coincidence.

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