Part2 MARK PARSONS
RIPLEY, QUEENSLAND
LAST issue we delved into Mark Parsons’s formative cruising years in the late 1970s and early 80s, but this time ’round we explore the later 1980s as Australia’s street machine scene was really coming of age and Mark’s builds evolved with the styles of that time. But wait, there’s more! Yep, Mark reckons we haven’t even got to the good stuff yet, which we will cover in the ensuing months.
01: “I DON’T know why I built this; it kind of happened by accident,” Mark says of his one-of-a-kind MKII Cortina. “I was working at Gordon Leven Tyre & Mechanical in Sydney and stumbled across a 186S engine lying out the back. An old mechanic who worked there said he had race pistons and conrods, a Yella Terra head and all this other good stuff, so we screwed together a stout little combo. So I had a hot engine but nothing to put it in.”
Scouring the trusty Trading Post one Thursday morning on the lookout for an HB Torana or similar, Mark scored this mint one-owner MKII for $600. “It was running a 1600 and column four-speed,” he says. “I set up a gantry to see if I could swing the six-cylinder in, but it was hard-up at each end, so my neighbour came over with an oxy and made room!
“The back cylinder ended up under the dash and I couldn’t run triples because the last carb would’ve been right where the firewall was. I settled for twin Strombergs with air cleaners poking through the bonnet, which, along with a 40/80 Bert Jones cam, made it sound lumpy and it went hard.”
Mark backed the combo with a Powerglide and EH banjo diff, and set off the Corty’s look with silver frosted front wheels and fake Center Lines out back. He painted the white tinter and graphics personally and entered the seventh Street Machine Nationals in Canberra, Easter 1986. “The Powerglide shat itself and the ‘good runner’ replacement that we jammed in the morning we were supposed to leave was just as stuffed, so we never made it,” he laments. “I was gutted.
“My two favourite things about the car were that I made a hinged trapdoor in the interior side of the recessed firewall so you could change the number six sparkplug – it used to spin people out; and it still ran all of the sloppy stock floorpan and suspension, so if you nailed it at the lights it would twist and pick up the leftfront wheel [laughs].
“It looked so cool. I sold it as a roller for $3500 to a bloke who was wanting to build a drag car, so I both doubled my money and got to keep the engine!”
02: WHAT a perfect period Australian hot rod. Mark was out buying Cortina parts at Kingswood Road Wreckers and spied this old Model A bucket on a hand-built chassis tucked out the back. “I took a couple of photos and sat on it for a bit, but by the time I got back there it had been sold,” he says. “Thankfully that was to a mate of mine, Rodney, who changed his mind about the project and sold it to me. It was a 1928 steel body cut down from a tourer, so still had opening doors and had been an A/modified Altered drag car at Castlereagh. ‘Osmosis’ was its racing name and it was thought to be the old Ben and Joe Gatt or Greg Thomson hot rod from the 1960s.”
The bucket was set up for a Chev and Powerglide combo and had a 4.56-geared Customline diff along with Holden front drums and Cusso rears. Mark pulled it down and started rebuilding what was there, adding a Kombi steering box and a 327 Chev and ’Glide he sourced through his friend Valentine
Domotor of Running on Empty ’57 Chev fame. Val also painted the Cosmic Blue hue, which was set off with a white vinyl interior and chrome 13x6 and 14x10 Elstar wheels.
“Another mate had a chrome shop, so I chromed everything, and the pipes were from Bob Bowman of Street Rod Accessories,” says Mark. “I drove it heaps and later fitted a new chrome tube four-bar front end with disc brakes.
“It was lumpy and loud and the whole time I owned it I never ran it with guards, ever. I eventually sold it as a roller to a guy down the road.”
“MY OLD schoolmate Brian was moving back to England so asked if I wanted to buy his Mk1 Escort. I really didn’t want it, but I needed something for the first Summernats in December 1987, and it was both two-door and cheap. I gave it a quick blow-over in flat black and jammed some chromies with huge Kelly Super Chargers under the jacked-up back. I found a four-door parts car and used its 1600 and Weber engine to replace the wheezy 1300 and off we went.
“At the ’Nats I got pulled up by a cop, who tried to hit me with a noise violation, claiming that I had a V8 in it and had given it a big rev. When he popped the bonnet and saw the fourcylinder, he didn’t know what to make of it. But I knew the real story; Karl Vetma in his pro street Escort gave it some stick near the twin servos in Canberra and our similar-looking Mk1 became the designated decoy [laughs].
“Back in Sydney, a dad was looking for his young bloke’s first car and approached me about selling the Escort. They happily paid $3500, which netted me a nice $2K profit.”
ALSO in 1987, Mark bought a $600 HT Monaro off an old bloke in Penrith, running a trusty 161 and three-speed column manual. “I started building it that same afternoon,” Mark says. “Some $80 fat and skinny chromies sorted the wheels, and I cut the front coils to get the necessary rake.”
Mark started doing body repairs and daily driving it, adding some GTS flutes from a pair of rusty guards and respraying the engine bay in black. The 161 was hoiked out in the front yard and the hot 186S out of the Cortina ushered back into service after a respray in Rocket Red, which, backed with an M20 four-speed and 3.36 gears, made it a respectable combo. A coat of primer and guidecoat removed the last of the horrible beige, and the masterstroke was blowing in a set of guidecoat GTS stripes!
“I had a real Twilight Zone moment with this car,” Mark recalls. “Coming back from a family trip to Queensland, I got a hole in the radiator in the middle of nowhere. A bloke pulled up in a UC Torana and said he lived in a caravan park behind a servo and the mechanic there may be able to help. I whipped the radiator out and he kindly drove me back there, showed me his lone caravan that made up the ‘caravan park’, and took me into this time-warp of a garage. The servo cashier suggested using Blu-tack to fill the hole. We peeled the Blu-tack off a couple of faded posters that were on the walls, sealed it up and it worked a treat! We made it back to Sydney and didn’t lose a drop of water.
“I eventually painted it in white tinter and had it looking schmick, but by 1988 I decided it wasn’t the most practical family car. It owed me $1800 but I managed to sell it for $3800 to a young guy with a rich father who bought it for him; unfortunately, the son had never driven a manual before and stalled it about 10 times driving off up the road. I was embarrassed and devastated all at once.”
MARK had a brainstorm after spying a $300 Austin A40 and figuring it would be a great way to get back into hot rodding – but this time with four doors and a roof. That bought him a brush-primered sedan with no motor or ’box, which was soon outfitted with Torana front and rear ends along with the 327 Chev from his original Model A bucket.
“I was building it on the front lawn and going for the budget gasser look,” he says. “My mate ‘Bluey’ Boxsall of V8 VW fame used an A40 chassis under that Beetle, and he had a mate who was building kit-style ’glass Model A roadster bodies that you mounted to an A40 chassis, so I ended up going that way. I tried to sell the body but had no luck, so sold the front clip to Bluey and dumped the body at Kingswood Road Wreckers and never saw it again. It was a shame, really, as it was a good shell, but it was a bit of an eyesore for the neighbours out there on the footpath [laughs].”
AFTER deciding that two doors and baby capsules don’t mix, Mark needed a four-door family car and found this tidy XB Fairmont sedan packing all the fruit for $3000. The 351, FMX and nine-inch were a great start, while power steering and air conditioning ticked the comfort boxes, too. It was soon lowered and fitted with chrome 12-slots, along with a blacked-out grille and Gs-type silver-outs along the bottom. “In 1988 we headed to the Kangaroo Valley car run south of Bowral and I gave it way too much of a hard time in the driving events,” Mark says. “It had quick release caps to run it open headers so it sounded the part, but a blown FMX trans and a two-hour tow truck ride home late on Sunday night was enough to score me the Hard Luck Award – oddly enough, that trophy was sponsored by Protrans. I kept the car for a few more months before selling it for $6000.”
“I HAD been running my own truck – a 1972 International ACCO – since 1986 and doing subbie work,” Mark recalls. “I was delivering monster rolls of paper to a factory one day and wiped out the guard, bonnet and right-front strut of a green TD Cortina that was parked between two tight driveways. It was jammed hard between the fuel tank and front guard of my Acco, so this group of big Islander guys came out and literally lifted the Cortina out from under the truck to get it free. The owner was pissed, as I could see that it was formerly a really tidy Tropicana green XLE with a six-cylinder and auto, so I offered to buy it off him instead of paying to get it repaired. He agreed and for $600 I was the proud owner of a slightly bent TD.
“I repaired the damage and a mate resprayed it for me, but then I wasn’t really sure what to do with it. Magazines of the day featured cars built by Bob Pinnell, who was the V8 Cortina and Capri guru. I bought one of his kits for $425 and dropped in a Trading Post-special 302 Windsor and C4 along with a single 2.5inch exhaust. It was the neatest and easiest conversion kit ever and turned it into a quick and fun driver. It owed me less than $2000 but a mate kept pestering me for it, and I couldn’t knock back his $6500 offer. He thrashed the shit out of it and eventually trashed it. I should have just kept the thing, but was dazzled by the dollar signs!”