Street Machine (magazine)

Street Machine is an Australian automotive magazine featuring customized cars from every era.

Street Machine contains many sections, from letters sent in by readers, to articles on feature cars and technical issues. The feature cars are mostly Australian and American muscle cars from the 1960s to the 2000s, while occasionally a hot rod or rat rod will feature. Cars such as a Datsun 1600 or an Austin A30 also make rare appearances.

While Street Machine was originally titled "Van Wheels", its history can be traced back to the Australian Hot Rodding Review, or AHRR, of the 1960s and 1970s. By 1976, AHRR had collapsed, and a magazine called Van Wheels had replaced it. Van Wheels had an irregular publishing frequency and was destined to the same fate as AHRR, however Geoff Paradise, who at age 19 was Editor of AHRR before leaving to work at HOT ROD in the US took the failing brand under his wing. Paradise changed the name to Van Wheels & Street Machine for the first issue under his management. This first issue, named Van Wheels & Street Machine. cost $2, and sold 24,500 copies, compared to 60,000 for Wheels and 45,000 for Motor. For the second issue, the magazine was renamed Street Machine & Van Wheels, and by the seventh issue was just called Street Machine in 1981. By this time, the magazine was selling well over 30,000 copies.

Geoff Paradise, founding editor, resigned as Editor-in-Chief of Street Machine in 1985 and went on to launch Performance Street Car, Fast Fours (& Rotaries) and Super Ford, the first one-marque magazine published in Australia. The level of circulation of Street Machine at the time of Paradise's departure was in excess of 50,000 copies. Paradise is regarded as a legendary but somewhat shadowy figure in the Australian V8 culture. The reason for this misconception is that he is not one to suffer fools. Paradise's replacement was a motoring writer from The Sydney Morning Herald, Phil Scott. Scott quickly put the skills learnt from time spent in newspapers into Street Machine - increasing publishing frequency from six issues per year to eight and introducing some one-off car giveaways, which included an original A9X Torana and a Ford Falcon GTHO Phase III. This caused sales to reach 120,000 in September, 1987. However, that was all to change.

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