WE CAN all agree that the lack of significant car shows since the pandemic hit has been pretty hard on those of us in Mexico, but thankfully the drought was broken by Showcars Melbourne’s tenth anniversary event, which took place at Moonee Valley Racecourse. The weather didn’t play ball, but even the rain couldn’t hold back the legions of dedicated show-goers who came to ogle the smooth panels and crazy colours. So much cool metal on display made choosing favourites difficult, but here are ten of ours:

Photos: Chris Thorogood

The first car to have its cover whipped off was Greg Forster’s wild custom ’61 Cadillac. With subtle modifications and touches everywhere and less-subtle ones like an entire roof transplant from a Pontiac Bonneville, the whole car screams quality and looks gorgeous from any angle.

Phil Bartolo’s bright red XP hardtop is a stunner, with a matching red interior and every bit of shiny stuff knocked back to a satin sheen. Under the bonnet is a 500hp 393ci Clevo.

Greg Angus’s blown Monaro drips class as well as water – thanks, Melbourne weather). The HT entered Greg’s life as a wreck and was treated to a ground-up resto a few years ago, and its force-fed 383ci small block is good for 600hp.

Chris Bosevksi’s VL Calais packs a built RB30, with a GTX4202R huffer and Haltech PS2000 ECU. Runing through a ‘glide and BorgWarner diff combo, the car has run a best of 9.0 at 155mph in full street trim.

Darren Green is the very proud owner of this ridgey-didge XB race car that was piloted by John Goss. The hardtop has been painstakingly restored to as close to original race spec as possible, including the angry Clevo that produced smiles all round when Darren fired it up in the display hall.

It was hard to ignore a giant pink ice cream van in a room full of show cars, even before the covers came off. Michael Rizzo’s Commer is just like the one his dad sold ice cream from in the 70s, albeit with an LS1, 22s and an extensive sound system. And yes, it will be used to sell ice cream!

Kristie Cooper took it upon herself to bring sex-spec to 2021 with the revived Auto Salon superstar Green Ghost. The exterior of the S14 is mostly unchanged from its heyday, though there is a driveline refresh and a lot more gold plating on the way!

You may recognise Jim Polentas’s VZ Monaro from issue five of Street Machine LSX Tuner, though a lot of changes have been to it made since 2017. The blown LS1 has been swapped out for a gnarly Dart-based combo and once the car wears a ‘chute Jim will be hunting for eights.

Ange Galati’s XY Fairmont looked resplendent yet simple, with its big ‘n’ little Autodrags, arrow-straight panels drenched in Wild Violet, and brilliant white trim. Ange took home the coveted Top Elite trophy and an invite to the finals at Motorex.

This is the second time Shaun Parnis has rebuilt his TE Cortina, but it’s been seven years of hard work to get to this stage. Under the bonnet lives one of Tunnel Vision’s mental turbo SOHC 4.0-litre combos, pushing 500kW to the pavement through a manualised C10 and BorgWarner diff.