With Street Machine Summernats 35 dusted and Drag Challenge a few days away, it’s been a hectic month for the average muscle car nut.

Now we bring you a bumper issue jammed with ‘Nats coverage, a killer crop of feature cars, and just about every other happening you can poke a stick at. We’ve dubbed this month’s mag the Summer Special, which means going forward, our issues will be named after the month they come out in. How about that!

Our cover hero shouldn’t really need an introduction, but in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last four decades or so, you’re looking at Gary and Jake Myers’s iconic ’66 Mustang burnout car, now restored to its OG black livery.

Jake’s done a cracking job paying tribute to his dad’s legacy at the wheel, and was rewarded with his second Burnout Masters title at Summernats 35.

Whack a set of stock wheels on and Daniel Armstrong’s HR and it’d pass as an immaculately finished resto job, but there’s 1000hp of sneaky blown LS tucked under the factory bonnet.

Tony Muscara’s XE isn’t quite as sleepy with its reverse cowl, but its Whipple-blown Coyote Cobra Jet mill more than makes up for it. The Geelong bloke’s given the longtime family car a major freshen-up since Drag Challenge 2019, with an eight-second pass now under his belt.

This gorgeous ’55 Chev pick-up from Ashton Camilleri is another family hand-me-down, which Ashton inherited from his late grandfather. With a stout small-block Chev and heaps of driveline and fab work from ProFlo Performance, we reckon Ashton’s knocked it out of the park.

Matt Lomas brings some Torana sedan love with his slick, force-fed LS2-motivated LH. There’s a sweet custom interior, and Matt’s built the Torrie to hit the street, show pavilion, and maybe even the quarter-mile down the line!

Bought as an unfinished project, Scott Campbell’s Mopar-powered, three-pedal Dodge (yes, it’s a Dodge, not a Valiant) ute. Thanks to the beefy V8 and quality handling gear underneath, it’s equally at-home on road or track.

A tough late-model hottie rounds out feature car proceedings in the form of Glenn-john Tronc’s 1100hp VE Commodore streeter, while we take a look at Chris Kaarsberg’s seven-second Torrie.

Of course, then there’s pages upon pages of Summernats 35 coverage, delving into everything from a hectic Skid Row and cruise route to the huge roster of stunning cars unveiled in the Elite Hall. With every state finally able to attend, it was a big one!

Ash Wilson jetted to the US to check out the PRI Show, which is best described as a version of SEMA solely for race-bred, go-fast stuff, with a heap of new goodies revealed each year.

We also chat with Supercars champion Rick Kelly about his life racing, running a team, and what he’s up to these days in the internet sphere.

There’s a ripper Time Machine, too. We spotted Neil James’s 80s-AF HQ Monaro for sale on Gumtree a little while back, almost completely unchanged since winning the Bridgestone Eager Maniac competition back in 1994. Neil talks us through the car’s full history, with some cool bits of info from a golden age of street machining.

Iain Kelly brings us a super-informative tech yarn on the basic ins and outs of welding, while Arby’s got the down-low on the inaugural Midnight Mayhem meet. There’s all this and more in the Street Machine 2023 Summer Special, so get on it!