WELCOME to Street Machine Legends Volume Three! The first two volumes covered the most iconic cars to be featured in the magazine over its first 20 years and second 20 years, respectively.

This time around, we’re focusing on the people who’ve helped to make the scene what it is today. You can grab a copy here.

The vast majority of those who’ve made it into the book started to make their impact in the 1980s or 90s. Most of them are car builders, but there are also event promoters, racers, artists, and a handful of Street Machine staffers.

We’ll cover the next 20 years’ worth of legends in another format. Same goes for the real OGs from the 1960s, such as Eddie Thomas and Dale Fisher.

Narrowing down the list to just 40 peeps was a tough job, and there were plenty of deserving folks we didn’t have room for on this lap of the track. I’m talking about car builders like Ray Alldrick and Bill Jones, promoters like Ahmet ‘The Mad Turk’ Sehirligil, speed equipment pioneers like ‘Dyno’ Dave Bennett and Ron Harrop, and so many other crucial participants in our scene.

Putting these books together is a labour of love for the Street Machine team. Sifting through the archives for the best images is a blast, and we’ve learned some amazing things. For example, when we asked Paul Bennett to name his most important builds, he came back with a handwritten list of cars over three pages long. We knew the guy was prolific, but sheesh!

The connections between many of the people in the book are likewise fascinating. It’s amazing to read about how a smartarse comment at a car show led to a young Mark Sanders helping Howard Astill on the build of ROCK 3, or the way guys like John Taverna devoted so much time to mentoring the next generation of greats.

These kinds of connections between street machine folks is all part of what makes our sport so great. The enjoyment you can have from playing with cars with your family and friends is the same, whether the build costs $5K or $5 mil.

Every small town has its own Victor Bray, its own paint and panel genius, its own tuning guru. Street Machine’s mission is to shine a light on as many of these figures as we can. It’s a never-ending quest to unearth our sport’s heroes, be they local or global, to provide recognition for them and inspiration for the rest of us. It is a task we feel privileged to pursue.