Austalian Street Rod Federation logo © STREET RODDER NEWS ©
Issue No. 13 April 1998

Victorian Hot Rod Show
Exhibition Buildings / Melbourne 1998

The Hot Rod Show has been traditionally held at the Exhibition Buildings on Queen's Birthday long weekend for as long as I care to remember. However, last year (1997), for the first time, entrant numbers were drastically reduced due to the closure of the Northern Annexe, to make way for the new State Museum. The Show certainly felt as though it had lost some of its atmosphere. This year's Show has gone a long way to restoring that feeling, with an impressive display of vehicles of a very high standard on display. Also encouraging, were the number of new and interstate cars entered. Obviously the Show has lost none of it's prestige. The depth of high quality rods entered can be seen when you look at the results.

Certainly one of the main talking points was Rod Hadfield driving his 'T' Coupe into the main hall to its display position after there had been some question as to the driveability of such a radical looking rod. The booming sound of the exhaust, echoing through the buildings let everyone know that this was not only a beautifully brutal piece of machinery, but that it was designed and built to be driven.

Numbers were up this year, especially on last year, with some of this being attributed to the cooler Melbourne weather over what is usually a very warm weekend.

Rod & Carol Hadfield's 1919 'T' coupe, twin blown 429 Shotgun engine