Part 1 ADRIAN PORTARO

OKAY, I might be a Queenslander but I’m putting it right out there: South Australia has the monopoly on our country’s toughest street machines. Seriously, this decades-long stronghold is so well proven that it’s even spawned its own recognised ‘Adelaide look’. Thankfully, before the era of cubic mobile phone pics, fans like Adelaidean Adrian Portaro had the foresight to capture many of these earlier SA street machines on good ol’ film cameras. We begin our trip down Adrian’s memory fast-lane by looking at a few cornerstone cars of his local scene.

IN THE late 80s, a visit with Adrian’s parents to see family with a blown and injected big-block Chev and whopping 15-inch-wide rear Center Lines. He was building it with his brother-in-law, Orest Matto, and it looked just savage! I couldn’t believe it; I’d never seen anything like this up so close before, and I think this is where my pro street addiction comes from. It was the best family visit ever!”