:: Chaparral Racing 2006 powered by Mazsport Racing and Rev Doctor Motorsport ::

For many years now, we've wanted to build another pure street car and for one reason or another, we could never really get the ball rolling. In December 2005, Pete Harmston travelled down to Melbourne (and hasn't stopped whinging about it ever since) to pick up his beloved Mazda 1300 sedan which was going to be the next vehicle to parade the GRUMPE number plates. Working as a Store Manager of a local Repco Auto Parts, Pete did everything in his power to find every possible new part still available for this little 1970 model rocket and began collecting quite a load. Project 1300 was beginning to take shape..... That was until it was served a fatal blow.

Anyone close to Pete will know that there is only one thing dearer to his heart (not counting a certain someone) than a little Mazda 1300, and good mate Scotty Fleming delivered the 1300's fatal blow. Scott had come across a 2003 Toyota Hilux single cab ute which was in desparate need of some T.L.C. You see, the previous owner had had this Hilux stolen from him only to find it stripped and burnt out. Without having any insurance to cover his lost, he decided to recover the ute and maybe try to build something special out of it himself. The task was looking like being a bit more than he could manage at the time so he informed Scott that he was planning on letting her go. Scott fired a phone call to Pete at work and without really taking a breathe, the poor little Hilux had a new home.

The Hilux was delivered our team paintshop at Moorebank near Liverpool. Our painter took one look at Pete's new project and just rolled his eyes.... " What the hell is this" was the first sentence... "Hang on, I don't wanna know" was the second...

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But with Pete jumping around like a 5 year old kid in Krispy Kreme shop and with enough enthusiasm to raise the Titanic, they allowed him to un-load the trailer. Within a few hours, Pete had fully stripped and sand blasted the chassis back to bare metal. The etch primer and chassis black was then applied before loading it back onto the trailer.

Once home, we began the massive job of replacing absolutely everything that was burnt during the fire including every suspension component, steering component and braking component, fuel and brake line etc etc.(luckily Pete works at Repco)

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Then came the body. Searching the local wreckers, Trading Post and E-Bay was a tough job when you're trying the find a near to complete 2000+ model Hilux single cab, trust me, but without too much teeth pulling, we tracked done a near perfect 2003 model cab with only minimum damage for a fair price and snapped it up quicker than Boppa on a smartie. Next was the rear ute tub...

Keeping in mind that we were building a Shorty series Hilux, we needed to find a extra cab ute tub (that's right, not a single cab) which was proving to be harder to find than the the cab. Finally we got talking to the guys from Trans Alloy at Ingleburn. From that, a deal was done and we got our hands on a brand new 2004 extra cab tub. With both fitted onto the chassis, the new project started to take shape. (Big thanks to Mick Posa, Marcel Lopez, Mick, Chris and Adam Alexander for the lift).

Next, she was shipped back to Scott Fleming's Rev Doctor workshop at Hornsby for it's "SHORTY" conversion. Being Flemo's first shorty conversion and given his ability to turn a pigs ear into a silk purse, I knew it would be something special... And we were right, Flemo did and absolutely awesome job on the shorty and actually looked like he wasn't going to let me take it home once completed...

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