D
arren Hellmuth has operated his own business, Trikfab
on and off for the last 18 years and built a number of cool
rides for himself and for others during that time. He’s been
playing with cars his whole life and worked as a boiler-
maker in the construction field prior to opening his own shop. Darren
set up his operation in a factory with the idea that he would just
use the premises for his own hobby, but he eventually got sick of the
construction work and decided to go full time building cars.
His latest build was purchased about 15 years ago from its previous
owner in Queensland. The dead stock original, untouched and rust free
1952 Mercury was listed on eBay but Darren didn’t get wind of the sale
until the online auction had already closed. That deal fell through so
Darren pounced on it and happily forked over the $20,000.00 asking
price. The car only had 47,000 miles on it, so he was stoked to get it.
“I emailed the guy selling the car after I missed the auction and
he was on holidays, so as soon as he returned home I
organised to travel up to Queensland and brought the car
back to Melbourne with me. It was in such good nick that
I swore I would leave this one standard. I wasn’t gonna
play with, but I obviously got a little carried away.”
If you didn’t catch the meaning behind the heading on
the opening page of this feature, you might be thinking
to yourself, this car doesn’t look like it’s in such great
condition, it’s covered in surface rust! Well it is covered,
but not with rust. That heavily patina’d finish is in fact a
precisely measured and expertly applied vinyl wrap. The
original black paint is still underneath that junkyard-
looking skin and is in relatively good condition.
Darren used to use this car as a daily driver but
when a chance encounter with the door off a scissor lift
damaged the Mercury, he took it off the road with the
intention of one day getting it fixed and driving again.
At the time Darren was travelling from Narre Warren
to Geelong every second day for work and while driving
down the West Gate Freeway, the car in front of himflicked up the door that had been laying in the middle of the road.
“It got caught in the front bumper and lifted the car off the ground,
snapping a king pin, ripping a wheel off and slamming me into the
armco at 100 kilometers per hour!”
When the time came to get the car going again, Darren decided to
go all out crazy and build it into a wicked street menace. He doesn’t
mess around too much with bodies but for performance and handling
reasons, he upgraded everything.
The motor is based on an LSX GM Performance block and is loaded
with a billet crank, H-beam rods, Higgins LS7 heads, a Holley hi-ram
manifold with a 102mm throttle body and runs 8.5:1 compression
with a pair of 72mm Nelson Racing turbochargers. Darren did all
the turbo conversion and pipe work himself but the motor was built
by George Haddad at Haddad Race Cars and Engines in Dandenong
South, Darren built his own radiator to suit the application andsT ory: Al o’Toole pHoTos: knACkershttp://www.graffitipub.com.au ASR 328 77