M
IKE Bowden’s 1949 Ford Customline
pick-up first punched into the scene
way back in 1993, featuring in the Jan-
Feb 1994 issue of Street Machine
,and was later a Street Machine Of
The Year contender. Mike’s Cusso,
known as SPINNA, competed at Summernats 7
through to 10, placing in the Top 80 each time.
The pair also blasted down Lake Gairdner’s
salt to a top speed of 138.85mph; Mike and
SPINNA still hold the XF/BGP (now XF/MP)
and XF/PP records.
Yet the following two decades became a true
tale of survival for the single-spinner, weathering
the unknown at the hands of several owners
yet somehow escaping relatively unscathed;
unfortunately, that’s not quite the case for Mike- but we’ll get to that a bit later.
I’ll take you back to 1989 when the pair’s love
affair first began, as a then 17-year-old Mike –
who was a first-year apprentice panel beater- reckoned it’d be a great idea to resurrect a
relatively rooted Aussie-built Customline ute.
With help from his dad JB, Mike did a body-off-
chassis build, hotted up the flatty and repaired
the whole rotted lower portion of the Cusso
from floorpan to sills. While he was at it, he also
deleted the rear bumperettes, smoothed the
rollpan and added aftermarket tail-lights, hinged
the hood sideways, fitted a half-’cage, tightened
the rear fenders and tucked the front bumper. “I
just smoothed up a classic design,” Mike simply
says. “As a teenager, staying motivated to get it
finished was the hardest part. But it was worth
it once I got it painted and all fitted up.”
SPINNA was freshly minted in time for Hot
Adelaide 3 in 1993, where it was spotted for an
SM feature, and in a beautiful act of synchronicity
the magazine hit the stands as the Cusso rolled
into the Summernats Elite Hall. “After it was shot
for Street Machine, I wanted it to look different
for Summernats 7, so my brother Peter and I
added the Wild Plum and black graphics, as that
was the in-thing in the 90s,” Mike says.
And after several years of showing, racing and
cruising, Mike sold SPINNA in the late 90s – less
motor, gearbox and number plates – to make
way for his next project, a ’35 Ford roadster that
would house the proven powerplant.
“Then in 2010 I got stomach cancer and was
pretty crook – I lost that much blood I’d drained
the hospital’s stocks and was seconds from
death,” Mike says. A few months in Intensive
Care led him to wonder where SPINNA went.I STARTED TO LOOK FOR IT, WITHOUT SUCCESS – THERE WERE MORE
FALSE SIGHTINGS THAN ELVIS!
064064 STREET MACHINE STREET MACHINE