Knape's Nostalgia

GeoffKnape helped launch Australia’s favourite hot rod magazine, then he built these three beauties...

- AL O'TOOLE

Like most guys who grew up in Melbourne’s Western Suburbs, Geoff Knape started out driving early Holdens, but he soon got sick of them and when he saw a ’34 Ford coupe body advertised in 1970, he went and bought it, along with a Holden V8 engine, and built his first hot rod.

“I drove that car for ten years, travelling across the countryside towing a trailer and pickin’ up old cars. I met the Castlemaine guys at the second Street Rod Nationals in 1975, came here for a visit and never went home.”

Geoff worked at Fisherman’s Bend for 18 months when he started his electrical apprenticeship and moved on to bigger construction jobs before moving to Castlemaine. He couldn’t get a job to begin with so he started working for himself and has been doing so ever since.