HARD to TOP

THIS CLASSIC-LOOKING '55 CHEVY BEL AIR HIDES A WEALTH OF MODERN TOUCHES UNDER ITS TWO-TONE PAINT

- BORIS VISKOVIC

AS I WRITE this, Stewart Parris and one of his best mates, Ben Forster, are making their way from Perth across the country to Melbourne for Meguiar’s MotorEx. Behind them, tucked safely in the trailer, is one of the nicest ’55 Chevs you’ll ever see; so nice that it picked up an invite to Meguiar’s Superstars – along with a bunch of other awards – at the 2022 WA Hot Rod & Street Machine Spectacular.

With its stunning paint, which spreads to the undercarriage, you might think this ’55 was built as a show car, but it’s very much a driver – as witnessed by the LS1, manual transmission, big brakes and coil-over suspension. It’s just that Stew’s idea of ‘driver quality’ might be a bit higher-end than most. 

Originally hailing from New Zealand, Stew was always headed for a life with cars. His dad raced speedway, and Stew would tag along from a very young age. “I used to spend a lot of time hanging around the garage while he fixed cars,” he recalls. “He always had old cars and we were always working on them and doing them up. I reckon I was fixing cars from the age of six or seven.”

When he was finally old enough to leave school and get a job, Stew went straight into a spray painting apprenticeship – and not just removing and replacing panels for insurance companies, but actual custom work on cool cars.