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Articles by Iain Kelly

Iain Kelly

Contributing Journalist

A love of classic American and European cars drove Iain Kelly to motoring journalism straight out of high school, via the ownership of a tired 1975 HJ Holden Monaro. 

For nearly 20 years he has worked on magazines and websites catering to modified late model high-performance Japanese and European tuner cars, as well as traditional hot rods, muscle cars and street machines. Some of these titles include Auto Salon, LSX Tuner, MOTOR, Forged, Freestyle Rides, Roadkill, SPEED, and Street Machine. He counts his trip to the USA to help build Mighty Car Mods’ “Subarute” along with co-authoring their recent book, The Cars of Mighty Car Mods, among his career highlights. 

Iain lends his expertise to CarsGuide for a variety of advice projects, along with legitimising his automotive obsession with regular OverSteer contributions.

Although his practical skills working on cars is nearly all self-taught, he still loves nothing more than spending quality time in the shed working on his project car, a 1964 Pontiac. He also admits to also having an addiction to E30 BMWs and Subaru Liberty RS Turbos, both of which he has had multiple examples of. With car choices like that, at least his mum thinks he is cool.

Dan Gurney, one of the most successful and legendary American race car drivers, has passed away at 86. The man credited with inventing spraying champagne after winning a race, Gurney also won Formula One races, won the...Read more
What many credit as the pinnacle of Aussie bogan car lore, the VN Commodore is almost a national treasure. But did you know that China had their own version, built in left-hand drive by the Beijing Second Auto Work (...Read more

Learning to drive a car with a manual transmission (also known as a...Read more

​The "1990s Japanese Turbo Era" gave us some truly spectacular tuner culture and few were wilder than "Smokey" Nagata's shop Top Secret. He built this wild JZA80 Mark 4 Toyota Supra but, unlike his other massively...Read more
How you sit behind the steering wheel of your car has a huge impact on your comfort on long trips, how easy the car is to drive, and even affect the amount of control you have over your vehicle in an emergency situation...Read more
​Plenty of people play computer games to crash cars, partly because there is no risk of injury but also because it can be fun to watch a million-buckaroo Koenigsegg fly off the side of a mountain at 400km/h (knowing...Read more
There is so much history of all types of racing just floating in the wind, so the discovery of amazing 27 minute 'Hot Rod' magazine film from 1959 is awesome. It was shot at the NHRA US Nationals in Detroit and features...Read more
People importing classic cars and parts into Australia have been stopped in their tracks thanks to the Australian Government and Customs demanding lengthy, invasive, and epensive checks for asbestos. While other goods...Read more
While Craig Lowndes normally drives a beastly 300km/h V8 Supercar he was let loose behind an even rarer, more exotic and faster machine last weekend at the Adelaide Motorsport Festival. While their V12 Enzo model was a...Read more
​Ex- TopGear USA host Tanner Foust is a noted racer, and he recently took his wild VW Beetle race car for a quick jaunt through the woods near Portland, Oregon. This is no 37hp original People's Car . Foust races this...Read more
Down Under fans of vintage racing cars were given the ultimate treat last weekend, with Adelaide taken over for two days of epic machinery and racing, from the heights of Formula One and the Le Mans 24 Hour, to former...Read more
In Australia the term “Phase III” is intrinsically linked to Ford’s ultimate factory road/race car, the XY Falcon GT-HO. However, America had actually used it 3 years earlier on a run of hyper-fast, hand-built tuned-up...Read more
On the face of it Chrysler's choice to name their modern muscle sedan the 300C seems strange. A random number-and-letter badge for their first proper muscle machine in years, and from the company that gave us Charger,...Read more
Electric cars are getting unbelievably fast now, but they are going to get faster and go further thanks to new-tech transmissions. Traditionally, electric cars haven't needed transmissions as it was unwanted complexity...Read more
Formula One has had a rich history in North America, from the lethal Watkins Glen up north, to street circuits around Long Beach, California, and Detroit, to the carpark of a casino in Las Vegas, and now the Circuit Of...Read more
​On top of developing nuclear weapons, getting into showdowns with the USA, trying to popularise terrible haircuts, and starving half its own citizens, it seems North Korea also stole 1000 Volvos from Sweden back in the...Read more
​Walter Maynard “Bud” Moore passed away this week at the age of 92. Bud Moore’s name might not be a household name in Australia, but the amazing exploits of this World War 2 veteran, and race car owner and crew chief,...Read more
​While many consider electric cars to be a fad, UBS recently surveyed consumers and found that if more budget EVs, like Tesla's entry-level Model 3 , were available then one-in-six cars bought new in 2025 would be...Read more
All too often we forget that there is a heavy buzz-saw sitting near our feet in our car. Your flywheel spins at thousands of revolutions per-minute, as a large rotating mass of metal attached to the back of the engine,...Read more

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