The Shed magazine December/January 2025 issue 118 on sale now
Full tilt with Dynamite Dave.
Dynamite Dave Alexander is a self-taught doer, with an eye for detail, unquestionable discipline, and a passion for motorsports. He’s been making things since he was a nipper, and has never stopped. He was raised on a remote Hawke’s Bay farm, where the shed was his university.
Dave says he “grew up doing it”, working alongside his father Neil, learning how to keep the property and equipment maintained and running. His first job was welding all the farm gates. His next was putting in a box-section chassis for a 1942 Willys Jeep, which served as the farm’s workhorse.
At 18, Dave commenced his first customisation of his Mk ll Zephyr, installing a V8, dual headlights, and Vauxhall tail lights. Since then, he has restored, driven, and raced an impressive list of classic muscle cars, scratch-built stocks, rods, and record-breaking Bonneville salt cars.
Now – at 70-something – this multitasking, project-a-holic is closing in on his latest quest: to break 262mph (422kph) at Bonneville in his shed-built, RB-powered Lakester – a project that has been close to a decade in development.
Dave says, “I guess I could be playing golf or in the pub. But you have to do something to get you out of bed in the morning, to keep the old man out.”
My car the barbecue
A mobile barbecue built out of an abandoned Holden Statesman? Why not. This clever conversion by Scott Edwards, a former freezing-worker-turned-motor-mechanic, was the pin-up attraction at a car, bike, truck and boat Show Day held in Riverton, the popular coastal resort town about 32 km west of Invercargill.
Scott is currently completing an adult motor mechanic apprenticeship but has always had a flair for anything to do with engines. He began early. Scott’s partner, Nicola Swain, says his mother had told her that Scott pulled apart every toy he got as a child, then put them back together again to see how they worked, before he played with them.
DIY audio utopia
I’ve always been interested in music and hi-fi and always thought the best scenario for serious listening would be a dedicated sound-proof music room where you could listen at all hours of the night at any volume without disturbing anyone. A man cave for want of a better term.
I was lucky enough to buy a house with a large detached garage which the previous owner had built for his automotive engineering pursuits. At 13m x 5m, this is unusually large for where I live in London and would never get planning permission nowadays, of course.
The garage is a single-storey prefab of concrete construction with concrete corrugated roof panels, which was common in the 70s. For many years, the garage was just a storage facility and rubbish dump until I finally got around to transforming it into a music room and art studio for my wife (always good to have a guise for spending large amounts of time on a DIY project – I’m doing this all for you, my darling).
Content categories
Videos
