Canberra's annual big, loud car festival will be a shade cooler this time - literally cooler.
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The organisers of the 33rd Summernats event in January say they've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to put hundreds of square meters of extra shade in for spectators.
Canberra is just very hot in January, said Andy Lopez, one of the owners of the event. "We needed to get more shade to make it more comfortable."
He said the festival is the biggest event for modified cars in Australia and even beyond.
"It's the best automotive festival in the world," he said.
Every year, it attracts more than 100,000 spectators and around 2,500 entrants and their gloriously souped-up vehicles. Mr Lopez said it brings $30 million to the ACT economy.
It may be cooler on the four days from January 2 but it won't be quieter. At a preview at Exhibition Park in Canberra, owners promised an extravaganza of burning rubber and smoke.
The ACT's Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, demonstrated by getting into a vehicle and going for a burn out.
Six-times champion Peter Fitzpatrick was showing off his 1934 Ford hot rod alongside his son, Aaron's, Datsun 1600 (the iconic American car as a re-creation with a fibreglass body and the Japanese vehicle in its original metal).
Mr Fitzpatrick who's lived in Canberra for nearly 50 years said he had oil in his blood.
He started driving an Austin A40 when he was twelve. As a kid, he used to take model cars to bed.
He now has three cars - the 1934 Ford which he says is the one he drives on the road in all its revamped shiny magnificence, and two elegant Holden FCs, one of them a standard one with only 72,000 miles on the clock even though the model was last produced in 1960.
The other Holden has been souped up. "My wife's dad gave it to her when she was 16. It's a family heirloom," he said.
He actually registered it in the ACT in 2015. Much of it is as new, including, as he puts it, the "440 cubic inch, small block, Chevrolet engine. It's a twin turbo with a two speed race glide transmission, true track nine inch rear end!"
Translation: it's supremely powerful with an automatic gearbox and special modifications to allow it to accelerate super-fast. It's at its best going in a straight line.
"It drives really nice," he said. "It's not like driving an old car because it's got modern suspension. It's got huge brakes."
Both his Holdens are beautiful vehicles from another era - one of chrome and steel, he said, rather than plastic.
Mr Fitzpatrick has decided not to bring the souped up one to January's event because he has won so many trophies with it and he wants to give others the opportunity this time.
But his 1934 Ford will be there in gleaming black.
It will be a prominent part of the festival of oil and burning rubber.
Could electric vehicles ever have a place?
Not in this kind of event, he thinks. They have their place - there's room for electric and petrol, but not at the modified car competitions.
"You need the noise. An electric car won't sound like a V8.
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
