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.

Unleaded vs E10 - the comparison test
By Iain Kelly · 11 Mar 2020
Without petrol most of our cars are useless, but few people realise how much this liquid made from dead dinosaurs has changed over the last few years, and what effect it will have on their hip pocket.
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Shelby GT500 2020 smashes supercars with a 10.66 quarter-mile time
By Iain Kelly · 04 Dec 2019
Ford's most powerful production car destroys the quarter-mile.
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700hp AMG obliterates Cannonball Run across America
By Iain Kelly · 04 Dec 2019
Driving 4545km in just 27 hours and 25 minutes is an epic feat, involving lightning-fast pit stops, incredible engineering, and huge stamina.
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Bigfoot is real! Driving the original monster truck
By Iain Kelly · 29 Nov 2019
Before the Monster Jam craze, there were plain old monster trucks.
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Alls well that eggs well for dual Dakar winner
By Iain Kelly · 28 Nov 2019
If you had a purpose-built off-road racing trophy truck and a huge property at your disposal, wouldn't you want to take it for a lap the fastesr way possible?
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The craziest truck in the world sells for millions
By Iain Kelly · 27 Nov 2019
Thor24 is a truck like no other.
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Cummins-swapped Supra is an off-road beast
By Iain Kelly · 25 Nov 2019
We have seen all manner of different engines swapped into Toyota's evergreen JZA80 Supra but this one is very different.
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11,000rpm aspirated LS V8 sticks it to pushrod haters
By Iain Kelly · 21 Nov 2019
Forget your VTEC and rotary engines, an LS can rev just as high.
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This 700hp Lambo V12 for sale has us dreaming up the ultimate engine swaps
By Iain Kelly · 08 Nov 2019
When it comes to exotic road car parts, not much can touch the allure of a V12 from an Italian supercar.Silodrome stumbled across a 7000km-old Lamborghini V12 for sale on eBay, ripe for swapping into something wild. Plucked from a smashed 2005 Murcielago Roadster it would make the perfect power-up to a Dataun Z-car, an 80s Volvo wagon, or even a Toyota 86. The biggest question has to be: what would you put it in?
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Unique barn-find gasser up for grabs
By Iain Kelly · 06 Nov 2019
Everyone likes to be a little different with their cars, especially when it comes to classic tin.Plenty of people also love a barn-find, so this 1954 Nash Metropolitan drag car could be just the ticket! For sale in Ohio the tiny sports car was built into a drag car in the 1960s by one of the associates of Don “Big Daddy” Garlits, the undisputed king of the Golden Era of drag racing.The Nash was parked up from 1971 until 2005, when it was brought back out for more racing, before being parked up again in 2007. The incomplete car needs a bit of work but you could be assured to be the only drag-spec Nash Metropolitan on spindle-mount wheels at your local cars ‘n’ coffee!
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