A cast of colourful characters star in a cracking new documentary about car culture in Newcastle, titled More Than Hoons.
"The characters are more Newcastle than anything that's ever been Newcastle," director Glenn Dormand said.
"And there is more to this culture than what you think. I think it's a misunderstood group in the community."
The region's car culture, he says, contains "engineers, purists, artists and renegades" and has its "own language".
The film contrasts hoons with car enthusiasts, while showing how the two types can blend together.
"There are car enthusiasts and hoons but, if you ask a car enthusiast what they were doing at 17, they were doing burnouts," Glenn said, with a laugh.
While there is plenty of testosterone in car culture, the film shows there's also comradeship, community and a sense of purpose.
In one particularly funny part of the film, car lovers describe the type of engine and other parts of their cars, as they love to do.
Talk of "pistons, carbies and extractors" will be familiar to car aficionados.
Glenn said this type of car culture is "mirrored all over Australia and all over the world, really".
"I think the film will travel," he said.
A Novocastrian Revhead
Shane "Pugs" Durbin - being full of energy and passion - stands out in the film as the quintessential Novocastrian revhead.
"Look out bloody Tom Cruise," he quipped, when we joked that he was surely the film's biggest star.
"I think everyone's going to enjoy it and get a laugh out of it."
Pugs described how get-togethers on Newcastle foreshore and at Kooragang Island were part of the city's culture.
"People would pull up on the foreshore, looking for a run at Kooragang that night.
"Newcastle in the '90s and early 2000s, it was huge. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday was packed in Newcastle. It was what everyone was looking forward to."
Pugs said the film had "brought a lot of us back together".
"It's been good. Most of us have been mates for 25 to 30 years, all because of cars."
Pugs said it was good to tell the story of the history of Newcastle's car culture.
"The film isn't just about the hoon side of things, but Newcastle is a big revhead city."
The free film covers the history of drag racing at Kooragang Island, the Mattara Hill Climb, the motordrome at Tomago, Rickshaws Hot Rod and Kustom Car Club, the birth of motorcycle speedway at Maitland and Supercars.
Merewether Supercars driver Cody McKay said in the film that he was "absolutely ecstatic" that Supercars "finally noticed" our "hardworking, tradie, motorsport area".
In Saturday's news section, the Herald will cover the story of drag racing at Kooragang Island in detail.
The film will be released on Friday at storiesofourtown.com.
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