Last time we left you at the point where we’d bought a police-spec VK Commodore Berlina from a spud farmer in Cowra and had big ambitions to turn it into a Brock tribute Group A. We had no intention of getting in there with the angle grinders and spray guns ourselves, however, when there was a perfectly good expert standing around looking for trouble – namely Darren Gillis, the General Manager of HDT Special Vehicles in Sydney. Staffer Phil Walker had sourced the car through the classifieds and, after a quick inspection in the farmer’s shed, had declared the yellow VK the perfect candidate for what we had in mind. The owner swore it had no crash history, and Uncle Phil reckoned the whole plot was a good, honest runner that had every right to be getting a little tired, given its age. Hidden surprises Of course, a visual inspection in a potato shed is one thing. Getting the car up on a hoist, with the seats and trim stripped out, is when you really find the ugly surprises that all too often lurk in the shadows. And, worse, this is the labour-intensive end of fixing a car. For example, our paddock-find Falcon GT HO – Unique Cars’ previous big project – gobbled up a couple of hundred hours of panel beating before we were ready to lay any primer down. So, how did we go, Phil? “Incredible,” he said, “We had a little bit of rust at the rear window – they all rust there – and that was it. Even the floorpans were good.” Terrific. That meant our panel-beating bill was down from hundreds of hours to just a couple to tackle the window bubbling, which is a huge saving. That’s not to say there was no work to be done on the body, though. While the startled-budgie yellow the VK came in may have been very attractive to the original purchaser, it ain’t exactly a Brock colour. In fact, what we wanted was Formula Blue, a tone used exclusively for the legendary racer’s homologation VK Group A. So, of course we had to strip the body back, remove the doors, bonnet and boot, smooth out any imperfections, lay down the primer and, again, smooth the whole thing down. There’s still a lot of labour involved and the task was handled by Smeaton Grange Paint & Panel, managed by Luke Holden (yep, what are the odds?) and Damien Butcher. They were pleased with the shape the car was in. “The body was probably one of the best cars we’ve seen for its age,” said Luke. Nevertheless, they stripped it back to bare metal, installed a new rear parcel shelf, and applied three coats of high-fill primer, all of which had to be blocked back. We’re talking at least 160 hours of labour before the final colour was looked at, or the equivalent of two folk going at it in the back shed for a fortnight. Why go to so much trouble? After all, it’s only paint. “It’s all about first impressions,” says Darren. “It’s incredibly important as it sets the mood for the whole project.” He also managed to source the critical add-on panels, like the front air dam and rear boot spoiler, which will be fitted at the last minute. New clothes After all that prep work, applying the final colour seems very quick. If that’s the only stage you saw, you could be forgiven for thinking the whole process is an afternoon’s work. Everything relies on the skill of the person in the spray booth, who has to be able to lay down an even coat across the whole car quickly and without hesitation. This workshop uses a Spies Hecker paint, which Luke says is already tack-dry at one end of the car by the time you’ve got to the other – a matter of minutes. They leave it for about five minutes between coats for the solvents to evaporate, and lay down three more of Formula Blue, followed by two coats of clear. Luke reckons they bake it in the booth at 60 degrees for about 45 minutes and from there the job is about done. They check it over and buff off any stray dust particles, and roll it out the door before turning their attention to the loose panels, such as the doors. At last, Project Blue feels like it’s going somewhere. We seemed to spend weeks pulling the thing apart, filing down the body and generally feeling as though you’re going nowhere. But watching it transform from a dull grey to an eye-popping blue within a few minutes is one of the best parts of the process. You feel as though, finally, there’s evidence that your pile of parts is becoming a car again. So what’s next? Well something to make it go, like an engine, would be nice. Watch this space… Why a VK? THERE WAS A time until recently when you could get a reasonable VB through to VK Commodore for next to nothing. More compact than its HQ-HZ predecessor, the first-generation Commodore long struggled to earn the same recognition as its bigger stablemates. But those days are long gone. Just about everyone involved with this project has said the series has come into its own, with prices rising and good ones becoming harder to find. HDT’s General Manager Darren Gillis is a big fan of the Commodore – he has three race versions in VC, VH and VE variants. Why track cars? “It saves me a fortune in rego,” he claims, tongue-in-cheek. More seriously, he says, “They’re fairly light and you can get a lot of power out of them.” – GA
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 12:23:56 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015