YOUNG GUN
STORY & PHOTOS SHAUN TANNER
JAYDEN ZAHRA
16 , SUNSHINE NORTH, VIC
Y
OUNG fella Jayden Zahra has
almost finished his mechanical
apprenticeship with the family
business, Spimar Car Repairs. All the
while, he’s been toiling away in the background
building his dream car.Looking around the workshop, it’s clear
your family has a real passion for Holdens.
Both my parents have had Holdens ever since
they got their driver’s licence. I was brought
up around them; I was even picked up from
hospital as a newborn in a VS Calais. My dad’s
father was an avid Holden enthusiast and my
mum’s brothers also had Holdens, so I guess
it runs in both our families. My dad Mario has
been into cars since he was a toddler. He
started building an HZ ute when he was in
Grade 6 and turned that into a show car. He
had some nice daily street cars and a full-blown
Pontiac drag car. My mum Helen has had aGemini show car, an RX-4 rotary and loves
her sports bikes. I guess that would probably
explain why I carry that same gene. I’m now
16; school wasn’t for me, so with the support
of my family I left to pursue my dream career
in the automotive industry, which I have always
had a love for. I’m not far off completing my
apprenticeship as a mechanic, working in my
parents’ workshop.
The VL Walkinshaw replica you’re
building is going to be one very cool car.
Can you tell us about it?
It started life as a golden brown VL Berlina;
we bought it in December of 2016 and slowly
started pulling it down mid-2017. It has taken
a long time to find genuine new parts and plan
the engine and running gear; Mum has spent
countless hours searching for and sourcing all
the bits I need. I wanted to build this car to
appear as a very clean, street VL Walkinshaw,
but underneath be a wolf in sheep’s clothingwith the engine and running gear combination.
The bodykit will also have slight modifications
to improve on the standard kit. I’ll be deleting
certain unwanted parts and sheet-metal work,
along with hiding some of the wiring and
mechanicals. I do the majority of the work with
my dad after work most days if there are no
customer cars that need to be finished off, and
most weekends.
What’s the finished product going to look
like?
It will have a much more refined body – deleting
side-skirt jacking points and the exhaust hole
in the rear bar, and tidying up all the gaps of
the kit to bring it up to modern fit-and-finish
standards. The new fibreglass kits just don’t
fit like you might expect. The paintwork will
make way for the genuine Panorama Silver
colour to be applied. I want the interior to be
the same as a genuine Walkinshaw when they
came from the factory, but again, upholstered