B
UYING a car from the USA is a huge
gamble, and one that plays on your
emotions for months as you wait for
your investment to cross the Pacific
Ocean on the slow boat out of Long
Beach. I’ve done it, and so has fellow
Central Coast resident Ben Brown with this
’72 Chevelle – although back then it was
nothing like the candy-coated elite-level show
car it is now!
“I wanted something different,” Ben says. “I
love the fat rear end of a Chevelle, so I began
my search in the USA and ended up buying
this car, which was on the show Car Warriors.”
While that sounds like a beaut purchase,
it didn’t quite turn out so well. You see, Car
Warriors sees legendary hot rodder Jimmy
Shine give two teams just 48 hours to build
cool rides off the same base vehicle. Ben’s
Chevelle had been put together by SPG
Customs from Philadelphia, though the tight
time restriction was evident when Ben saw the
car in the flesh for the first time.
“When it turned up it was nothing like thephotos and not finished how it was on TV. I
was so excited tracking it on the ship all the
way from New York, but then it turned up and
it didn’t start, none of the electrics worked, and
the interior was held together by a few screws.
I cracked the shits and ripped the whole interior
out of it.
“I was just going to redo the interior and get
it registered as a weekend cruiser, but then
things started to snowball. I spoke to a mate
about the paint, as it had a terrible pinstripe
down the side and we needed to rub the car
right back to fix that, so I thought I’d change
the colour.”
Rod’s Custom Restoration was given the job
of changing the Chevelle from blue to black,
although Ben threw a spanner in the works at
the last minute.
“I was going to go black right up until I spoke
to the guys at House Of Kolor and we decided
to go Candy Apple Red instead,” Ben laughs.
“To Rod’s shock I turned up with all the gear
for Candy Apple Red instead of black. In the
meantime I had purchased a set of V-Rodwheels from Showwheels and had them ready
to rock and roll for when the car was finished
being painted.
“Rod finished the car and, when I went to pick
it up, everyone was amazed at how good the
colour looked, and that right there was when
the bug really hit.”
While many of us would be spending hours
locked in the shed putting our car back together
so we could drive it as soon as possible, Ben
took a mature approach by sitting back and
thinking of exactly what he wanted the finished
product to be.
“I took it home and parked it in the garage
for about a year while I worked out where I
wanted to go with the car, slowly getting parts
for it,” he says. “It was all quite tame until I was
on Facebook and saw a brand new blower for
sale; that’s where the game changed for me
and I called Rob Zahabi up at Rides By Kam.
We discussed a plan of attack for about two
hours on the phone and, about a month later, I
did a road-trip up to the Gold Coast with a ute
full of parts and a half-finished Chevelle in tow.