DOING IT TOUGH

WHEN RECURRING ENGINE TROUBLES AND A DEVASTATING ACCIDENT TURNED HIS DREAM MACHINE INTO A NIGHTMARE, PAUL KNOWLES DIDN’T GIVE UP. HE JUST BUILT SOMETHING EVEN BETTER

How to trump adversity by building your dream car, complete with 640hp LS

ATOUGH VK Commodore. That’s been 37-year-old Canberran Paul Knowles’s dream ever since he can remember – specifically, a tubbed and dumped sedan with a big Holden V8 rattling the panels and shaking the ground. Paul’s first step to making that dream a reality came in 2016, when he sourced a donor VK in Dapto, south of Sydney. “By the end of that year I had built what I thought was everything I’d ever wanted in a car,” he says. “My best mate had painted it a custom candy blue-over-silver, and it had a secondhand cream leather interior and a 355ci Holden stroker. The motor was mean and I couldn’t have been happier.”

But while the engine was a stout combo, it had constant problems, and no one seemed able to determine what was wrong. “It didn’t matter what I did or who I took the car to, the niggly issues just couldn’t be sorted,” Paul says.

As frustrating as that would have been, considering the cost of a typical performance engine, the worst was yet to come. “The last straw was when I drove the car five kays down the road and all five of the rear wheel studs snapped, sending me and some mates into a culvert on the side of the road!”

Thankfully everyone inside was okay, but the VK was toast. Most would have forgiven Paul for throwing in the towel at this stage, but he was determined to rebuild. “I decided to start from scratch and rebuild the car from the ground up,” he says. “I think the only thing left the same from the first build is the steering wheel!”

Paul says he sought “a new mechanic, new engine, new parts, new colour”, and he hasn’t looked back.

Once all the bodywork was repaired, Paul switched from the original blue-over-silver combination for an on-trend all-white theme, with everything else coated in contrasting black. The straight white is a bold and bright choice and suits the car’s snake’s-belly stance and all-black genuine Simmons FR20S. “The Simmons rims were powdercoated in a combination of gloss and satin black,” Paul says of the large hoops that measure a whopping 12 inches wide at the rear, accommodated by mini-tubs and a narrow sheet-metal nine-inch diff housing.

This same black-and-white colour palette (‘tonal palette’ might be a more appropriate term in this case) continues in the smoothed engine bay, where a ballistic engine combo from Warspeed replaces the troublesome Holden stroker. “I did some research and called Troy at Warspeed,” Paul says. “This was the best move I ever made. He built my engine, but also provided sound advice on where else to take the car. It hasn’t missed a beat since.”

The mill is based around a six-litre L98, but about all that Troy kept was the original block. Cubic capacity was expanded to 403ci with a Callies crank and rods, CP Bullet pistons and a pair of Cnc-ported Higgins heads. Twin 750cfm Holley carbs

ALL FIVE OF THE REAR WHEEL STUDS SNAPPED, SENDING ME AND SOME MATES INTO A CULVERT ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD!

mix the air and fuel into a Holley Hi-ram intake manifold, and the combustion process is controlled by a custom Warspeed 246/254 camshaft. Dressed all in black, it looks as good as it goes, making 640hp at the flywheel.

Power is fed rearward through a Hughes-built manualised TH400, down a one-piece tailshaft and into the aforementioned sheet-metal nine-inch that houses 4.11:1 gears and 35-spline axles. It’s a bulletproof recipe that has already proven itself worthy of ‘dream machine’ status by surviving treks to Powercruise and Summernats, as well as weekend cruising with the family.

While the original cream leather interior would have looked pretty sweet inside the now-white VK, Paul was adamant that he needed fresh energy in the car and that included getting new upholstery. A combination of black leather and suede covers everything, including the dash, door trims and centre console – all featuring tasteful white diamond-stitching.

“I have to give a massive thanks to my wife and kids for allowing me to build this car twice from the ground up,” Paul says. “And for not divorcing me through all the engine troubles at the start of the project!”

DRESSED IN BLACK, THE WARSPEED 403CI COMBO LOOKS AS GOOD AS IT GOES, MAKING 640HP AT THE FLYWHEEL

INTERIOR: In keeping with the black-and-white theme in the engine bay, Paul’s VK now runs an all-black leather and suede interior that boasts Coulson front buckets and a re-shaped rear bench, covered dash and centre console, Auto Meter gauges, SAAS wheel and a half-’cage that extends into the boot ROLLING DEEP: Thanks to a pair of minitubs, the VK can squeeze 12in-wide Simmons FR20S under the arseend, with bulk dish made possible by the sheetmetal 9in housing and short 35-spline axles The engine bay in Paul’s VK is on-point, with the high-contrast black-on-white aesthetic and that murdered-out, 403ci L98-based combo from Warspeed that makes a solid 640hp at the flywheel. LS the world, indeed!

ABOVE: It looks all business under here; the VK is running a serious rear end featuring tubular control arms, Watt’s link and Viking coil-overs