Cool car Late bloomer who was bitten by the car bug
Enthusiast keeps fine-tuning her VW Polo’s looks
began as a means to allay her boredom has turned Shobana Srigovind into a leading car fundi.
Getting her inspiration for doing up her car from ’80s video games and TV shows, Srigovind has won 36 awards since 2011.
The sales manager from Phoenix and mother of one is a lateblooming car enthusiast who joined a car club in 2011 after relocating to Durban.
Since then, her standard 2005 blue VW Polo, Veedubgal, has been transformed several times to match her shifting vision.
Veedubgal is decorated with a graphic of Top Gear’s Stig, a selfportrait and a graphic of the Street Fighter video game character Chun-Li.
Since her original revamp, which included fitting a carbon-fibre roof, bonnet, boot spoiler and sides, adding 17-inch blue-and-white mags, mud flaps and chrome handles, lowering the springs on the car as well as fitting a performance exhaust system with free-flow branches, Srigovind has been hard at work.
“I replaced the interior with customised seats and detailing, customised blue-and-black carpets, colour-coded the interior panels to match the car and put in an HID kit,’’ said Srigovind.
She also overhauled the sound system, installing a full Kicker setup (mids, amp and sub) in blue and white to match the rest of the car, and fitted a Sony double-DIN DVD player with Pioneer super tweeters.
The boot has blue and pink lights linked to the sound setup. There are green and red laser lights projecting from the boot top, a machine that emits smoke from under a 19-inch flatscreen TV in the boot, blue lights in the car and a strobe light between the seats.
Srigovind said her interest in cars came about by accident.
“When I moved to Durban, I was totally bored. In the middle of 2011 I was researching social clubs and came across a car club that had both male and female members and I contacted them. After my first meeting the bug bit, because it was for young people [with cars] to meet and have good, clean fun.”
She entered her first car show in late 2011 and won her first trophy.
“I like to make things interesting. That’s why I change the car as often as I do. You want people to be excited by what you put out there,” she said.
‘‘I like people knowing that this
Pictures: TEBOGO LETSIE is a girl’s car.”
Srigovind’s passion for cars has also influenced her sense of style. “I have a designer who creates all my outfits for shows so that they match the theme. I have a lot of blue clothes now,” she said.