Green Genesis

This one isn’t a customer’s car. It’s Zachary’s — bought at eighteen, built over the following twelve years, and the reason there’s a workshop here at all.

Green Genesis went together in whatever hours were left over from building the business that became Kohl Customs. It was the first true high-end build, and it doubled as the place where the skills, the ideas and the way this shop does things all got worked out for the first time.

It came out in candy green, with the whole cabin retrimmed in cream diamond stitch and a boot built to match. Which is the short version. The longer one is that a colour that bright is completely unforgiving, and there was nobody else to blame for any of it.

Why it still matters

A VH Commodore is not a rare car. That’s exactly why one done properly stops people in a car park — because most of them aren’t, and everybody knows it.

Everything on this page — the panel work, the trim, the fabricated boot, the bay painted to match — is the same standard that goes on customer cars now. The difference is that this one was the practice run, done on his own time and his own money, before anyone was paying for it.

The body and the colour

Green over silver on a VH is a bold call, and it only works if the panel work is honest. A colour that bright is completely unforgiving — every low spot, every ripple in a door skin, every bit of filler someone got away with in flat white will show up in it under a workshop light, let alone in the sun.

So the panels came right back and got straightened before any colour went near them. Gaps were set, the front and rear valances and the skirts were fitted up and checked, and the bay was painted out in the same green so that lifting the bonnet doesn't spoil the illusion.

Cream, everywhere

The interior is the part that takes the longest and gets the least credit. Front seats, rear seats, door cards, centre console and boot are all trimmed in cream with a diamond stitch running through them, and the pattern lines up across the panels the way it should.

A wood-rim wheel on a polished three-spoke centre pulls the dash together, and the original instrument layout was kept rather than replaced with something modern that would have fought the rest of the car.

The boot

The boot is where a build like this either shows discipline or gives up. This one got a fabricated and trimmed floor with a pair of subs let into the rear panel, and a separate lidded compartment down one side so the tie-downs and gear live somewhere instead of rolling around on the carpet. It reads as part of the car rather than something added afterwards.

Under the bonnet

The Holden V8 sits in a bay painted to match the body, with the plumbing and wiring routed out of the way and a polished air cleaner on top. It's tidy without being a showpiece that can't be worked on — everything is still where a spanner can get to it.