VS Wagon Lead Sled

I am now the proud owner of my mate's at Incarsolutions old wagon. It's a 1996 Holden Commodore VS 3.8L Ecotec V6, with some very very nice modifications (and a few more done since I've owned it too!)

They have been saying that it would suit me for as long as I can remember going there as I have a habit of painting cars matt black, and liking big cars, and needing an automatic, and this ticked the boxes perfectly, so I went for it and loved every moment since!



Here are some pictures of her progression over the years.


How she was originally when my mates bought her off of Mark from Nightmares Racing.








After my mates gave it a bit of a hit with the old lowering stick - looking better eh?







After some matt black paint:







As she was when I bought her:






From this point on, is everything I've done since I've owned her



First modification - leather front seats out of a Vauxhall Senator:






I've also fitted some JBL 6" 3-way coaxials into the front doors too. Pain in the ass to take the door cards off, and I'll have the fun of changing the stereo over too at some point! Eeep!!!! Center console job out that is!



She'll certainly be a very nice, tasty piece of kit


Well this is now the plan, but with airbrushing coming up from the base as well, and maybe some pinstriping too






I then started doing this:





Need more red paint for the wheels. Done the passenger side sill red too, just need to do the other side and the bumpers as well now too




A splash of paint on the sills n wheels, looking good I think







When she stopped being airborne, I took some photos










Well she now has a red rear lip too, so the red ground bits are all done now Yay!! She's also pumping some bass too now, only a little bit though






The bass is a pair of 12" JBL power series subs, running off a JBL GTO 14001 amp. That's 1500W RMS going into the subs!!!!! Mmmmm, tasty bass!!




Oh yea, she also does this too now she's had a decat!






After a day of work, this is the outcome.


First bit, the headliner is now in, red crushed velvet. I know it's not to everyone's taste this, but I'm absolutely loving it!!





Also had some red paint left over, so did the engine cover too






Here's a couple of photos from her first outing from the yard and from the first day of her officially being my daily driver. Woop woop!!!!






And a photo of my dash with the speed converter as it's all in km/h!! LOL





I am currently looking at the option of getting some 100 spoke wire wheels for the wagon too, and I can get them cheap enough, but the shipping from the US is waaay too much I can get them for about £100, but with postage and import tax, that takes them up to around the £500, and I'm not paying an extra 400% just to get the damn things to me!!


Slight update too, I tried to do a red LED dash light conversion, but with the green dials, it didn't work and the green on the dials is impregnated into the plastic of the dials themselves so that's a no go But whilst I had the dash apart, I decided to do this





There will almost certainly be more red bits happening too. The red is just taking over!! LOL



One potential eventual plan is to get some juice on the suspension instead of the normal shocks and springs to allow her to go even lower, but without the issues of speed humps stopping me, but we'll have to see on that one. It's all a matter of funds!!






More red time again!!

As my mate Mark said, if it's plastic and comes off, it's going red!!



Changes to the bass install in the trunk:


Initial install - 2x JBL 12" Power Series subs in the spare tire well





Then 4x JBL 12" Power Series subs in an ex shop display sub box, works very well and the bass is AWESOME!!!!






I then decided to go for a custom built 4th order band pass enclosure.


The new sub enclosure being built:





It will be padded on the top before being carpeted so I can use it as a bed, as demonstrated by my mate Mark here:




It in the rear of the wagon:



Along with updates to the bass, I've also made some custom fiberglass door pods to go from single speakers in each front door, to two a side






Wooo!! Door builds are done at last!! Had to go up London for a hospital appointment half way through, but gave me a good bit of time to put filler on it (sanded the fiberglass down last night) and let that set ready for sanding the filler back and then carpeting it.


After sanding down the filler:





All done:



Got some new wheels on there too, but I'm contemplating changing them again for something a bit more hot rod old skool style.





Well I've changed wheels again, going for a more lead sled style wheel. The others were nice, but the offset was a bit much (20 offset on 8J rim on a car that originally had ET38 6J rims lol). They're just a set of basic E46 15" alloys that I painted up the centers on and polished the lips up, and they look excellent I think. Going to get some spacers though to pull the wheels out a bit more, and some taller tyres on the rear, and then give the walls a red line stripe to break up the black a bit.






I am now waiting till I get paid, going to get some 215 / 70 / 15 tyres on the rear to jack the back end up a bit, and fill the rear arches in nicely too. Going to see about doing some slim red wall on the tyres when I get them too, to help break up the massive slab of sidewall that there will be.

This car mate look awesome. !!!!!!!!!! Have decided what to do on rest the door trims??? Give me ur email address n I'll send u some pics of what I did to my missus lil bro Calais mock up I did it looks mint n took 3 afternoons pm it to me but ur car looks awesome I got a vr wagon that I use for work

Cheers mate Still need to get some bits sorted (need new pair of radius / castor rods and the bushes to suit for the front) but I was planning to do the door cards in black and red to match the theme of the car.

I'll PM you my email addy though, always good to get ideas - Just tried to PM you, I can't as I've not been registered for a week yet. Can you upload them to photobucket or something and PM me the link to the photos at all? Look forwads to seeing them though

Email me at d4r88@hotmail.com n I'll email u the pics I dnt kno how use photobucket ;( lol I struggle to use the forum sometimes lol jks.. Bur yeah send me one saying hi in the subject n I'll upload the pics to a email n reply to ya... What we basically did was like u done choose 2 colours we chose white cuz car is white n black cuz we like black lol n we cleaned everything with acetone.. So much crap came off the dash n doors looked like new n were u sprayed red around ur dash cluster we went white n then black on the top part dash cuz white b to glarey but ull c in the email k

That's cool, yea, look forwards to seeing it, sounds great!! Cheers mate

No worries mate

An awesome car with an equally awesome story and history.....we are in the process of having new stickers made, so will see what we can do when they arrive about sending a few over possibly..cheers Andy...if ya ever in need of any parts and I can be of help sourcing or sending them over, let us know

Ha Ha! Love it!

Cheers guys. Yea, the story is brilliant, and I would love to do a road trip like that, it'd be immense!!!! Shows how good the old Buick engines are though doesn't it? Not that I'd fancy trying that drive in a car that's done it once before

Thanks for the offer on the parts front Andy, it is a real pain to get anything here for them. I had to get HT leads for a Camaro, suspension springs from a Volvo, it's all fun!! Though I do need a pair of radius rods / castor rods n the bush kit to suit, and waiting to hear back from a dude on eBay AUS at the moment. Always a fun bit, waiting!! Joys of a rare import. Worth it for a commodore though

I must say, that wagon just looks badass! Love it!! Cars with stories are always the best, I love yours! Got a decibel reading for that enclosure of yours? Surely that pops the 140 mark!

Cheers man, yea, I'm loving it. Need some taller tyres on the rear to fill the arches a bit, and then I'm gonna do a small red wall on the tyres too to really help the lead sled look along.

Got a price on a set of caster rod bushes, and the rods themselves - shipped is just over $220 AUS!!!!!!! It's a real pain having such a rare import to get parts!!! Though I have found a Holden specialist in the UK (yes, there is one!!! I was amazed too!) so gonna see how much bits are from them. Then I can look more at getting round to doing dB readings, but I am sure it'll pass 140 without any issue as it's a 4th order band pass set up, so bloody loud!!! My stereo is currently set to -11 for sub level as the speakers aren't amped up yet, and that just about keeps it level. When the speakers are amped as well, it's all gonna be louder, and it's going to be hella loud, and hella awesome


Really annoyed though, as I had to change the steering rack over as mine was snapped, and one of the pipes is leaking, so gotta get back under there, crack the pipe off, change the seal, and hope that fixes it.

What happened to the mags that were put on it after the stock mags that you painted red???? The were awesome. What type of wheels was they. They really made the wags look great. Tell ya you would not get away over here with how low it is. It would be defected lol.

Those wheels are AWR Hyrdas from BMW. Quite unusual, but the offset and width combination wasn't quite right for the car, and I'm not a big fan of stretched tyres so they're on eBay at the moment.

I'll send them to you free if you send me an L67 blower in return


Oh he'll be getting dropped more too on the front end when I get round to it. Chop another half coil out the spring maybe Have to see what it's like when I have the castor problem sorted out, and then see what I feel like with dropping more on the nose end.

LOL no its okay I like the wheels but I will stick with the ones I have, Just thought they looked really good on the wagon thats all.

Yea, I liked the look of them, but bought them mainly as a cheap temporary set and they did their job nicely.




Steering rack leak has now been sorted. Involved taking the rack off again, taking it apart, and running a load of sealant on it on the pinion cap and seat. A lot of effort, but it's all sorted so woop!!!!

Also decided on a whim to paint the door speaker grills in red where they were silver to go with the theme a bit more, and really happy with the result!