Cult Hero

The holden vn ss is a cult classic, and brad phillips’s example is the best of the breed.

- Andrew Broadley

IT SEEMS odd to refer to a car with plastic bumpers as a classic, but that’s exactly what the VN Commodore SS has become. Just like the VL Calais before it, the VN SS has come of age and emerged as a cult favourite. Good examples are increasingly difficult to come across and values are heading steadily north; some will even be eligible for historic rego next year!

Brad Phillips bought this one when he’d just turned 17, and it’s fair to say it bore the brunt of his destructive P-plate years. “Two weeks after I bought the car it was defected and I’d lost my licence,” he says. “In those two weeks I had a cop tell me – and people at my school tell my sister – that I’d end up dead in the car. Glad I’ve proven that wrong!”

For the following three years the VN was used as a weekend toy, and the defects and driveline breakages came thick and fast. Brad skidded the car and raced it too, with a bit of spray yielding a commendable 13.1-second quarter-mile pass. At the age of 20, he endured another state-mandated hiatus from driving, and decided to pull the car off the road for a thorough seeing-to.

“I booked it in with Frank at Zagari Engineering here in Adelaide for minitubs and a nine-inch,” Brad says. “That went out the window one Friday arvo when I rang Frank to tell him that if I was going to tub it I should put a four-link in it, and that if I was going to do that I should put a ’cage in it. Frank was keen on that idea, so it all changed to a three-quarter chassis, massive tyres and a ’cage; I guess that was the point at which it spiralled out of control.”

With the chassis work and nine-inch rear end completed, Brad dragged the car back to his family vineyard, where it sat in storage. He shouted himself a 6/71 blower for his 21st birthday, but the build lost momentum and progress stalled.