RED HOT & BLUE

A REBORN PROGM8 SHOOTS FOR THE TITLE OF AUSTRALIA'S BEST SHOW-AND-GO COMMODORE

- JACK HOULIHAN

WITH shitloads of detail and a stove-hot 355 from Flowcraft Race Engines, Frank Darmanin's first incarnation of PROGM8 was more car than most of us will ever have in our sheds. Debuting in 2007, the VH SL/E became a staple of the show car circuit.

"I drove it a bit, but I didn't get to race on a slick with the old engine," Frank recounts. "Then I had a little mishap, so I tore it down and started again!" It takes proper 'nads to pull apart such an epic car to essentially start from scratch, but the result is one of the most beautifully finished Commodores we've ever seen.

The PPG BMW Blue Pearl finish has always been key to PROGM8's identity, so Frank's good mate and uber-talented painter Elvis Barbieri, the man behind Showcars Melbourne, was called upon to lay down a fresh coat. As Frank explains, he wasn't about to change things up just for the sake of it - in fact, he's leaned further into the vibe by colour-matching the upsized 22x8 and 22x12 Simmons FR wheels. "I definitely wasn't changing the colour," he says. "I think it became pretty popular because of the colour - a lot of people know it! It's striking, and it's been influential."

But the respray and big wheels are barely digging a nail into the flow-coated surface, because PROGM8 has been totally reborn underneath, thanks in no small part to Frank Vella at New Image Panel & Paint Restorations. A custom flat floor looks right at home around the John Lang chassis and tubs, sharing space with a tubular front end and parallel four-link, which holds a monstrous Pro9 sheet-metal diff. It's all coated in PPG blue, of course, which took Elvis 13 hours of paint-booth work to apply.