New-School Rules

OLD-SCHOOL CAR-BUILDING SKILLS BLEND WITH STATE-OF-THE-ART COMPUTER TECH AT GRAEME BREWER’S DOWN TOWN KUSTOMS, WITH AWARD-WINNING RESULTS

- Iain Kelly

DESPITE the rise in EFI and digitally controlled niceties being fitted to street machines, building killer cars is still seen as a largely analogue process. Not at Down Town Kustoms in Taree, NSW, though. The shop should be familiar to regular SM readers, having built the likes of Dave and Lyn Keen’s chopped LS1-powered FJ coupe (SM, Nov ’13); Glenn Profilio’s LS3powered ‘Refined’ FC ute (SM, Dec ’15); and Peter Sharp’s in-the-build wide-body HQ Monaro coupe, SHQRP. Over the past few years, DTK has been moving towards incorporating higher-tech solutions to the myriad engineering problems that confront the team on a daily basis, so we sat down with DTK’s frontman Graeme Brewer to get the good oil. And you can check out their use of 3D printing on page 118.

How did DTK kick off?

It all started in about 2001 when I went to the very first East Coast Cruise minitruck meet in Sydney and was hooked. I started doing suspension as a hobby at home; people caught wind of this and soon I was doing airbag jobs amongst other chassis work. I decided to open DTK when I moved up to Forster-Tuncurry. Nine months of running the shop three days a week, on top of my regular job, almost killed me, so DTK went full-time in December 2007. I was 22 years old and, to be honest, I had no idea what I was getting myself into [laughs].

Did you get into full car builds straight away?

I was initially doing ’bag jobs, but it rapidly progressed into bigger builds. Around 18 months in Damo Parker and I discovered Troy Trepanier and that changed everything. All we could think about and chase was quality, and we wanted everything more nicely finished and working better.

Having started off in a tiny old industrial unit in the back of Tuncurry, how big is DTK these days?