HOMEBREWED

JUSTIN SCHMIDT BEGAN TINKERING WITH VLs AS A BROKE TEENAGER, AND IT’S PAID OFF BIG-TIME IN THE FORM OF THIS HOME-BUILT EIGHT-SECOND STREETER

- LIAM QUIRK

FEW of us forget the moment we fell in love with cars. For Justin Schmidt, it came while doing work experience, helping a builder on the roof of a local McDonald’s store. “I saw a VL skating up the street in the wet, and that prompted me to start researching,” Justin recalls. “I found internet forums dedicated to VL Turbos, and the rest was history.”

Justin bought his first VL when he was just 16 years old. “It had some rust and a damaged quarter panel,” he says. “My uncle had tough cars in the past, so he showed me how to repair the paint on my VL. That taught me that you can just do things yourself.”

From basic jobs like stereo installations to more ambitious work like engine bay resprays, Justin continued to broaden his skillset to the point where the mechanic-by-trade now owns his own automotive fabrication business, PSI FAB.

Like all good VL tragics of the early 2000s, Justin had owned a series of increasingly more powerful RB30 six-cylinders in his VLs, culminating in a forged engine with a high-mount turbo that made over 600hp to the tyres through a manual gearbox. However, given Justin’s heavy right foot and waning levels of mechanical sympathy, the engine and ’box were often separated from the car. “If I wasn’t changing clutches, I was replacing gearboxes, and every so often, an engine,” he says.

During one such driveline excursion, Justin seized the opportunity to give the car a lick of paint himself. “While the car was apart, I broke my ankle. LS conversions were just starting to get popular, so I listed my RB driveline for sale and thought I’d build a mild, naturally aspirated LS combo instead. Obviously, that plan went to shit,” he laughs.