First published in the November 2012 issue of Street Machine

Has the world fallen on its arse? Burnout maestro Steve Loader has quit smoking and shifted into the show scene. Okay, settle down. Yes, Steve’s new ride is hella schmick and yes, it debuted at MotorEx alongside the cream of this year’s show car crop but his new ride is still all about ridding the planet of its pesky tyre surplus.

This is the level the top burnout players are at — detuned drag engines in bodies equally at home on the pad or in the show hall. And Steve’s Commodore has no worries there, as the wide-eyed crowds at MotorEx agreed; more incredible is that it was built in just seven weeks.

Truth be told, he didn’t need a new car; it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

“We’ve talked about doing a VE Commodore for a while,” Steve says. ‘We’ is Johnny Taverna Jr from Taverna Bros Engineering, Danny Drewit from Street Or Custom Trimmers and Adam Bywater at High Gloss Body Works.

“With Gary Myers and Steve Nogas doing American cars for MotorEx, we wanted an Aussie car,” he continues. With that in mind he picked up a written-off VE SV6 at the auctions for $2500. “It got written off in the floods but it was just water damage mostly.”

Steve dropped the orange sedan straight to Taverna Bros, where it spent most of the next seven weeks — “Everything bar the paint was done at Johnny’s” — and there was no time to stuff about.

The powertrain was yanked straight away and while the boys were dropping the blown big-block from UCSMOKE in the engine bay, Johnny was slicing the arse out of the VE.

Compared with the narrow HT Premier, the massive donk looks right at home in the VE. “There’s heaps of room in the Commodore,” Steve says. “It’s way wider than the HT and has much more room up front. I’m pretty anal with engine bays — I like an engine and nothing else.”

That’s easier said than done with modern cars. The plastic firewall was replaced with flat steel and the factory inner guards — which have massive holes forward of the towers — had to be filled and smoothed to match. The end result is exactly what Steve demanded.

The radiator lurks up under the support panel while the methanol header tank sits between the radiator and the grille. Tucked in beside the radiator on either side are matching puke tanks, plus a water overflow on one side and the dry sump breather on the other.

“Corey next door to Taverna did all the tanks and Norm at Aussie Desert Cooler did the radiator,” Steve says.

While the donk is the same beast you know and love from UCSMOKE, it’s had a massive makeover.

“Everything was chrome in the HT,” Steve notes, “but we had it all coated in HPC black for this.”

It’s crowned with a JBR carbon-fibre injector hat that’s bigger than the one Steve had on the HT. The rest of the engine combo remains the same — 532 cubes of Powerhouse-built madness topped with a whopping great 14/71 SSI blower that sucks harder than Justin Bieber.

Steve conservatively estimates power at “around 1200hp” and he spins it to 8000-8500rpm. The ignition has a 9200rpm chip, however, because he hates hitting the limiter.

The factory IRS was replaced by a Taverna Bros ladder bar with Strange coil-overs, massive tubs and a 35-spline nine-inch that has a full spool with 3.0:1 gears and no brakes.

The Showwheels rims are steamroller-sized — 22x13s on the rear are shod in 315/25 Pirellis, while the pointy ends sports Nitto 245s on 22×81⁄2 hoops. For a different look, they machined the faces of the rims flat before clear-coating them to protect the finish.

The VE body didn’t need much — a minor dent on the rear quarter was pulled, they filled the fuel door, removed the roof aerial and ditched the rear spoiler.

The lower half is still in the factory colour — “because I’m going to skid it, we wanted to stay away from candies,” Steve says.

But the top needed to stand out so they started checking out different orange hues. “We kept going through colour chips until we found the gold,” Steve says. It’s effective but easy to repair if need be.

Within seconds of MotorEx opening, fans were posting pictures of the car online. “I’ve never done the show thing before,” Steve says. “It was good. You can just set up and walk away. No need to get your hands dirty!

“The seven-week factor shocked people. Owen Webb was pretty happy — I think he expected us to just drop a big-block in it.”

When the trophies were handed out the boys scored third in Pro Comp, a top result considering the company they were in, but fair pay for hard work.

“Everyone put in huge hours,” Steve says. “I’d finish work at 4 or 5pm, head over to Johnny’s and do six more hours on the car, then start work again at 4 or 5am. Once people got wind of what we were doing, we had to finish it.”

Steve put the motor back in UCSMOKE for the $50K Powercruise comp and he’s now getting pieces together for a new engine in the VE. But he’s already fending off a queue of eager buyers.

“I want to skid it first,” Steve says. “I’m hoping to skid it at Summernats but I’ll have to get a motor together — I can’t not take the HT. There are rumours they’re making the Summernats pad bigger so the plan is to take it there and maybe test out the larger pad.”

STEVE LOADER
2008 VE COMMODORE

THANKS
John, Jack & Nat, Taverna Bros; Danny, SOC Trimmers; Adam, High Gloss Bodyworks; Taylor Made Exhaust; Burko Autos; John Pilla, Powerhouse Engines; WOT Automotive; Showwheels; Aussie Desert Cooler; Speedpro Distributors; Race Wires; Nick, Corey, Daniel, Steve Whelan, Chris Bywater; my fiancée, Kylie.