How Much Does It Cost To Build A 1996 GQ Patrol in 2025

So a lot of my followers are probably around my age when they were following me and now I've grown up, family, buying houses, all that good stuff. So today, we've got some build and onboard reno's going on. So we did a video ages ago of the property walkthrough layout and to be honest, I've pretty much stuck to that the whole way through. But come up here because this mezzanine was built probably a couple of years ago and obviously never been fully finished, which you can tell the biggest drama we've had is getting the bathroom to the point where it can be started and it's finally happened. So we had to put a whole new sewerage septic system in. I tried so hard to work with council to be like, guys, I'm building a house down the back later on. Can we just do it then? They're like, no, you want to add one more shower, you need to spend 30 grand to put a whole new septic in. Can you bloody believe it? But that's been done now. So I've got the guys from Luxe Concepts to come in here and build the bathroom. Now what I've done there is let them go ham. I haven't given them any instruction. I'm like, use this as an opportunity to show people what yous can do. So I don't really know the colour yet, what style they're going for, but I know it's going to be pretty badass. So plumbing starting I think tomorrow or Monday. So this is the toilet area which we've kept separate to the bathroom just for staff and Mitch to do his poos in. Here will be the shower head with a little view and then you walk down, vanity here and a towel rack there and then that's through to the bedroom. So that's the only instruction I've sort of given them. Like that's the layout. Bang a hot water system in the roof. Plumbing starts soon. So we're going to get a few shots and probably just cut to when that's in and then we'll see what the guys have come up with. It's going to be pretty specky. Super exciting times guys. We had Matt from MRT Plumbing come in, finally getting that waste sorted. He is an absolute legend by the way. If you want some plumbing done, hit him up. And then we got on to some extra little walls and stuff we had to finish inside the bathroom. I wanted to knock up this little nib wall bloody thing, I don't know what you call it. So you can put all your like soaps and stuff on it. That's what we were working on. Alrighty guys, it's been a couple of weeks. Time for a little update. The plumbing has gone in a few extra bits. So we had Matt from MRT Plumbing, I'm going to give him a shout out because he was a legend and he came through and smashed us out in probably a day, day and a half, not even. So run some brass across the top into some poly and then this area, we've actually decided to do a bit of a laundry set up here. So that's going to be where the sink is, washing machine dryer, added this little nib wall here slash whatever you call them. So this will be sort of the shower area where you come in here, the strip drain there and then the shower head up there. So that's where that is. A couple of taps here and then install the windows and yeah, plumbing sort of done. On the backside of this will be some kitchen stuff. So he's also teed that in, not happening just yet, but coming very soon. So the next thing to happen is pretty much sheeting, put all the villa board up. Everything's going to be waterproofed after that. And then it will start looking a bit more like a livable space. So at the moment it's very bare, just waiting on hot water system to go in and we can continue with that. So the guys from Luxe Concepts will be coming in and putting all the fancy bits and pieces on. So pretty exciting times. Now I've got something pretty cool to tell you, I just wasn't sure if I could mention it yet. All right. So I've spoken to the boss and I wasn't sure if she wanted you to know this, but I can now say the builder who is essentially the owner of Luxe Concepts is my partner, Jess. She's an incredibly talented builder, interior designer, does a ton of renos, bathrooms, kitchens, all that. So she's in control of this, which is awesome. I'm letting her run with it. And a couple of things have started to arrive. Here's one of them. It's the toilet and it is black. That is right. A black toilet. So that is sort of some of the theme we're going to start looking at. The tiles also arrived. So let's go down and have a look at that. All right. So here are the tiles and they're kind of, well, this one's cool. This is like the feature wall. It's like a rustic look. And she searched far and high and managed to find this brushed brass kind of strip that goes on the edge. I think this is the main tile for the whole area. And then that's like a feature wall. So the theme is kind of brass, rustic, black, like fixtures and all that and tapware. There's also some wallpaper. So we're actually following this through into the office space and the bedroom, doing a couple of black feature walls and some wallpaper that'll come in the later episode. But that's sort of the look that she's come up with. So I'm pretty excited to see it. It's kind of gives that real dark sort of rustic manly theme. It's like attached to a shed. So it should be pretty cool. And yeah, Jess is going to be, well, I'm going to be helping her. So that's why there'll be an episode coming up over pretty much over our Christmas break. We're going to be riffing into this reno and actually smashing it out. We just had to get sort of the plumbing done, a little bit of electrical as well. And now we can go full steam since that stuff's finished off. So stay tuned for that. But for this episode, we're talking about the GQ and how much this thing would cost you to build. All right, guys, before we get into this, I just want to say I hope you guys have an awesome, safe, happy Christmas and New Year's time. It's that time of the year where everything's a little bit crazy, but it's a perfect time to spend time with family. I'll be heading over to WA to see my family. I haven't had a Christmas over home for probably coming on two years. So that'll be cool. And for you guys, just stay safe out there and make sure you enjoy yourself. I may have a couple of weeks off of the channel. We'll see what we've got coming next week. Do something pretty exciting to tell you. We are bringing back merch, a limited amount of merch. Why am I excited about this? Because we're actually doing, we're actually doing something different. I'm going to show you the coolest thing. So it all hasn't arrived yet, but it's coming slowly. Bar runners. Oh, ----. Yeah. Look at these things. We got bar runners coming and also some matching stubby coolers. So kind of a sunset one and then a daytime, the blue and obviously the sunset looks insane. Now, what I'm doing with this merch shop, instead of just doing your t-shirt stickers, which obviously we are going to be bringing back a ton of the classic stickers, the window banners, your favorite shirts. Actually, comment down below what your favorite classic shirt is. I'm thinking of bringing one, maybe two classic designs back and then a bunch of new ones as well. But the idea with this drop is to not just do shirts, stickers, hats and whatnot. A bunch of other cool stuff as well. So we got like stuff like the bar runners. We've actually got schooner glasses coming. These are awesome. These are cute little things. Bunch of different key ring stuff. There's a bottle opener. This is actually a tape measure, which is insane. So you can bang them on your keys. They're super cool. A bunch of little cool things like that as well that you guys can have on your keys around your shed. And all sorts of stuff. So stay tuned for that. I don't really want to drop any of it until the whole range has arrived. We're still working on design, still working on some different products. And it will be a limited drop. So once it drops, that's it. When it's sold out, it's gone until we do the next one. The website gets shut down. So when that gets released, make sure you're onto it, guys. All right. Let's talk about this GQ because I'm a little bit scared to see what this thing's actually cost. All righty, guys. Let's get down to business. I've got the trusty laptop out. We're going to run through some of a bit of a cost breakdown to build this. Now, obviously, building cars like this is not sustainable. And I've only done a couple. We obviously did the Patrol initially. The Van Cruiser was the last big one. And this GQ is meant to be a similar caliber build as well. And in between, obviously, we try and do some more budget build stuff. Budget friendly for me as well, which this is not. Obviously, we work with a ton of incredible partners and sponsors that help us with these builds. So probably only half of what I'm about to say is actually an expense to me. So I'm really fortunate to have that as well. But nevertheless, it's still interesting to look at what something like this would cost to build. And if you guys, just the general person, would just go out and buy everything off the shelf and pay for it all. So that's essentially what this is. And all the prices I've found from the websites or they're from quotes and invoices that I've received. So I've tried to keep it as accurate as possible and spend the time to go through all this. So without further ado, let's rip into it. The first thing we'll look at is just the car itself. So GQ Patrol, Mitch ended up finding this. It was $5,000 for the car initially. We ended up getting another cab donor, which was $500. And then a separate car for a chassis, which was another $500. So we're at $6,000 there for the car to begin with. I'm going to keep a little tally going here, just adding the numbers as we go because I have no idea what we're up to. I pretty much try to start going through this from forward to back. So we literally start at the front of the car. And as I move back, I try to pick up things as we go. And then we kind of see where we end up. So first thing you look at, the bull bar. This was obviously handmade, custom-made, but I put $2,000 on that. It took Mitch about three days of labour, including buying the steel and getting it painted as well. So about $2,000 on that one. We've got the Line M lit-up badge, the Nissan badge there, $231. The grille itself is just an aftermarket one from Patrol apart, I think, $209. Headlights from Buschdorf, $850. Now the intercooler was actually from PWR. They custom-made these for this build probably over a year ago, $2,750 for that. The radiator was $1,806. And then the boys at Hyperfab, I kind of had to pick a number out for that. They spent probably just over a day on it, $1,000 labour there to do all the welding. Moving on, we've got the thermo fans were $835. They're small, they're from PWR as well. And the shroud I made, but we just included a bit of powder coating, bending, and it was about $200 after steel and labour on that. Front guards from Custom Fibre Parts, $950, I think they were for the pair. Now the paint job itself, tonnes of labour there. We got a rough cost from Rohan, it's about $12,000 for a complete paint job like that, start to finish. The engine we bought from Bailey for $6,000. And then I've just kind of done a bulk number for everything that we did to it, including cam, gaskets, valves, springs, intake, manifold, ARP bolts, water pump, valve covers, the power steering res, a tonne of stuff from Pro Flow, all their covers and billet bits and pieces, and a bunch of internal work and gaskets and ---- that we needed, came to about $6,387. So a little first section there for just kind of the body stuff was about $28,831. Moving on to some more engine-related stuff. Once it was built, it was getting it in the car. So the Marked 4-Drive Adapters Kit, we didn't use much of their kit. It was only the bow housing, basically the engine mounts, and a couple of adapters for alternator and whatnot. $3,330 is what I kind of worked out there. The turbos from PSR were $2,738. That was for two. They're a bloody good price. The wastegates, $1,078. They're from Go Fast Bits. The headers, Pro Flow, they were $605. Now, the exhaust itself, I've put four and a half grand there because full custom stainless. We obviously spent probably two weeks of time and labour building these exhausts. It's all stainless. It's all TIG-welded. We've got flex joins. We've got the screamer pipes plumbing in. We've got V-bands throughout the whole thing. We've got mufflers, cats, everything. I think if you'd go to a shop, you'd be up around that $4,000, $5,000 mark anyway. Air filters for the turbos are $150. We had to get a new Clutch Master Cylinder. That was $178. The clutch itself is actually from Centerforce, I think, over in America. Now, this was custom-made for my LS when it was supercharged in the Patrol. We've reused it, but that was $3,800 for the twin-plate clutch to handle a decent amount of power. Gearbox, we got off a wreck. That's stock at $600. We got a transfer case for $400 off another wreck. The fuel system, now, this includes surge tank, lift pump, the pumps in the tank, regulator, lines, fuel rails, all of that was $1,982. And then the AN lines and fittings for that, also including your turbo feed, turbo drain, pretty much any AN on the whole car, the water lines for the turbos, everything is about $2,000. Now, I didn't go through and individually work all that out, but you wouldn't be shy. You wouldn't have much change out of $2,000 for all the AN stuff on there. Injectors, set of eight, were $1,592. So that brings the engine total to $35,340. I don't know where we're at in total. It's probably looking scary. Moving on to the chassis, we got the chassis powder-coated. The guys down at A1, I think $2,800 that was. The suspension kit from Superior Engineering for a four-inch in what was 35 Street Legal kit back when it was legal, $18,500. Now, that doesn't include any of your engineering or installation, obviously. The diffs complete $1,850. That's including bracing, powder-coating, rebuilds, bearings. And then the front one's also got a locker, $1,000 for that as well. Wheels are $2,500. Tyres were $3,080, the 37s we're talking about. And then the brake upgrade kit from Patrol Apart, I think they're the TB48 brakes, were $2,850. Now, that brings a chassis total minus paint to $32,580. Moving on to interior, shouldn't be too bad this one being just a ute with two seats. But this does include all of the Haltech, which is very expensive. So, the Haltech wiring system, the Rebel, was $2,495. The Haltech UC10- was $2,950. Those things are incredibly expensive. More than the ECU, which is crazy, but they're awesome. Haltech sensors, we had to get a bunch of sensors for the motor to suit. They were $871. And then a bunch of GM LS-based sensors like your NOC sensors and crank and cam and all that was $365. We had to get a Bosch pedal to do the drive-by-wire. That was $260. Spark plug lead kit was all custom-made. That was $290. And the spark plugs themselves, oh, my God, Iridium, $400. That's a lot. Now, the glass isn't in yet, but front and rear glass plus rubbers plus installation, I got a quote for $900. Carpet, $80. Oh, my God, hallelujah, something cheap. And that carpet is awesome from CarBuilders. The four-way stretch carpet, $80 for a kit. Seat decking on the back, I kind of had to pick a number. That was, I think, would be about $200. I think Mitch got down there and got a little after-hours favour from that guy. Sound deadener, so it was all soundproofed. CarBuilders, again, $549 for that kit. Seats, $1,600. They're the Ricci seats. Hedge unit from Crowe Customs, $949. And that includes the mounting fascia as well, which is really cool. And a complete rubber kit. We're talking all the rubbers for the doors, seals, windows, everything, $492 on that. That brings your interior total to $12,041. Not too bad there. Now, saying that, I'm about to rip that whole interior apart and do something pretty awesome. It's sort of temporary, this one. We're going to go do some awesome colour theme in there. Now, a few little extra things. We've got the rooftop tent on the back. That's an Outback Tourer, not the X tent. We didn't go the X, just your normal 1.4. $3,390. And the headboard, that little wake tower Mitch built. Again, just a few days in labour, steel, paint, all of that, probably $1,000. Now, a couple of little miscellaneous things. I checked on me bank statements and I've spent $3,404 at Burson's for just random ----. And $1,857 at Super Cheap Auto. And $1,284 at Jaycar and a bunch of other places for all the wiring. Just miscellaneous wiring, starter motor cable, battery stuff, all that. Now, I don't know what the total's at, but that doesn't get your car on the road, does it? So a few things that I still have coming up and some extras that can be removed from the car, but they were there anyway. Engineering, I think it's going to be about $3,000 to get it fully engineered for the engine swap and the suspension. The EcoFlow is a removable thing on the car, but they're two grand, basically. I think $1,999. And then the EcoWorks, we have their sub and their speaker hooked up and bolted to the thing as well. That's $1,798. And then getting the tune done at high torque performance was $1,100. I did do a rough estimate because this is also a cost for me. It was Mitch's labor. Now, he was essentially full-time on this build, but every day wasn't working on it. So we really stripped it back to, I think, one or two days a week. And I've put 25 grand, just a number on that for what I've pretty much paid Mitch to help go towards it. Now, that leaves a total of this, and that's not too bad. I thought it would be a lot more. But $100,000 in there is pretty doable. I mean, that's a cruiser with a suspension kit. And you've got a bloody twin turbo LSGQ like nothing else in the bloody country. So that's what it is, guys. That's a little cost breakdown of this thing. It's still not finished yet, so there's a few more things to sort out. But we'll be doing that early next year. And I appreciate you guys watching along this build. It's been pretty awesome to do, because we really tried to do everything properly. Like doing proper paint and not just wrapping the thing. And like the engine bay, trying to keep that clean and tidy instead of it just being functional. It's trying to keep it really nice looking in there as well and symmetrical. All of that took a lot of work. So a lot of behind the scenes hours spent on this that wasn't necessarily filmed. But we got there in the end. Well, we didn't because it's sitting there without wheels on it or registration or glass or anything. And yeah, that's fine. That's a next year job. We'll see you then. Have a safe Christmas. Keep an eye out for that merch. And we'll see you in 2026.