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| (From left) 2021 King of Customs winner Vinod Lalla from Queensburgh, KulumaTV presenter Gareth Charles and Gary Bezuidenhout of Mallaz Customs. |
Spoiler alert — Vinod Lalla from Queensburgh is the first King of Customs of the reality TV magazine show of the same name.
Conceived by Pinetown-based Mike Corlani and Quinton White of KulumaTV fame, the show is broadcast on Ignition TV (DStv Channel 189) and simulcast on Facebook with the tag KingofCustomsSA.
White told Witness Wheels that the first series features Gary Bezuidenhout and Matt Baldi from Mallaz Customs, visiting other passionate vehicle customisers, like Lalla, who told the crew his garage full of customised cars is not a business, but a hobby.
White, who is as used to shooting rallies for KZN-based Toyota Gazoo rally racers Guy Botterill and Simon Vacy-Lyle as he is filming music shows for Lady-smith Black Mambazo, said the interaction with viewers made King of Customs a lot of fun to produce.
“Viewers were encouraged to like and share the videos from their favourite customisers through their Facebook page. Those views, shares and likes, tallied over the first 30 days, counted towards a final score to determine the King of Customs,” he said.
Lalla’s fans stomped the competitors with a wave of online votes, followed by Schalk Faber’s BMW-powered Chevy in Hillcrest and Durban’s award-winning engineer and innovator Adrian Padt’s gassified Chevrolet bakkie, inspired by Kamberg sawmiller, farmer and mechanical engineer Patrick Johnson’s well-known gasified bakkie.
White said the show is already looking for the next King of Customs, but this time they are casting their net much wider than KZN.
“Lockdown last year forced us to stay local in KZN, but for the next season we will go in search of the best vehicle customisers on the back roads and in the backyards across South Africa.”
Meanwhile, to see why Lalla’s fans “liked” his custom cars the most, watch the first season’s final episode on Saturday at 10 am.
