Brett and Chris started Shockworks in 2011, and Tim made it three in 2016. The workshop has grown around them since, and no kit leaves Monbulk until it has been specced, valved and checked by hand.
Brett and Chris co-founded Shockworks in 2011, and Tim makes it three. They set the standard the rest of the workshop builds to.
Co-founder, Engineering
Brett came out of OEM chassis work: damper-tuning specialist and global driver trainer at Delphi Automotive Systems, ninety hand-built dampers for the first prototype BA Falcon, then chassis consulting to Prodrive Automotive Technologies Asia Pacific. Before that he instructed on the HSV Academy program alongside Craig Lowndes, Peter Brock and John Harvey.
Co-founder, Operations
Chris runs the day-to-day, and every consultation and sale starts with him. He leads track and drift setup development and is building the Shockworks WTAC 2026 Clubsprint entry, an S-chassis time-attack car on the same suspension we spec for customers.
Senior Technical
Tim came on full-time in 2016, when the business was two blokes and a small shed, and the workshop hasn't run without him since. Builds, installs, rebuilds, revalves, and the technical support that keeps customer cars sorted long after delivery.
Neotech has manufactured our dampers in Korea since 2011, built to our specification. They are one supplier of several, and plenty of what goes into a kit comes from others we pick for the job. Every kit lands in Monbulk either way: valved and tuned for the car it's going on, checked by hand, and backed by our warranty. Nothing is drop-shipped. If it wears the Shockworks name, our hands were on it before yours are.
The hardware is the starting point, not the product. What makes a Shockworks kit behave the way it does is the valving: written for your car, off fifteen years of platform data and our own testing, and developed here. That work is ours. It stays with us, it doesn't go back up the supply chain, and it's the reason two kits built on the same hardware don't drive the same.
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Two sets
Shockworks through one restoration
The Skid Factory’s 2JZ-swapped VR Commodore, Kevo, has run Shockworks through its restoration and its shakedown for no-prep racing. Woody rang with what the car had to do; we built to that.
First car
Rebuilt from a shell, on Shockworks
Marty from Mighty Car Mods spent two years bringing his first car back, the Isuzu Gemini coupe he delivered pizzas in, from a rusty shell to a road car again. We did the suspension, and it came through Monbulk in April 2025. It’s been down Victorian mountain roads, to Sydney Dragway and into a Hoonigan build feature at 300 hp at the wheels since.
5 days
Half-built drift car finished for the event
Benny Surge’s R31 Skyline drift restoration was finished with days to spare before its first event, the team working overtime to get a half-built car track-ready. He came back for a TOUGE 350Z build after.
Purpose-built
Coilovers designed around one car
Motive Video’s JET200, the S14 they take to World Time Attack, runs coilovers Chris designed and built around that car specifically, not picked off a shelf. Andrew reviews other people’s suspension for a living, then put Shockworks on his own.
6 weeks
Group A tribute R32, shell to circuit
Andrew Hawkins’ own R32 GT-R, built as an HKS Group A tribute in under six weeks with Shockworks coilovers fitted on camera. The build film carries the line every supplier wants: all of Motive Garage’s cars run them.
FG X
Falcon, re-tuned from the ground up
A Ford Falcon FG X re-tuned from the ground up on Michelin Cup 2 tyres, with John Bowe lapping it for the press at Winton Raceway.
10.5 sec
Quarter mile at 139mph, street trim
Harrop Engineering’s S550 Mustang ran a 10.5-second quarter mile at 139mph in full street trim on Shockworks coilovers.
Bought new
A car owned purely to develop on
Bought new for one job: a current platform run as a rolling test bed, with the valving and setup work it turns up ending up in customer kits.
Fleet-wide
Calder Park training fleet
Drift Cadet’s training fleet at Calder Park runs the same dampers we build for customers, in cars that take punishment all day, every weekend.
4 wins
Outright, tarmac rally, on Shockworks
Mustang Motorsport’s Targa Mustang has run Shockworks through a decade of tarmac rally, from the 2013 Targa High Country win to a class win at Targa Tasmania in 2018. The MM-R727 also won the inaugural Ford Mustang Hot Tuner competition at Winton on the same suspension.
Every unit
Hand-built in Melbourne
Every GT40 hand-built in Melbourne runs Shockworks suspension. When a low-volume manufacturer needs a damper they can stand behind, this is the kit they fit.
Stunt spec
Precision driving fleet
Driver Dynamics ran Shockworks under its stunt Minis: a kit valved for ramp landings and handbrake work rather than a lap time. The sets shipped labelled for the job.
Carbon tub
Automotive Centre of Excellence
Shockworks did the suspension on the ACE’s FR1 concept: a rear-mid V8 with a Ferrari transaxle, on a carbon tub laid up at Qantas, and the suspension travelling inside a fixed arm. Small-volume concept work is part of the day job.
01 / Partners, programs & collaborators
Manufacturing, development, reseller, program and project relationships earned over fifteen years.
02 / Vehicle platforms
Road, race, rally, drift and drag platforms developed, fitted and supported by the workshop. Talk to the team about your exact application.
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Chris O'Brien enters World Time Attack Challenge in Clubsprint, car #59, with an S-chassis build. The biggest time attack event in the southern hemisphere, on the same suspension spec we use for customers.
The S13 comes together in a fourteen-day push, wide body to livery, and reaches testing at Sydney Motorsport Park. Mighty Car Mods' "Cheapest GT-R in the World" series lands the same year, with Chris on camera sorting the suspension.
Shockworks runs support for Miji Kang's Shockworks-built Civic EG at World Time Attack while Chris works the pit lane, watching how the fast teams run. That weekend makes the decision: build our own car.
Motive Video fits custom-tailored coilovers to its Nissan Z on camera, and Jalopnik puts the episode in its best-of-YouTube roundup, naming the "Australian based aftermarket suspension company Shockworks". Street Machine prints Luke Fink's Ebisu-bound Falcon on Shockworks gear the same year.
At Neotech's annual gathering, Brett is seated beside Mr Lee. The same year, Shockworks outgrows the original workshop, where the lathe sat hard against the hoist, and moves up the hill.
Setup support goes where the cars are: Shockworks trackside at VicDrift's Winton events, making damper and chassis changes at the circuit instead of back at the workshop.
Brett hires a Mustang for about $100 a day in Las Vegas, borrows a workshop, fits Shockworks dampers to it, and spends SEMA taking people for drives. No booth budget, just the product doing the talking.
Shockworks supplies the dampers for Premcar’s complete chassis re-tune of the Holy Grail Falcon, and the press reviews credit the workshop by name for the tune.
The first brand-new car bought purely for development, and the start of a dedicated program on a current platform: valving and setup work done on our own car, at our own cost.
Carsales profiles the company, and Premcar engineering director Bernie Quinn goes on record with a recommendation the workshop still trades on.
Tim leaves his own business to join the family business full-time. The ramp-up dates from about then: the family came back together and the system clicked.
Motor magazine's Bang For Your Bucks: Warren Luff is on record calling it "the best handling Commodore he'd driven". The naturally aspirated Shockworks car laps Eastern Creek quicker than a supercharged one.
Mustang Motorsport's Targa Mustang collects eleven results across Australian tarmac rally on Shockworks, including the 2015 Australian Tarmac Rally Championship won outright, and a dedicated Shockworks collection follows.
First Nugget Nationals: Chris runs a 46.2 in a $600 car, two and a half seconds clear of the field. No budget, no marketing, just a grassroots build on gear valved in the shed.
AK Racing in Virginia, QLD, comes on as one of the first regional resellers, carrying the Shockworks range for Evo and Lancer platforms.
Chris's Toyota Corona becomes the first true Shockworks development car. Japanese Nostalgic Car picks it as a staff favourite of Classic Japan and calls the workshop "suspension gurus", Gripshiftslide runs its own feature weeks later, and both are still up today. The first World Time Attack trade stand comes the same year: a small stand, sleeping at a mate's place.
The first Shockworks-assembled dampers come off the Gimcheon line, the original orange and red sticker applied by hand. The Korea trips are working trips: tuning race cars for Neotech and lapping the pace car in the wet.
The engineers Brett worked with at Prodrive start calling, and the Automotive Centre of Excellence's FR1 concept comes through for its suspension. Brett is the first person to drive it.
Brett and Chris O'Brien start Shockworks together in the Dandenong Ranges. The first trip to Neotech's factory in Gimcheon comes in April, the first shipment in August. It starts with a handshake with Neotech's founder, Mr Lee, and they have manufactured our dampers ever since.
Brett and Chris O'Brien started Shockworks together in the Dandenong Ranges in 2011. Ford was pulling back from local manufacturing and taking Brett's consulting work with it. Chris had been pulling cars apart in the hills since he was a teenager. The first trip to Neotech's factory in Korea came that April, and the first shipment of dampers followed in August.
Brett came out of OEM chassis work: damper-tuning specialist and global driver trainer at Delphi Automotive Systems, ninety hand-built dampers for the first prototype BA Falcon, then consulting to Prodrive Automotive Technologies Asia Pacific on chassis projects across the region. That background made the gap obvious. A bespoke Australian damper built to OEM engineering standards, valved per car rather than compromised for mass production.
Tim came on full-time in 2016, and that's the inflection point: the family back under one roof, and the workshop found its rhythm. The growth since dates from there. Builds, installs, rebuilds, revalves, and the support that keeps customer cars sorted long after delivery: it all runs out of the one workshop in Monbulk, and nothing ships without being checked by hand.
Before Shockworks
The town
Monbulk's a town of around 3,600 people in the Dandenong Ranges, about forty kilometres east of Melbourne. It made its name on berries and the old jam factory; these days it's the nursery and flower industry that employs the most people, and the most common job here is a trade. The roads in and out wind through mountain ash forest, and every kit we ship has been tuned on them.
The family
The O'Briens have been in the hills for three generations, and the fourth is at school here. The workshop backs the local scene: club days, grassroots builds, young drivers learning their craft. We sponsor the local footy club too, which has nothing to do with cars and everything to do with living here. Our doors are open to our town, enthusiast or otherwise.
2011, Founded
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You've read how we got here. If your car is the next one, leave a number and Chris will call you back, or ring the workshop and ask for him directly.
Neotech manufactures our core damper hardware in Korea to Shockworks' specifications, as it has since 2011. It has held ISO 9001 since 2015 and lists Shockworks as its only Australian partner. Plenty of what goes into a kit comes from other suppliers we pick for the job. Brett, Chris and Tim work out the vehicle setup and the valve specification, do the tuning and the quality assurance, and hand-check every kit in Monbulk before it leaves. The same three handle the consultation, the servicing, the revalving and the warranty.
No. A damper is hardware plus valving, and the valving is ours. It's written for your car off fifteen years of platform history, tested here, and it never goes back up the supply chain: two kits on the same hardware don't drive the same. The damper is built to our specification, and plenty of what goes around it comes from other suppliers we pick for the job. Every kit is assembled, valved, checked and warranted in Monbulk. Nothing goes from a factory straight to a customer.
It is a family business. Brett and Chris O'Brien started it in Monbulk in 2011 and it has run on the three O'Briens since Tim came in full time in 2016. The development, valving, tuning, quality assurance and warranty all happen in the Dandenong Ranges. Core damper hardware is manufactured to our specification in Korea.
Digressive valving builds damping force quickly at low shaft speeds, which is where body control lives: pitch under brakes, roll through a corner, how the car settles after a steering input. As shaft speed rises over sharper hits the curve flattens off, so the damper keeps adding force but not at the same rate. Tuned properly you get a car that feels tied down without punishing you over every joint in the road.
Compare three things. Who wrote the valving: ours is specced to your car, its weight and how you drive it, off fifteen years of platform files, not a catalogue rate. What the warranty stands behind: three years or 100,000 km, and it holds for track days and competition. And what happens at service time: the bench that built your set strips, revalves and rebuilds it, for the life of the car. The big names build good hardware. What a catalogue page can't do is valve it for your car, and that's the whole reason Shockworks exists.
They're built to be rebuilt, not replaced, so there's no throwaway date. Seals and oil wear with use: a hard-driven street set typically wants a freshen-up somewhere around the 80,000 km mark, and a competition set gets inspected between seasons. When yours is due, we strip it, inspect it, quote before any work starts, and often bring the valving up to the current code for the platform while it's apart. Interstate owners post their dampers in.
Yes. Mustang Motorsport, Import Monster and AK Racing carry the range, and Proximity Motorsport in North Queensland is a reseller as well as a service and rebuild centre. Mustang Motorsport co-developed its Mustang range with us and won the 2015 Australian Tarmac Rally Championship outright on it. Every kit is valved and hand-checked in Monbulk before it goes out, whoever you buy it through.
