The Pool Room, Chad Silvey

Full of interesting collectables and loads of trophies, Chad Silvey’s home garage is the perfect hangout spot for him and his mates.

The 1997 film The Castle shined a comedic light on many aspects of Australian suburban life and left us with a number of catchphrases. One of those was “that’s going straight to the pool room”, which means that a particular item is worthy of the area in the home where treasured objects are displayed, regardless of whether that space actually has a pool table.

38 year old Ballarat local Chad Silvey has turned his double garage into the quintessential Aussie pool room, table and all, and created the ideal hangout spot for he and his fellow car-loving mates.

Chad has been collecting all sorts of memorabilia for years, grabbing all of them whenever they came up at a bargain price (another philosophy expressed in The Castle), and he has also won hundreds of trophies for the vehicles that he has built and shown over the past ten years or so. The first was a blue HQ 1-Tonner that earned over 300 awards before being sold in 2011, and that was followed by a Patrol that earned 120 and is now also for sale.

Chad’s current ride is a Chev C10 pickup. It sits on airbags and the majority of its modifications were performed in the USA, but Chad has deliberately weathered the look of the C10’s exterior and had a custom hard lid made, airbrushed with a Route 66 sign that has bullet holes and rust.

A full-length feature story on Chad Silvey’s pool room can be seen in issue 39 of Performance Garage magazine. You can find printed versions on the shelf now or you can get the magazine digitally via Zinio.

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