Category Archives: Cars

I ran out of car wash, so got creative and used LYNX hair wash instead!

Suds up nice!

Ahhhh, the Northern Beaches. I used to want to live in Palm Beach as it reminds me so much of Byron Bay.

Maybe my fave car on the night.

Diversity. Got to love it!

Alexi waxing lyrical at our final destination at Palm Beach.

I missed the last sunset cruise which Cordy organised last year. I wasn’t about to miss her second cruise though.

Cordy lives in the Northern Beaches, and has a pretty tight crew of down to earth peeps, all who are car crazy. The cruise was postponed due to bad weather last week, but last night the meet and cruise went ahead.

Just a week ago I was hanging out in Gothenburg, Sweden with Alexi of Nori Yaro Japan, he messaged me to let me know he was in Sydney visiting family! Naturally I dragged him out for the cruise. I’m pretty sure he had a lot of fun seeing some Aussie muscle on the night (a break from the stuff he usually see’s in Tokyo I’m sure!).

More pics on Zen: http://www.zengarage.com.au/2015/03/sunset-meet-cruise/

February EOMM.

Sometimes you have to step out and see things from another perspective (before it’s all lost). The Sydney car scene has been fighting against the hoon label we’ve been slapped with for years. Sometimes I’m not even sure if we’re winning the fight, or losing.

When I read social media, sometimes I think we’re losing. Kids are so quick to type and not think twice, inciting and spreading hate as well as fear about cops setting up defect stations at my meets which in turn stops a lot of people from coming out to play.

But on the night, true car enthusiasts rock up despite the haters behind their keyboards suggesting they should stay at home as they might get defected if they turn up to the meets.

Real life > Internet

When I was recently in Gothenburg, Sweden I met Darren Cassey. I proudly showed him my Facebook reach, he then told showed me his, my jaw dropped and I felt totally embarrassed. Turns out he works for Car Throttle, one of the biggest car blogs in the world with over a million followers on Facebook alone.

Darren told me that Car Throttle gets a lot of Aussies commenting on hoon laws, he saw photos from our most recent February EOMM which inspired him to write a feature about our scene.

It’s early Sunday morning, but my day is made! Be sure to check out the feature titled: Here’s Why Australian Car Culture Is Probably The Best In The World Right Now – http://www.carthrottle.com/post/heres-why-australian-car-culture-is-probably-the-best-in-the-world-right-now/

I had very little sleep (3-4hrs) but was feeling AOK. In the morning we caught up with Jared from Downshift (QLD) who landed at midnight last night.

Mix Master Alain at it again, this time en route to Calder Park.

Calder Park has to be one of the most run down circuits I’ve ever seen. Mad Max comes to mind. Post Apocalyptic!

We were greeted by the cars we were going to be driving. WRX’s and Golf GTI’s on the new Bridgestone Adrenalin POTENZA RE003’s as well as competitor tyres.

Still don’t like this car. It’s just so stylistically awkward.

I was so looking forward to driving the GTI.

Lightning bolts! Love the tread pattern and square semi-slick like sidewall.

Into the WRX I get, and boom! The Fox!

Patina.

Our group hit the wet slalom first. Whilst the competitor tyre was fun as I managed to get the car to lose traction and get into a four wheel drift, this wasn’t what we were here for. The Potenza was the clear winner with much more direct steering and much smaller steering input (much smaller steering wheel adjustments).

The next test was dry slalom where we got up to much higher speeds. The competitor tyre was awesome, and predicable, but it scrubbed off speed on each direction change whereas the RE003 didn’t. Both winners on this test I thought, though the RE003 definitely won the test (and had the WRX showing off much more body roll due to more grip).

The last test involved a fast 80km lane change which made for some pretty crazy sideways action with the competitor tyre (smashing cones down like bowling pins!). The RE003 smashed the competitor tyre in this test. Definitely the biggest difference out of all 3 tests on the day, and definitely the most fun too.

We were asked not to use our driving skills to avoid hitting cones, and instead hit 80km/hr and literally yank the wheel as hard as we could, thus simulating avoiding kids running across the road for example. After this we were treated to some heated track battles on the full circuit between the competitor tyre and the RE003. This had everyone on the day truly appreciating how awesome the RE003 was, and also how amazing the Golf GTI was. The MK7 just feels so fast, fun, playful and light (IE: It shat all over the WRX).

We wrapped up the day with some filming, and at the carpark we spotted this amazing Honda Beat owned by Grant from Gripshiftslide.

So good!

As wide as 3 license plates. Check the lines on the ground, that’s a standard car park space!

So rad, and still a work in progress.

We smashed a few drinks with the Full Boost boys, then we were off for more drinks at the airport.

Landed in Sydney. I’m SO over planes. We almost missed this one, getting in trouble with the people at security check for being so late and literally running our asses off onto the tarmac to board the plane (lol).

PS: Yes. I had to buy a set of RE003’s for my Golf. I’m almost down to the canvas and have been meaning to get new tyres for ages! I’m really looking forward to getting these babies on my car ASAP!

Dat Sunset.

So whilst I was away in Sweden I missed my own car meet, but thanks to a great team of people I can rely on (I call them friends!), the meet went on and it looked like a great one despite the rain. More photos can be found on EOMM.

Spotted in Rose Bay today, an Aventador with Italian stripes, a McLaren 12C, but these are the 2 cars I took my camera out for. A gorgeous Porsche 356 and a 2 door MK1 GTI (!).

Care package from Canada.

I’m not a huge fan of wearing cars on my chest, but this is subtle and classy. I like it!

Very cute! Wheel pack sticker kit.

Got a great care package from Import Bible today, all the way from Canada! Love the VW Golf Wolfpack shirt, love the stickers too! Find this gear online: https://importbible.com

Zen Garage – January EOMM from fatihfilms on Vimeo.

The strip. View from the office.

Locking dates in!

Meetings at Sydney Dragway. Just re-confirming that we’ve got the massive carpark at Sydney Dragway for 12 End Of Month Meets (EOMM’s) this year! Talk of a special event including the drag strip too!

Tight squeeze.

All done.

One of my HID’s died a few days ago. I run them on every time I drive, mainly for safety reasons. I wasn’t prepared for one of them to blow though (pretty sure the HID’s on my previous S2K would have lasted the lifetime of the car?!). My mechanic Dedy at TOP ONE (was great to drop by, had been a while!) said the OEM bulbs in VW Golfs burn out fast. He had MTEC bulbs ready to go so in they went (they cost me $250 a pair).