Category Archives: Cars

Awesome day out today at the Sydney VW/Audi (VAG!) Dyno Day in Revesby. My full write-up on the day can be found at Zen Garage.

The car that got away.

A few days ago I put a bid down on a BMW E36 318is (that lowercase “s” makes all the difference) on eBay. Not that I need a 3rd car but it was one of those spare of the moment, late at night, red wine and internet moments!

I’ve never bought a car off eBay before but in this case I doubt the seller had ever sold a car on eBay before! Her listing was awesome (view it here), you could read her frustration. Poor lady must have been hammered with stupid questions, low ball offers and hate mail!

I was winning the auction until someone sniped me last minute and beat me by a measly $50. I was pretty devastated for some reason! At $4k I would happily have paid $5k for the car.

This morning I’m still feeling shitty about it. An E36 might still be on the cards, would make a nice project car for Zen Garage I think. Lovely lines, always have loved the shape more than the ‘little too boxy’ E30’s or the ‘tubby’ E46’s.

As much as I love collecting stickers I hate sticking them on anything. When I do stick a sticker on a car I end up hating it, then ripping it off soon after. I figure under the bonnet is a good out of sight, out of mind way to represent!

So many awesome things in the mail this week!

Before we settled on the name “Zen Garage” we had registered “Us vs Them” only to find out that the name was already being used in the US as an automotive/lifestyle fashion brand. It’s almost impossible to get .com domain names these days, everything is taken, most of it’s parked too which adds insult to injury.

After a quick google search it turns out Zen Garage was also taken. Len Higa from Oni motorworks, along with Giant Robot magazine had a show at the Japanese American National Museum in December last year. The show featured the SUPER FAMICOM CAR, a retro video game-inspired converted Scion xB utilizes projectors from both the front and rear to play video games. DAVID CHOE’S CUSTOM MONSTER SCION xB and SHINYA KIMURA’S SPIKE motorcycle.

Not wanting to start Zen Garage on a negative I thought I’d send Len an email, stating that we were about to launch a new business called “Zen Garage”. I suppose I was looking for his blessings? The next day I got an email from Len, who was excited, positive and more than happy to give us his blessings! The guy is a champ, he’s even sent me a Zen Garage T-Shirt (Len did the insanely awesome tyre/enso illustration), one of the remaining few left over from the show which ended last January.

Showdown in Homebush.

As a moderator of a forum I try my best to sit in the middle (when I voice an opinion I usually get hammered). My job is to try and keep the peace.

Today Christina and I had a meeting with a kid (he’s 17) who’s turned one of our forums upside down. We banned him for 3 months but his ban has expired and now he’s back on the forums. Everything was AOK for a little while, but a recent outbreak has us back at square one.

It’s hard to stop this kid from posting silly things (we were all kids once right?) but it’s just as hard to stop long standing members from bullying him for posting silly things.

It was crazy hard for us to meet him, and his mother (he’s on his L’s so had to have here there to supervise his driving) and lay it all on the line for him. We told his mum about the bullying (damn was he embarrassed). As awkward as it was, we got it all out, offered some constructive suggestions and now we’ve just got to hope things change for the better.

Photo by J_Hui.

JDMST sponsored a dyno day out at Dee Why yesterday. Sun was out, vibe was great and there were some pretty hardcore cars there too. More words, and pictures on Zen Garage (I’m loving the extra effort I’ve been putting into writing for Zen Garage!). Visit: http://zengarage.com.au/2011/08/29/all-about-stance-dyno-day-2011

Due to last minute all over the place organisational skills, last night I had 2 forum meets on at the same time, in different locations. A VWGolf.net.au meet at Homebush and a JDMST meet in Blacktown.

I had intentions to attend the JDMST meet, but before driving out I thought I’d drop in to the VWG meet first, and perhaps make my way to Blacktown afterwards. I picked Christina up from work, got caught in killer traffic on the way to Eastwood (to get her car) and when we got to Homebush I got a call to warn me not to bother going to the JDMST meet as it was pitch black (no street lights) and no parking either.

Homebush was pretty packed out too, we had a big bunch, hung around for a while then drove to Rhodes to take photos of the cars in more light (at that stage I put the camera away and did the social thing instead!).

Many more photos here and photos from the JDMST meet (400 cars strong apparently!) here.

$200’s worth in this 40cc syringe.

Dave from Reflect Effect, working his magic.

Bonnet has never been this clean.

I’ve never been a fan of the concept of paying the premium for a new car, then being shoved into the little room with a sales person trying to drill you for even more cash for paint protection.

The outcome of this heated discussion got me a deal to review the Opti-Coat product on my own car to put my doubts to rest.

Opti-Coat claims to be the ultimate paint protection product on the market today. It’s basically a clearcoat like your stock clearcoat, only a lot stronger and longer lasting. A quick search on YouTube has people scratching at their Opti-Coated cars with steel wool with no ill effects, even paint thinners have no effect on it.

My full (and ongoing) review can be found here.