Finally twisted Dedy’s arm enough to get him to install my AeroCatch bonnet pins. A very fussy job in comparison to more conventional bonnet pins as the bonnet surface isn’t completely flat and you’ve got to cut the shape out of the bonnet (as opposed to simply drilling a hole in it). Perfect job though (as expected from Dedy and team at Top One Auto).
SUGA @ Spinning Wheel Tyres for a wheel alignment.
My mate Dave teed up alignment for his EG Civic just before us, unfortunately Stuart noticed a problem with the rear bushes so Dave opted to postpone the alignment until he sorts out some new bits.
Spinning Wheel is right around the corner from Danks St. so while Stuart was working on SUGA we dropped in to Fratelli Fresh for a feed.
Food was great as usual. Beer was crispy & refreshing.
Ferrari 458 dash vs Honda’s new CR-Z dash.
I was just browsing the interior thread on JDMST, and did some googling, then I found this striking similarity and decided to photoshop both of the dashes next to each other in the same scale. Both look ugly as hell to me (spaceships!) but tut tut Honda. You were innovators once!
At Eastern Creek today. First I heard it (sounds like an F1 car). Then I saw it, gahhhhh so hot.
Neil Bates was at the wheel giving Lexus owners happy laps.
The closest I got to it was touching these wheels. Damn it!
My pass.
I was given a pen and paper for my opinions on the new C.drive2 tyre.
We were fed a healthy lunch too.
After lunch and a short introductory talk we were broken up into groups to test the new tyre.
I was with the go2space guys and we were sent off to the peanut track. At this stage we were more distracted by the LFA on the main circuit (more on that later!). Hard to focus on 2 Hyundai’s when a super car is flying through turn 1!
Ian was our instructor. $10/cone you knock over. After my run I owed him $30.
That’s me in the blue car. The blue car was fitted with the C.drive2, the red car had OEM tyres.
We then hit the skid pan for slalom + a big circle exercise too (always fun).
I got an invite from Yokohama to attend one of their tyre test days. Preliminary for their dealer network but they had room for more and I was more than happy to check it out. There were 3 exercises to do in the cars, each involved 2 cars: One with the new Yokohama C.drive2 tyre (launching soon) and one with the standard OE tyres the car came with. The peanut track was used to test the cars out in some snaky figure eights in the dry and the skid pan was used to do a wet slalom, as well as a large circle where an instructor in the C.drive2 fitted car would try to catch the gap between you in the car with OE tyres (happy to say I managed to keep my distance from the guy albeit I had a lot more work to do with the steering wheel and accelerator inputs!).
I thought the big circle test was the best test of the lot as the difference between the C.drive2’s and the OE tyre were night and day. The OE tyre was squealing at all times and traction control would kick in if you tried too hard. Had to do a lot of steering to keep the speed up too but in the C.drive2 there was no squealing, you could almost just hold the wheel in the one spot and not once did traction control kick in either. Impressive.
Whilst the C.Drive was once marketed as more of a performance tyre (I had them on my MX-5 once and they were a blast on the race track, in fact in this video Canto is driving my car on C.Drives), but today the C.drive2 is marketed as an everyday tyre which focusses on safety. I thought it was amazing in the wet and it’s definitely a tyre I’d be happy to see my Mum and sister driving on.
Salt and Pepper prawns.
Shredded beef, the crispiest in Sydney.
San Tung chicken, Peter’s signature dish.
Crispy Peking Duck.
Had dinner at Kensington Peking the other night with the family (always awesome). My nephew Harris was over from Indonesia. He’s 18 now and looking to study here next year. I’ve not seen him since he was a little boy and it turns out he;s crazy into cars. He remembers one time when I took him for a blat in the GT-R and he says that’s the reason why he’s crazy about cars today!
I’ve got to admit that hearing Harris say that made me feel extremely proud and honoured to be a part of his memories and to be a trigger for his current passion in life. He drives an EG Civic at home and he pesters his dad every day for a K20 engine conversion, or even a B16!
Suga’s all done! Airbags at their lowest setting pictured above. New wheels coming soon. View high res files here.
Whilst many people out there get the impression that I’m a good designer, personally I prefer the work of others. One such guy is Mike Stevens (I call him “Van” as that’s been his username on JDMST since the beginning).
A while back Christina and I got Van to design the VWGolf.net.au logo (which we’re very happy with) and since we’ve opened up JDMST to membership I wanted to give our supporters a special edition Supporting Member sticker for their rides.
Van got it done quick, and in my opinion nailed it first go. I love it! I’m sure our supporting members will love it too.
For more information on JDMST Membership, click here. To visit Mike Steven’s folio visit: http://localmike.com
Yes being naughty and ripping shit off again. Top logo symbol is inspired by the F1 logo, bottom one inspired by the McLaren F1 logo. Cheeky bugger huh? Which one do you like best?
PS: New site is up: http://toponeauto.com.au
