Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2019 i Fast Car

Germany might not be the first country that springs to mind when you think of rock ’n’ roll, as an infamous exchange from High Fidelity neatly summarises: “You wouldn’t be familiar with our immediate influences, they’re mostly German.” “Kraftwerk? Falco? Hasselhoff?” Nevertheless, they’ve had their musical moments as a nation. Who doesn’t like a bit of Can, Faust, or Die Toten Hosen? The spirit of screaming rebellion is there. You’ve just got to look beyond all of the lederhosen, foaming steins, huge suspicious sausages, and unnecessary racial stereotypes. The Bundesrepublik’s prolific guitar-band heritage directly feeds into countless areas of popular culture, not least the design and manufacture of automobiles. So let’s shoehorn in a painfully stretched ‘what if’ here, and imagine that the Mercedes-benz showroom line-up were a rock band.…

One thing you’ll always find at SEMA is that you’ll come away with plenty of personal inspiration for cars you’d love to own, and it’s no different for me and Jules. In all the years we’ve been coming, we’ve never agreed on our favourite motors, but that’s a good thing. The world would be far more boring if we all did that, right? Anyway, just in case you were wondering, here’s what grabbed our attention… Jules: Lexus LC 500 & Mazda RX-7 FC I’ve had a soft spot for the FC series of the Mazda RX-7 ever since my Dad bought one when I was about eight-years-old. So, when I saw this Pandem-kitted beast on the Toyo stand I instantly fell in love. Look out for a full feature on…

One of the oldest and most successful names in rotary tuning, Japanese tuner RE-Amemiya have been building manic Mazdas since the mid-1970s. Founded by rotary legend Isami Amemiya (the RE stands for Rotary Engine by the way), RE-A have built countless legendary road and track rotaries, including winning the GT300 class of Super GT racing in one, and competing in the D1GP drift series. From wild bodykits to building Time Attack monsters, RE-A do it all and have always been the groundbreakers when it comes to RX-7 tuning.…

Horn Blasters Conductor’s Special Nightmare Edition Train Horn Kit, £615 SEMA just wouldn’t be SEMA without some tool in a jacked-up truck letting one of these bastards off every 27-seconds. Always highly amusing. NOT! That said, when we’re not on the receiving end, we can kind of see the appeal. We can certainly think of times on the M25 when we would have killed for one of these. Anyway, every year these kits seem to get bigger and what we’ve got here is currently the biggest on the market. 4-horns, 2-compressors and an 8-gallon, 150psi tank for hours of fun. Hooooooooonk! www.hornblasters.com VMS Racing MOAB Bee-sting Aerial, £23 We’d like to say we were surprised when we saw this, the ‘Mother Of All Bombs’, from accessories firm VMS Racing. But…

TS-A1670F Another sweet solution to improving a factory stereo system without having to rely upon an additional amplifier for Pioneer’s famous open and smooth sound. Featuring a 3-way array of woofer, mid-range and tweeter speakers in a traditional coaxial layout it’s the space saving solution you need to inject some additional aural pleasure into your motor. In conjunction with some specially made 16.5cm mounting rings you should see a huge improvement with this upgrade path over the flimsy, factory offerings. Price: £64.99 TS-A1600C Upgrade your OEM sound with a simple plug-and-play component tweeter and bass solution from Pioneer. Suitable for the vast majority of front and rear installs, these 16.5cm A-series speakers rely upon carefully selected materials to improve bass response and high frequencies, whilst delivering Pioneer’s famous open and…

Snapper extraordinaire Top marks to Luke from Plush Automotive for sorting out the boys with their request for a ‘proper picture together’ (we think it may be their wedding photo or something). All we can say is that we’re glad our old buddy builds better cars than he takes photos! Classy décor One of the best things about the big resorts is the small details, just look at the chair that Midge fell in love with at the Cosmopolitan hotel. Mind you, it wouldn’t be the first time he’s dreamt of sitting on Johnny Depp’s fa… er, never mind. Do what? What’s all this about? Fill your own mini donuts? At 18-quid a pop you’d think they would have done that for you! Luckily though, our Midge is a dab…

THEN £50,000 NOW £11,000 It’s easy to knock American sports cars, when viewing them from a European perspective. There’s a general feeling that cars in the US aren’t designed for corners; that they sacrifice chassis poise and handling finesse for the quasi-solution of just shoving a massive V8 in there. For this reason, C4 Corvette owners allow themselves a wry smile, letting everyone believe their cars are rubbish before unexpectedly leaving the haters in their dust. You see, Corvettes are actually awesome. Ever since their inception in 1953, they’ve always been made of fibreglass or plastic composites, meaning they’re relatively light, and the C4 generation (1984-96) was genuinely excellent. It had all-independent suspension, huge brakes with aluminium calipers, and even featured a transverse fibreglass mono-leaf spring at the front in…

There are countless, awesome, modified Japanese cars in the UK. But no matter how well they’re done, no matter how hard people try, they’re never quite the same as how they would be done in Japan. It’s something that’s hard to put in to words, but you can always tell the difference between a car modified in Japan and one modified here. In fact you can even tell when cars that have been imported from Japan already highly modified have been further modified once in the UK. The cars just never seem quite the same, almost not quite ‘right’, ever again. If you want an explanation of why the Japanese can do it in a way nobody else truly can, you’re not going to get one, and nobody could give…

Caramics Complete Protection Kit PRICE: £139.35 www.autofinesse.co.uk Ceramic coatings are big business nowadays. In fact, over the past few years they’ve taken the detailing world by storm. Many professionals offer this premium service and, if you’re luckily enough to be in the market for a new motor, the dealer will be more than happy to charge you a fortune to have the paintwork sorted too. But what’s all the fuss about? The simple answer is that ceramics offer the ultimate in surface protection. Think of them as a super-advanced version of traditional waxes or sealants, with even more extreme durability, enhanced hydrophobic qualities and better UV protection. They’re not just for paint either, there are specialist products designed for glass, fabrics, leather and even specific kits for alloy wheels. Invented…

Gravity, July 2018. There’s a little Volkswagen on the Airtisan stand and its collecting stares from all over. Glittering in Audi Merlin Purple, dropped hard over OZ Futuras and boasting a deliciously extra boot build, complete with a pair of carbon fibre air tanks, this Lupo is fully lit. Add in the Polo G60 front brakes, Mk5 Golf GTI front seats and a Rockford 12-inch subwoofer and it’s obvious the owner takes every element of his miniature GTI seriously. This is one thought-through build, the product of four years’ graft by owner Patrick Roddy and his friend, Airtisan founder Ryan Castleman. Pat’s Lupo love goes back even further, thanks to the standard 2001 1.0E he bought as his first car. It didn’t stay standard long. He had plans. Taking inspiration…

There aren’t enough car shows with hilarious names. Imagine how much more entertaining it would be if you were cruising in your freshly buffed pride-and-joy down to an event called Yoohoo Darling, or Wassuuuup, or Hey You There Behind The Bushes. There’s Straight Outta Kempton, of course, which is pretty clever… but if you want a really comical show name (and something in your brain makes you hesitant to go for the questionably-titled Raceism in Poland) then you need to turn to the Netherlands – and, specifically, Ahoy Tuning. Things get slightly less hilarious when you realise that Ahoy is actually the name of the convention centre where the event is held, but your sensibilities will be suitably mollified by the staggering array of cars on display at 100% Auto…

Sometimes when we talk to feature car owners, there’s one key phrase that really sticks in the mind, serving to characterise the whole thinking behind the project. When speaking to Max Marshall, director of MMR Performance, about the company’s rather aggressive BMW 1M project demonstrator, such a phrase presents itself: “We’re just about to fit the 16th set of rear tyres in 20,000 miles.” Any suspicion that this is a trailer queen which gets wheeled about to events to show off its shiny parts is blown out of the water by that one simple sentence. This thing gets used, and used hard. The fact that MMR chose a 1M as a base is interesting in itself, as this niche M-car is an obscure little thing. You see, back when the…

Nope. We’re not going to offer you half the trade price for your car, like those websites. Instead we want to give you the chance to be featured in the best modified car mag on the planet! So, if you own a cool-as-a-cucumber car you think is worthy of Fast Car, we’d love to see it. Please send a selection of good quality images and a spec to jules.truss@kelseymedia.co.uk, with ‘Feature Car’ as the subject. If we like it, we’ll get back to you to arrange a photoshoot. Simples.…

MICHAEL TINSLEY’S MK4 GOLF GT TDI FC says: If there’s one thing you can rely on with a modified VW owner, it’s that their car is likely to be super clean and suave, with every fine detail carried out with nothing but precision and perfect execution. Michael’s Mk4 GT TDI Anniversary model here is no exception to this rule. Built to celebrate 25 years of the GTI and as a send-off for the much-loved Mk4 platform, this fiery diesel has been sumptuously upgraded with a strict ‘OEM+’ theme in mind throughout. Now dropped on a custom air suspension system onto some tasty BBS rims that offer up millimetre-perfect levels of stance, Michael’s added to the exterior upgrades with US-spec bumpers, stubby Lupo mirrors and even a full re-spray in…

Petrolheads rejoice: we’ve got a new hangout, and it rocks. Caffeine & Machine sits just outside Ettington, Warwickshire, and it offers something unique in the field of our favourite activity (which is standing about and looking at cars) – imagine a sort of upmarket Ace Cafe, crossed with a Mayfair private members’ club, set in a woodland surrounding, with the beguiling aromas of coffee and sausages wafting about the place. Pretty inviting, right? The brainchild of a chap named Phil McGovern, Caffeine & Machine is a café, a pub, a guest house, but most of all a place where you can guarantee that whenever you drop in for a brew, whatever time of year, there will always be a selection of cool cars scattered about the place for you to…

Since January 2018’s issue hit the shelves, we’ve featured 94 cars – all of which were awesome! But which one was the most awesome? Well, that’s a matter of opinion and although our Slim Jules sees himself as the Simon Cowell of the car world, the only fair way to crown the best build of 2018 is to let you, the public, decide. We’ve whittled the 94 contenders down to the top 35 – basically because we didn’t have enough room for everyone (we’re sorry if you’re one of the 59 who hasn’t made the cut. We still love you). It’s now down to you to choose the winner. Voting is open, but will close at midnight on 16 December – please don’t vote after this date as your vote…

You know that face a little kid pulls on Xmas morning? The one when they unwrap a new bike or something equally amazing. They go all red, start to shake... it’s so overwhelmingly exciting that it looks like they’re about to pop. Well, that’s exactly how I feel when I think about the Speciality Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show. You see, here at FC we love SEMA. And I’m talking literally – we really, REALLY LOVE it! I mean, why else would Jules and myself spend a fair chunk our own cash visiting one more event quite this close to Xmas? Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Yeah, bollocks, Midge. I bet the mag gives you a stack of bills to bugger off and get pissed-up in America.” To be…

As big single turbo RX-7s are so common, it’s easy to forget that the FD comes with a very clever twin sequential turbo setup from the factory. Rather than two different sized turbos, the FD runs two identical turbos and a set of solenoid-controlled valves. That means it runs off one turbo at lower rpm, bringing it on boost at very low rpm, gradually bringing in the second turbo as the rpm rises, giving great high rpm power. While often disposed of, as the solenoid control parts are complex and well known to go wrong with old age, the factory twin sequential turbo setup is capable of far more power than many might think. The current record using the standard twin turbos in full sequential mode is a quarter mile…

We’ve seen more than a few 8-pot calipers in our time, but never anything quite like this release from Italian brake maestros, Tarox. Launched along with their latest B360 caliper, these B34 GT units here, have a unique directional configuration designed to completely eliminate pad taper wear by equalising pressure across the entire back plate. The science is in the piston arrangement. Take a peek inside and you’ll notice that, instead of being a mirror image, or all the same size, like most aftermarket units. They actually get larger from one side to the other. This setup offers a significantly more balanced distribution of the clamping force when the rotor is turning at speed. Clever, eh? Anyway, this new design will be the basis for all new launches in the…

You don’t have to compromise on a superb car stereo system just because you have the fine taste to run a car with a traditional singleDIN radio slot. Thanks to Pioneer’s minimal, clean design philosophy you have the best of both function and form, without having to air-chisel a doubleDINsized hole in your dashboard. That said, even if you DO have a doubleDIN dash, you can still fit one of these – and fill the other slot with extra gauges or a phone slot! Here’s our quick rundown on what’s hot in the current Pioneer range – allowing all of the functionality of a modern doubleDIN within the convenience of a singleDIN chassis. As always, the smartphone now dominates and improves in-car life, so connectivity is key to entertainment, navigation,…

Although the aesthetics of your car are important, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that most of our time is spent sitting on the inside. And just like in the property industry, there’s an abundance of design specialists around the world that can take your interior to the next level. This is even more of interest today as manufacturers face a constant battle with conflicting government legislations. On one hand vehicles have to pass strict safety tests (a good thing, obviously). But on the other, they have to comply with equally tough emission laws. What has this got to do with the interiors of our cars? Safety devices are heavy, and weight is the enemy of emissions. The compromise? Lighter components and this means everything from the…

Has Kei Miura’s assault on the tuning world ended? Has his trademark overfender conversion reached an end? There’s no doubting the fact that for every car he pens a kit for, he’s subjected to as much love as he is hate. A wise man once said, ‘You can please some people some of the time, but you can’t please all the people all of the time’. Yes, ladies and gentleman, the opinionated car public needs to stop getting upset at anything that remotely tackles their assumed tastes and just go with the flow. What could possibly be wrong with taking an ageing car, cleaning it up and pumping its appearance into something like this, Miura’s own EG Civic. His Civic kit has been around for over a year now. We…

If you saw last month’s Fast Projects entry, you would have seen that I finally got around to changing the standard DRC suspension system for some KW Automotive V1s. Well I’m proud to report they are now fully bedded in and the car is handling like a dream. However, like any sensible person, I thought I had best get the wheel alignment checked out, too. There are plenty of wheel alignment places about in Bristol, but not many that offer four-wheel alignment. Luckily for me though, Bristol Wheel Alignment is just round the corner from Glenda Towers and, better still, they offer state of the art 3D four-wheel alignment on their rather clever Hunter wheel alignment system. To be honest, I didn’t think the alignment would need any major changes,…

Every now and then a car comes along that is so ferocious and so fierce that you simply can’t ignore it. A few seconds of wide-open-throttle application via the power of social media and a decent set of speakers, and you’re in deep – hook, line and sinker into the build and its ancestry. What is it? Why is it making that much noise? How is it firing sparks from the tarmac from what appears to be - well, on the surface at least, a 1990 E36 BMW 320i? As those sparks fly from the undercarriage and the aero cannards lock it onto the tarmac, hairs stand up on the back of your neck and you watch the video again and again, each time turning the volume up just that…