A newbie who can't settle on a car...
Discussion
Ello. Firstly, I'm 19 and I live in Australia. Half pom half Singaporean (I know right?) and do plan on going to the UK end of 2012 for a year or two simply to holiday/work/visit family and bring back a car with me at the end of it.
Secondly, cars are a rip off in Aus compared to the UK
This being the main reason for the trip... plus I feel old and want to do something with my life after uni :P . Am currently in my second year, second semester of a 3 year course studying marketing and advertising.
ANYWAY, back to cars
. I've had a fair few of them... 18 to be precise.. I will list each and every one though it may take me some time...
Firstly:
You obtain your learners permit at 16 here in Aus, meaning I pushed my parents into getting me a first car by the age of 12... only for them to actually do it 2 months before I turned 16..
I was scouting eBay and the likes for a first car, budget was under A$2k.
One day, I spied this absolutely beautiful, floral-seat-covered, fading maroon 1988 Audi 80 automatic on eBay. It had a mere 172k kms on it. Bidding was started at A$800 and a buy it now of $2000. I had to have a look.... Showed mum and dad, they were super reluctant but after some heavy pleading, begging, never-shutting-up-about-it, they agreed to take me to look at it.
Great! Where was it? Far south, about a 1.5hr drive. Dad wasn't too pleased...
Initial eBay advert pic:
We got there on a typical bright, sunny, warm Perth day. There it was, I was sold on first sight! It was owned by an old couple and was a retired spare car. Brilliant.
After organising a quick test drive, we were off! It drove great, changed smoothly, handled fine (according to my dad of course). It needed a few little things sorting but none of which was mechanical or major. No rust!
Dad pulled over, popped the bonnet to have a look at the heart. Not 20 seconds later, a bloke in a 4wd passes us and stops, reverses and jumps out. He proceeded to ask us if we required any help! Funny at the time, but this is why Perth is great .
Back to the seller's house, discussion ensued. I remember jumping back in our car, eagerly waiting the results...
Finally after what seemed like FOREVER, dad returned saying a deal couldn't be struck due to price... I was gutted!
Then he told me we pick it up tomorrow.
-insert childish screams of joy here-
Pics of it the first day home:
I was opening the car, sitting in it, locking it, going back into the house and repeating this all day for a while... Meanwhile, dad had sourced a wrecked one for $500 to replace parts. As such, the AC was now ice cold, zero leaks, basically everything worked.
Clean Audi:
Finally I was 16, I got to drive it! (With dad alongside).
HOWEVER, for some reason, I fell out of love with it. It just didn't do anything for me anymore. I know it was a gift from my folks and I did feel bad, but they agreed to help sell it.
Two weeks later, it was sold for $2500.
At this point, I began saving big time whilst at high school, aiming for something more modern, something cooler than a pinky audi 80...
Finally, I began to start the hunt for car number 2. (Still on learner plates!)
This time, I found a 1994 Nissan Skyline R33 GTS auto. (Non turbo, might've made 130-140BHP).
Obviously, dad intervened and said NO to any form of sports car (fair enough).
....so I put on the pleading voice.. "Its non-turbo, insurance is cheap! Its slow, automatic. It'll be my project car!"
Agreeing to have a LOOK-ONLY, we called up, arranged a viewing and went!
Upon arrival, it appeared to be in a pretty sorry state, but the mechanicals seemed good. It looked like someone had attempted to go through a gap too small and well, the result was a big dent between the door and fender, cracked headlight, broken grill and a definitely-not-straight front bumper... Paint was also faded on the rear right quarter, roof and boot. Bonnet alignment was perfect-ly out. Tyres knackered. Again though, no rust. This time, 200k kms and unsure if timing belt had been changed.
The vendor said the reason for sale was to advance his painting apprenticeship. It was up at A$4900, outside of my budget. (At this point I had $4500 total.)
Dad took another quick test drive and was amazed at how slow it was but was equally amazed at the handling and brakes compared to the audi previously.
After a quick discussion, dad agreed to help fund me but up to $1000 only including transfer fees and insurance (third party).
Got it home for $4300 - pics below
To my great benefit, my dad had a mate who owned a panel shop. So for a mere $500, the roof, rear quarter, driver's door and wing were all repaired and resprayed!
I also managed to score a driver's headlight for $60 and a set of "used" (they looked spankers) Goodyear ventura tyres for $200. They were a trade in on standard wheels for an upgrade so they went cheap!
For my 16th birthday present, I was given a custom plate of choice!
TEN FOUR stemmed from watching an episode of Murphy's Law where there was a red Ferrari 360 Modena on display.. I thought it was cool as it meant "roger that" or "affirmative" in radio chatter, so that stuck!
^If you look close in the last pic, you can see the rear quarter and the door have a crease. It was barely noticeable in person and I wasn't really ever bothered by it that much so it didn't get fixed.
Now, after a while, the bent front bumper really started getting to me. I joined up on the local forum and found someone selling a cracked fibreglass front bumper. Grabbed this for $80. It was cracked in 3 places but was no match for dad's panel beater mate! I also managed to grab another grill someone was THROWING OUT in perfect condition.
At this point, I got into music... bad.. Managed to get a top of the range Alpine sub in its own ported box coupled with a V12 amplifier for $400 (essentially new) and installed them along with dads pioneer deck he removed from his 300E Merc due to sale.
Updated pics:
Funnily enough, I have a recorded video of me and dad driving to this place, not really worth uploading though..
I do look back now and ponder, what was I thinking!? That front bumper doesn't really belong there...
One day I was sitting at the lights next to a toyota hilux. It was a dual entry onto a highway (100kmh speed limit). Dad in passenger seat, I asked if I could floor it, he said fine but only to the speed limit. Not only did I do that, but the hilux beat me there...
Thats the end of that, chucked it up for sale at a super optimistic 9k, within 2 weeks I got a call. The car was to be a present from mum to son for making university. I got lucky here cause it had to be auto so mum could drive, but non turbo as it was also a first car.. Sold it for $8500
Typing that was longer than expected but reading seems so short.. Still, if you made it through, well done, for I only just passed English in my final year exams :P
If there is still interest, I'll write up the following cars in days to come.
James out!
Secondly, cars are a rip off in Aus compared to the UK
This being the main reason for the trip... plus I feel old and want to do something with my life after uni :P . Am currently in my second year, second semester of a 3 year course studying marketing and advertising.ANYWAY, back to cars
. I've had a fair few of them... 18 to be precise.. I will list each and every one though it may take me some time...Firstly:
You obtain your learners permit at 16 here in Aus, meaning I pushed my parents into getting me a first car by the age of 12... only for them to actually do it 2 months before I turned 16..
I was scouting eBay and the likes for a first car, budget was under A$2k.
One day, I spied this absolutely beautiful, floral-seat-covered, fading maroon 1988 Audi 80 automatic on eBay. It had a mere 172k kms on it. Bidding was started at A$800 and a buy it now of $2000. I had to have a look.... Showed mum and dad, they were super reluctant but after some heavy pleading, begging, never-shutting-up-about-it, they agreed to take me to look at it.
Great! Where was it? Far south, about a 1.5hr drive. Dad wasn't too pleased...
Initial eBay advert pic:
We got there on a typical bright, sunny, warm Perth day. There it was, I was sold on first sight! It was owned by an old couple and was a retired spare car. Brilliant.
After organising a quick test drive, we were off! It drove great, changed smoothly, handled fine (according to my dad of course). It needed a few little things sorting but none of which was mechanical or major. No rust!
Dad pulled over, popped the bonnet to have a look at the heart. Not 20 seconds later, a bloke in a 4wd passes us and stops, reverses and jumps out. He proceeded to ask us if we required any help! Funny at the time, but this is why Perth is great
.Back to the seller's house, discussion ensued. I remember jumping back in our car, eagerly waiting the results...
Finally after what seemed like FOREVER, dad returned saying a deal couldn't be struck due to price... I was gutted!
Then he told me we pick it up tomorrow.
-insert childish screams of joy here-
Pics of it the first day home:
I was opening the car, sitting in it, locking it, going back into the house and repeating this all day for a while... Meanwhile, dad had sourced a wrecked one for $500 to replace parts. As such, the AC was now ice cold, zero leaks, basically everything worked.
Clean Audi:
Finally I was 16, I got to drive it! (With dad alongside).
HOWEVER, for some reason, I fell out of love with it. It just didn't do anything for me anymore. I know it was a gift from my folks and I did feel bad, but they agreed to help sell it.
Two weeks later, it was sold for $2500.
At this point, I began saving big time whilst at high school, aiming for something more modern, something cooler than a pinky audi 80...
Finally, I began to start the hunt for car number 2. (Still on learner plates!)
This time, I found a 1994 Nissan Skyline R33 GTS auto. (Non turbo, might've made 130-140BHP).
Obviously, dad intervened and said NO to any form of sports car (fair enough).
....so I put on the pleading voice.. "Its non-turbo, insurance is cheap! Its slow, automatic. It'll be my project car!"
Agreeing to have a LOOK-ONLY, we called up, arranged a viewing and went!
Upon arrival, it appeared to be in a pretty sorry state, but the mechanicals seemed good. It looked like someone had attempted to go through a gap too small and well, the result was a big dent between the door and fender, cracked headlight, broken grill and a definitely-not-straight front bumper... Paint was also faded on the rear right quarter, roof and boot. Bonnet alignment was perfect-ly out. Tyres knackered. Again though, no rust. This time, 200k kms and unsure if timing belt had been changed.
The vendor said the reason for sale was to advance his painting apprenticeship. It was up at A$4900, outside of my budget. (At this point I had $4500 total.)
Dad took another quick test drive and was amazed at how slow it was but was equally amazed at the handling and brakes compared to the audi previously.
After a quick discussion, dad agreed to help fund me but up to $1000 only including transfer fees and insurance (third party).
Got it home for $4300 - pics below
To my great benefit, my dad had a mate who owned a panel shop. So for a mere $500, the roof, rear quarter, driver's door and wing were all repaired and resprayed!
I also managed to score a driver's headlight for $60 and a set of "used" (they looked spankers) Goodyear ventura tyres for $200. They were a trade in on standard wheels for an upgrade so they went cheap!
For my 16th birthday present, I was given a custom plate of choice!
TEN FOUR stemmed from watching an episode of Murphy's Law where there was a red Ferrari 360 Modena on display.. I thought it was cool as it meant "roger that" or "affirmative" in radio chatter, so that stuck!
^If you look close in the last pic, you can see the rear quarter and the door have a crease. It was barely noticeable in person and I wasn't really ever bothered by it that much so it didn't get fixed.
Now, after a while, the bent front bumper really started getting to me. I joined up on the local forum and found someone selling a cracked fibreglass front bumper. Grabbed this for $80. It was cracked in 3 places but was no match for dad's panel beater mate! I also managed to grab another grill someone was THROWING OUT in perfect condition.
At this point, I got into music... bad.. Managed to get a top of the range Alpine sub in its own ported box coupled with a V12 amplifier for $400 (essentially new) and installed them along with dads pioneer deck he removed from his 300E Merc due to sale.
Updated pics:
Funnily enough, I have a recorded video of me and dad driving to this place, not really worth uploading though..
I do look back now and ponder, what was I thinking!? That front bumper doesn't really belong there...
One day I was sitting at the lights next to a toyota hilux. It was a dual entry onto a highway (100kmh speed limit). Dad in passenger seat, I asked if I could floor it, he said fine but only to the speed limit. Not only did I do that, but the hilux beat me there...
Thats the end of that, chucked it up for sale at a super optimistic 9k, within 2 weeks I got a call. The car was to be a present from mum to son for making university. I got lucky here cause it had to be auto so mum could drive, but non turbo as it was also a first car.. Sold it for $8500
Typing that was longer than expected but reading seems so short.. Still, if you made it through, well done, for I only just passed English in my final year exams :P
If there is still interest, I'll write up the following cars in days to come.
James out!
Edited by Ten Four on Thursday 29th September 15:51
carreauchompeur said:
I like it!
Nice to hear of someone buying "Fixer-uppers" and doing them up to progress to the next one rather than a spoilt brat caning their new Corsa VXR that mummy bought him!
Haha cheers. I love doing up neglected cars for some reason..Nice to hear of someone buying "Fixer-uppers" and doing them up to progress to the next one rather than a spoilt brat caning their new Corsa VXR that mummy bought him!
After selling the skyline and paying dad back for what I owed (bar the 1800 received for the Audi), I was left with around 6k. The hunt for car number 3 began...
I should mention that I've done a fair bit of go-karting and my best lap with controlled cars was approx 0.6secs off a top 10 of all time list which included some professional racers
. I haven't been for a while now though due to the costs involved Anyway, I found a potential car on the car forum I was on. However, this particular car was advertised in the national section, rather than the West Australian part. This was great for me... The ad was without pictures, advertised as not having started for over a year but was cheap, very cheap and ultimately I got dad to bring me out to have a look at it.
It was a 1989 Nissan Skyline R32 GTS4 auto, basically a single turbo 2L straight six with the GTR 4WD system. From memory and what it felt, I'd have said 200-220BHP but it was a bit of a slug due to weighing in at around 1450kg and an autobox. Advertised at $2300, it was an absolute steal!
When we got there, the owner (female!) explained to us that she bought it in the eastern states, freshly imported as a fun car for herself but then had to move over to WA for her job, so she brought it with her but forgot about it after a while and sat at a friend's place out in the desert... Now that she had some time and was about to go on holiday, she wanted it gone.
The car wasn't registered and was un-roadworthy (would've failed a MOT miserably) but complete and fired first go after being jumped with god-knows-how-old fuel, oil etc.
Conditon wise, there was a fair bit of rust (to me) in the petrol filler cap and some minor signs under and in the sills, arches and windows. The passenger door and front bumper were together a different shade of white but the rest of it was really tidy. It was showing 127k kms which based on the interior, and general condition outside, I did believe.
However, she had already received an offer of 2500 which was more than asking price, so basically I said I'd match it and take it off her hands the next day.
Deal done! After organising a temporary movement permit, with barely ANY brakes (pedal to the floor to stop and hold it..), it was home!
The drain pipe actually was extremely silent and could barely be heard, comparable to stock sound levels.
Straight away, I wanted it on the road so I could drive it. (..As you do)
Gave it a full service, all oils etc. The brakes were the biggest issue here, new pads, skimmed rotors, new fluid.. made absolutely zero difference to the brake pedal. (Bled properly).
After hours of head scratching, we tried another brake master cylinder and hey presto, that worked! Bewildered as to why this was the case, the old one was dismantled for examination.... to find the piston was from a different car and far, far too big! After sorting numerous other little things, it was time to go over the pits (similar to MOT).
It failed and came back with: front right strut leaking, engine number dirty - unable to be read (come on..!) and window tint on the rear and rear quarter windows being too dark.
Now because it was an old car, finding replacement suspension would've been difficult in standard form. A local importer/wrecker had a set not in great condition, but absolutely roadworthy. These however were unoriginal and branded bilstein! THEY WERE SOLID!! Zero give which made for an... interesting ride.. Got these for $400, height but not damper adjustable.
Popped these on and returned to the pits. The inspector was about to say it was too hard and thus unsafe for road use when the previous inspector walked up, remembering us from last time. He had a quick look, said we were fine and let us pass!
Now I wanted to tart it up. I had about 2.5k leftover after spending money fixing stuff and buying the car. This meant wheels!
Faithfully returning to eBay, like a fat dog to the kitchen, I found these 2nd hand Racing Hart CP-F wheels. Apparently forged in manufacture and extremely rare and lightweight, I had to have them.. After some googling, I discovered that they once cost someone $4000!!
So, $1300 later, they were delivered to my door!
The front tyres were Falkens with good tread, the rears however, weren't legal so I replaced them with some matching falkens - 265/35/18. (Fronts 235/35/18)
The big orange corner indicators weren't doing it for me either, so I visited eBay again and found some clear ones. IMO these made the car look much better!
Updated pics:
I was happy with the car now for a good while. The only other additions were a Nismo strut brace and a turbosmart blow off valve. (Made a simple pshht noise, none of those high pitched or multiple noise nuisances.)
BOV is half installed in the picture.
During all this, I still was on learner plates but got to drive the car frequently with dad in passenger seat. After I passed my test (auto license, we didn't have a manual car), I still wasn't allowed on my own as you have to be 17 years old to drive on your own. Basically I was just waiting now. However, I fancied myself at a manual so I put this up for sale.
Again there was a quick response and despite the rust I pointed out, the first person to come view it bought it
I advertised it at 8500 or 7000 without the wheels. He bought it for 7000 and I kept my wheels which I then sold on for 1500 with good falkens all round. This was really regretful as I LOVED those wheels! Oh er, I loved the car too :-P . Again after paying dad back for misc things, I was left with about 8k to hunt for a manual car to learn on (hopefully something fun!)
Will update tomorrow, fairly tired and its really late here.
Edited by Ten Four on Tuesday 27th September 20:13
Haha well cars are overpriced here compared to the UK! Jap imports though are only a little more expensive than in the UK - probably due to them being imports and based on the Japanese YEN.
So time for car number 4. I loved driving the white R32 but the rust issue was getting to me and added to the fact that I was keen for a manual. This meant hunting around for a turbo manual R32 or R33 skyline... And I could find none within budget worth having
I then noticed a car auction place one day driving past with a big sign saying "AUCTION TONIGHT 6:30PM" so I thought hey, why not go in for a peep? Dad was keen. As you can probably tell, this became a bit of an activity for dad and I to do (he's semi-retired).
Upon entrance, we were greeted by a man cooking hot dogs, they were delicious! Anyway back to the cars on the lot.
This place was more for cheaper cars with 5k being the upper end of what sold. Perfect I thought.
Walking past many corollas, pulsars, falcons and the likes, I stumbled across this beauty...
(excuse the calculator-like quality pic)
In-case you don't know what it is, it is a 1995 Nissan Skyline R33 GTR V-Spec. I looked at and thought wow if only.. but realistically there was no chance of me getting it as at the time they were worth 20-30k depending on spec and condition.
I still examined it though.
It had a flat battery which prevented idiots starting it and reving it which was probably a good thing. The dash used to have something mounted as there were 8 holes in a square in the middle. There were a few scratches on the fascia and driver's door switch. It came with a logbook! (Extremely rare) This showed a timing belt change at 127k kms, great! Except the dash showed 77k kms... The front bumper needed a respray due to age and chips. The grill wanted a touch up too. Other than that though, the car was pretty tidy in and out and importantly, standard apart from twin air filters.
It sat there looking sorry and out of place amongst the other "bunkies" available for sale.
Anyway there was nothing much else that interested me in the auction but we waited to see what the GTR fetched.
It started at 22 no bids... 21 no bids.. eventually 18 and still no bids!
Finally just before they passed it, a dealer offered 15 and the auctioneer said no and on it went. I went home slightly depressed but knowing I just had to save more!
6 days passed, nothing.. I wanted something to drive!
I wanted that GTR to drive......
I pleaded with dad to lend me some dosh but the answer was a definite no, same from mum although I didn't really press harder as they were going through a "rough patch" and needed their funds.
I didn't know at the time, but my dad had been telling his dad about my car antics and was told of the GTR at the auction. He was more than happy to help out by lending funds. I should stress that he is back in Rotherham and at the time, I last visited him about 2 years ago. This being the case, added to the fact that he was 87, I was pretty hesitant about the whole thing... I spoke to grandad direct and he stressed that he was in a good financial position and could lend me the money no worries on the condition that I stopped supporting Man Utd. I told him it wasn't going to happen but he lent me the money anyway. After thanking him endlessly, £4000 was then sent to my dad (at the time worth about 6.5k AUD). However this could all be in vain as the budget was still extremely low for the GTR and it mightn't sell for the figure we had in mind.
The next day, dad and I headed back to the auction place. They employ 4 staff who can answer questions and submit offers pre or post auction for cars and we sort've knew one bloke (Rick) as dad had bought a car through him previously (98 VW Polo).
The auction started at 6:30pm, we got there for 6pm and immediately grabbed Rick (literally) and asked him if could work some magic for us pre-auction. He winced...
The wait for Rick to come back from his little cubicle they call an office, was unbearable.
Finally he returned. I asked, how'd it go?
He simply nodded.
The offer was 15k pre-auction and would expire if put through. Story was the seller was an ex-importer who went broke and was in Japan, absolutely needing to sell today.
I stood next to it, refusing to believe reality. I just bought a GTR without hearing it idle, drive etc!
This was a dream car of mine and to have it at 16 and 6 months was just unbelievable! Dad was ok with me buying it because a) it was standard and b) I had to have him in the passenger seat at all times until I was 17 and passed my manual drivers test, fill out a logbook of 25hours of driving time with him in the passenger seat and finally to do advanced driver training courses.
Two days later, armed with 15k in notes, we boarded the TRAIN to go get it. (Me being unable to drive a car on my own.. doh! + Mum was at work)
The train ride was AGONY! I was twitching and pulse racing the entire trip because of carrying such a vast amount of cash, as well as the thoughts racing through my head of owning a GTR!
Finally we jumped off and began the 5km walk to the auction house.
Upon arrival, my neck was quite sore as I was consistently twisting it to check that there were no followers...
There it was, sitting proud, already looking happier!
After payment was settled, Rick got out the in-house movable battery and started it.
Purring into life immediately, this was a dream come true. On the drive home, dad refused to hit the loud pedal. Still, that needn't have mattered as I would eventually get my turn!
First pics home!
The front right was immediately pumped up after the pics were taken and didn't lose air after.
I will say now that I owned this car for the longest period of time out of all my cars. Approximately 11 months! (Didn't quite get to a year haha)
The first time dad let me take it out was truly memorable. I had around 300BHP at my disposal! More-so, this was the car I learnt manual on! I stalled a couple of times but got the hang of it in an hour or so.
I also got to floor it from 2nd to 3rd at the end of my practice session. Inevitably, I fluffed it and missed 3rd..
The initial push backward into the seat was the biggest adrenalin rush of my life! We swapped seats and then went home, with a massive grin still plastered all over my face.
Finally, I was confident enough to take a stab at a manual driving test. However, we left planning too late and a fortunately, a phone call prevented me from taking my driving test in a GTR. I ended up passing first go in a Hyundai i30, having never driven one prior to an hour before the test!
Months went by, I was nearly 17. Nearly at the age I could drive it on my own without dad in my ear 24/7.
I booked in with the local skyline club, an advanced driver session involving instructors and an air strip with cones for a month after I turned 17. This ended up being a total blast and I learnt so many new things!
Being bored a couple days before I turned 17, I gave the car a good wash, got my number plates on it and bought a dash mat to hide those awful holes.
(Dads Mulsanne in the background, nice car but did 25L/100km.. insanity and was forever broken)
Finally 17! I went in the same day and attained my provisional license! Wohoo!
I think I did several hundred kms that day
I also attended my first cruise within the month. In hindsight that wasn't the greatest idea as it was also pouring with rain. Still, I got through it without incident and learnt that my tyres are absolutely shocking in the wet. (Branded "Triangles")
Quite a few months later, I was coming home with dad and we had an argument about something that I forget. This led to me going in way too quick into our narrow garage. This was the result.
I was devastated to say the least. Also for some reason, the first pic looks like there is rust in the arches but there wasn't any, the car was rust free.
I had about a grand saved up in the bank at this point, so off to the paint shop it went.
$700 later:
I met a great mate who still to this day, is one of my best friends, on that first skyline cruise. I met up with him one day and we went for a drive through some very challenging hills then stopped to take some pictures. By now, I was getting to know my car quite well and how it handled etc.
Another official skylines cruise came up, this time it was to go way out into the country, fine by me. This cruise is still my favourite to date. The roads used and lack of other humans is simply brilliant . A few pictures:
The last picture is my favourite, I have this blown up and framed on my bedroom wall
More time passed, my mate sold his car (the black R34 in the pics earlier) only to buy a rare limited edition spec of my car! Even more infuriating, was that his car probably had another 10hp on mine.. (both fairly standard)
I'd also saved up some money and purchased an exhaust for mine after everybody pressured me into doing so >_> . (No regrets though!)
and a picture of where godzilla lives..
Finally though, the time came to sell. I'd done about 11k kms in 10 months, 5 of which had my dad in the passenger seat (learners still). Reason for sale was I'd come to the realisation that debt over cars wasn't a good thing, even though it was through a family member. I owed quite a sum at this stage and wanted out, even if it meant selling up my prized possession. This was so difficult to do. When I eventually put the ad up, took pictures and sat down, I won't lie, it was extremely depressing and I was near tears. Dad also supported this decision. I forgot to say, I did get one speeding ticket but a mere 70 in a 60 zone - a nuisance at most.
Pictures readied for sale:
^The sight I wake up to... (We moved house)
After about a month and a bit, it was sold for $23,500, of which 14 was mine and the rest paid back to grandad / dad.
I sold it to the best possible person. A young guy, singlet, chain, cap backwards and slurred speech. His boss was buying it for him as a present for looking after his house and family personally.. I had hope.
...until a week later when I got a phone call saying the car was dead. He'd blown the engine doing god-knows-what.
After the GTR, there was nothing really left for me in the skyline world. I ventured back euro! Stay tuned.. This post took me roughly 3 hours :O !
So time for car number 4. I loved driving the white R32 but the rust issue was getting to me and added to the fact that I was keen for a manual. This meant hunting around for a turbo manual R32 or R33 skyline... And I could find none within budget worth having
I then noticed a car auction place one day driving past with a big sign saying "AUCTION TONIGHT 6:30PM" so I thought hey, why not go in for a peep? Dad was keen. As you can probably tell, this became a bit of an activity for dad and I to do (he's semi-retired).
Upon entrance, we were greeted by a man cooking hot dogs, they were delicious! Anyway back to the cars on the lot.
This place was more for cheaper cars with 5k being the upper end of what sold. Perfect I thought.
Walking past many corollas, pulsars, falcons and the likes, I stumbled across this beauty...
(excuse the calculator-like quality pic)
In-case you don't know what it is, it is a 1995 Nissan Skyline R33 GTR V-Spec. I looked at and thought wow if only.. but realistically there was no chance of me getting it as at the time they were worth 20-30k depending on spec and condition.
I still examined it though.
It had a flat battery which prevented idiots starting it and reving it which was probably a good thing. The dash used to have something mounted as there were 8 holes in a square in the middle. There were a few scratches on the fascia and driver's door switch. It came with a logbook! (Extremely rare) This showed a timing belt change at 127k kms, great! Except the dash showed 77k kms... The front bumper needed a respray due to age and chips. The grill wanted a touch up too. Other than that though, the car was pretty tidy in and out and importantly, standard apart from twin air filters.
It sat there looking sorry and out of place amongst the other "bunkies" available for sale.
Anyway there was nothing much else that interested me in the auction but we waited to see what the GTR fetched.
It started at 22 no bids... 21 no bids.. eventually 18 and still no bids!
Finally just before they passed it, a dealer offered 15 and the auctioneer said no and on it went. I went home slightly depressed but knowing I just had to save more!
6 days passed, nothing.. I wanted something to drive!
I wanted that GTR to drive......
I pleaded with dad to lend me some dosh but the answer was a definite no, same from mum although I didn't really press harder as they were going through a "rough patch" and needed their funds.
I didn't know at the time, but my dad had been telling his dad about my car antics and was told of the GTR at the auction. He was more than happy to help out by lending funds. I should stress that he is back in Rotherham and at the time, I last visited him about 2 years ago. This being the case, added to the fact that he was 87, I was pretty hesitant about the whole thing... I spoke to grandad direct and he stressed that he was in a good financial position and could lend me the money no worries on the condition that I stopped supporting Man Utd. I told him it wasn't going to happen but he lent me the money anyway. After thanking him endlessly, £4000 was then sent to my dad (at the time worth about 6.5k AUD). However this could all be in vain as the budget was still extremely low for the GTR and it mightn't sell for the figure we had in mind.
The next day, dad and I headed back to the auction place. They employ 4 staff who can answer questions and submit offers pre or post auction for cars and we sort've knew one bloke (Rick) as dad had bought a car through him previously (98 VW Polo).
The auction started at 6:30pm, we got there for 6pm and immediately grabbed Rick (literally) and asked him if could work some magic for us pre-auction. He winced...
The wait for Rick to come back from his little cubicle they call an office, was unbearable.
Finally he returned. I asked, how'd it go?
He simply nodded.
The offer was 15k pre-auction and would expire if put through. Story was the seller was an ex-importer who went broke and was in Japan, absolutely needing to sell today.
I stood next to it, refusing to believe reality. I just bought a GTR without hearing it idle, drive etc!
This was a dream car of mine and to have it at 16 and 6 months was just unbelievable! Dad was ok with me buying it because a) it was standard and b) I had to have him in the passenger seat at all times until I was 17 and passed my manual drivers test, fill out a logbook of 25hours of driving time with him in the passenger seat and finally to do advanced driver training courses.
Two days later, armed with 15k in notes, we boarded the TRAIN to go get it. (Me being unable to drive a car on my own.. doh! + Mum was at work)
The train ride was AGONY! I was twitching and pulse racing the entire trip because of carrying such a vast amount of cash, as well as the thoughts racing through my head of owning a GTR!
Finally we jumped off and began the 5km walk to the auction house.
Upon arrival, my neck was quite sore as I was consistently twisting it to check that there were no followers...
There it was, sitting proud, already looking happier!
After payment was settled, Rick got out the in-house movable battery and started it.
Purring into life immediately, this was a dream come true. On the drive home, dad refused to hit the loud pedal. Still, that needn't have mattered as I would eventually get my turn!
First pics home!
The front right was immediately pumped up after the pics were taken and didn't lose air after.
I will say now that I owned this car for the longest period of time out of all my cars. Approximately 11 months! (Didn't quite get to a year haha)
The first time dad let me take it out was truly memorable. I had around 300BHP at my disposal! More-so, this was the car I learnt manual on! I stalled a couple of times but got the hang of it in an hour or so.
I also got to floor it from 2nd to 3rd at the end of my practice session. Inevitably, I fluffed it and missed 3rd..
The initial push backward into the seat was the biggest adrenalin rush of my life! We swapped seats and then went home, with a massive grin still plastered all over my face.
Finally, I was confident enough to take a stab at a manual driving test. However, we left planning too late and a fortunately, a phone call prevented me from taking my driving test in a GTR. I ended up passing first go in a Hyundai i30, having never driven one prior to an hour before the test!
Months went by, I was nearly 17. Nearly at the age I could drive it on my own without dad in my ear 24/7.
I booked in with the local skyline club, an advanced driver session involving instructors and an air strip with cones for a month after I turned 17. This ended up being a total blast and I learnt so many new things!
Being bored a couple days before I turned 17, I gave the car a good wash, got my number plates on it and bought a dash mat to hide those awful holes.
(Dads Mulsanne in the background, nice car but did 25L/100km.. insanity and was forever broken)
Finally 17! I went in the same day and attained my provisional license! Wohoo!
I think I did several hundred kms that day
I also attended my first cruise within the month. In hindsight that wasn't the greatest idea as it was also pouring with rain. Still, I got through it without incident and learnt that my tyres are absolutely shocking in the wet. (Branded "Triangles")
Quite a few months later, I was coming home with dad and we had an argument about something that I forget. This led to me going in way too quick into our narrow garage. This was the result.
I was devastated to say the least. Also for some reason, the first pic looks like there is rust in the arches but there wasn't any, the car was rust free.
I had about a grand saved up in the bank at this point, so off to the paint shop it went.
$700 later:
I met a great mate who still to this day, is one of my best friends, on that first skyline cruise. I met up with him one day and we went for a drive through some very challenging hills then stopped to take some pictures. By now, I was getting to know my car quite well and how it handled etc.
Another official skylines cruise came up, this time it was to go way out into the country, fine by me. This cruise is still my favourite to date. The roads used and lack of other humans is simply brilliant
. A few pictures:The last picture is my favourite, I have this blown up and framed on my bedroom wall
More time passed, my mate sold his car (the black R34 in the pics earlier) only to buy a rare limited edition spec of my car! Even more infuriating, was that his car probably had another 10hp on mine.. (both fairly standard)
I'd also saved up some money and purchased an exhaust for mine after everybody pressured me into doing so >_> . (No regrets though!)
and a picture of where godzilla lives..
Finally though, the time came to sell. I'd done about 11k kms in 10 months, 5 of which had my dad in the passenger seat (learners still). Reason for sale was I'd come to the realisation that debt over cars wasn't a good thing, even though it was through a family member. I owed quite a sum at this stage and wanted out, even if it meant selling up my prized possession. This was so difficult to do. When I eventually put the ad up, took pictures and sat down, I won't lie, it was extremely depressing and I was near tears. Dad also supported this decision. I forgot to say, I did get one speeding ticket but a mere 70 in a 60 zone - a nuisance at most.
Pictures readied for sale:
^The sight I wake up to... (We moved house)
After about a month and a bit, it was sold for $23,500, of which 14 was mine and the rest paid back to grandad / dad.
I sold it to the best possible person. A young guy, singlet, chain, cap backwards and slurred speech. His boss was buying it for him as a present for looking after his house and family personally.. I had hope.
...until a week later when I got a phone call saying the car was dead. He'd blown the engine doing god-knows-what.
After the GTR, there was nothing really left for me in the skyline world. I ventured back euro! Stay tuned.. This post took me roughly 3 hours :O !
Edited by Ten Four on Wednesday 28th September 14:48
The power sure was addictive
Ok, car number 5.
At this point in time, currently, there were 2 BMWs in the family. 4 Total including the 2 we'd sold previously. All 5 series, 3 E39s. I liked them, super comfy yet not too much of a boat. Pricing though varied greatly. I've browsed what they cost in the PH classifieds and its just ridiculous compared to here.
I do a fair few kms so I set out looking for the ultimate cruiser. There was just something about BMWs that I loved.
Also, it simply had to have a V8 so that left me with 535i or 540i. (M5 are about 50k AUD). The budget was set at 12k (this price range meant something that needed some work).
I began browsing the classifieds.. Nothing really of interest. I set a notification alert for any new ones that popped up.
Sure enough, a week after I began looking, this black 540i popped up with 120kms. Price was 15.8k, bargain. (These should have been nearer 20).
It was listed on Saturday night so I was there looking on Sunday morning . It was a beauty! Black on black with the essentials already done! Just get in and drive.
Annoyingly, I had to wait there as someone else was already test driving it!
The seller told us the bloke was interested and had to make a few calls.
Damn, this was too quick!
It had the following extras:
Genuine E39 M5 wheels
K&N Pod Filter
Carbon Grill
Carbon boot lip
Update headlights and tail lights
Full Alpine sound system
Remus Exhaust
ACS Pedals
The only downsides to the 540 was the wheels were fairly curbed (apparently the wife's fault). It was a regretful sale as he had bought an X5 to accommodate the family.
Basically, when I saw it, I was simply in awe. Dad had to drive it cause I just stood there motionless. (Weird coming from a GTR right?)
After a quick drive, we discussed price..
At $15,300 she was mine (with big help from dad, explained at the end).
I actually still had the GTR at present as it had a hefty deposit on it and was just about to be collected.
Apologies for the picture quality.
Both black cars represented a totally different driving experience - the BMW much more sedate and civilised. (Read not slow! The BMW would have had 280+ BHP but was MUCH heavier.)
I then took the car to my favourite photo spot for a couple of quick snaps .
Next step was to get the wheels repaired. I had a contact who did work for the BMW main dealer and so I sent these to him. They came back absolutely mint! Cost was around $600 if I remember correctly.
There were mixed tyres on the rear (255/35/18) and this I did not like...
..so I booked in with my buddies from the skyline forum and took it to the advanced driver training place where you get to drive your car hard! That was great fun especially sideways but it did feel extremely heavy compared to the GTR. That said, it was 40 degrees, I was in full length clothes (regulations) and driving a black BMW with black leather.
I gave up before the car did!
Then ordered some new Hankook sport tyres (275/35/18) to fit those huge rear wheels! Unfortunately, these never made it on the car as I sold it before they went on (gave them with the car).
I sold it quick (had the car 3 weeks..) due to the deposit on the GTR falling through even though it was a hefty grand. There were buyers crawling all over it and even from the eastern states due to the rare colour combo, extras and low kms. I got $18500 for it only to have the next caller saying he'd have gladly paid 20! Doh! Made a nice couple grand off it. I loved the 540 but it had to go as it wasn't possible to have both cars! I've a mate who has spotted it around in the last year or so, still in the same condition but being driven by a middle aged woman, possibly the buyer's wife. (Please don't curb those wheels!!!)
Ok, car number 5.
At this point in time, currently, there were 2 BMWs in the family. 4 Total including the 2 we'd sold previously. All 5 series, 3 E39s. I liked them, super comfy yet not too much of a boat. Pricing though varied greatly. I've browsed what they cost in the PH classifieds and its just ridiculous compared to here.
I do a fair few kms so I set out looking for the ultimate cruiser. There was just something about BMWs that I loved.
Also, it simply had to have a V8 so that left me with 535i or 540i. (M5 are about 50k AUD). The budget was set at 12k (this price range meant something that needed some work).
I began browsing the classifieds.. Nothing really of interest. I set a notification alert for any new ones that popped up.
Sure enough, a week after I began looking, this black 540i popped up with 120kms. Price was 15.8k, bargain. (These should have been nearer 20).
It was listed on Saturday night so I was there looking on Sunday morning
. It was a beauty! Black on black with the essentials already done! Just get in and drive.Annoyingly, I had to wait there as someone else was already test driving it!
The seller told us the bloke was interested and had to make a few calls.
Damn, this was too quick!
It had the following extras:
Genuine E39 M5 wheels
K&N Pod Filter
Carbon Grill
Carbon boot lip
Update headlights and tail lights
Full Alpine sound system
Remus Exhaust
ACS Pedals
The only downsides to the 540 was the wheels were fairly curbed (apparently the wife's fault). It was a regretful sale as he had bought an X5 to accommodate the family.
Basically, when I saw it, I was simply in awe. Dad had to drive it cause I just stood there motionless. (Weird coming from a GTR right?)
After a quick drive, we discussed price..
At $15,300 she was mine (with big help from dad, explained at the end).
I actually still had the GTR at present as it had a hefty deposit on it and was just about to be collected.
Apologies for the picture quality.
Both black cars represented a totally different driving experience - the BMW much more sedate and civilised. (Read not slow! The BMW would have had 280+ BHP but was MUCH heavier.)
I then took the car to my favourite photo spot for a couple of quick snaps
.Next step was to get the wheels repaired. I had a contact who did work for the BMW main dealer and so I sent these to him. They came back absolutely mint! Cost was around $600 if I remember correctly.
There were mixed tyres on the rear (255/35/18) and this I did not like...
..so I booked in with my buddies from the skyline forum and took it to the advanced driver training place where you get to drive your car hard! That was great fun especially sideways but it did feel extremely heavy compared to the GTR. That said, it was 40 degrees, I was in full length clothes (regulations) and driving a black BMW with black leather.
I gave up before the car did!
Then ordered some new Hankook sport tyres (275/35/18) to fit those huge rear wheels! Unfortunately, these never made it on the car as I sold it before they went on (gave them with the car).
I sold it quick (had the car 3 weeks..) due to the deposit on the GTR falling through even though it was a hefty grand. There were buyers crawling all over it and even from the eastern states due to the rare colour combo, extras and low kms. I got $18500 for it only to have the next caller saying he'd have gladly paid 20! Doh! Made a nice couple grand off it. I loved the 540 but it had to go as it wasn't possible to have both cars! I've a mate who has spotted it around in the last year or so, still in the same condition but being driven by a middle aged woman, possibly the buyer's wife. (Please don't curb those wheels!!!)
Edited by Ten Four on Thursday 29th September 16:42
Cheers guys!
Ok, car number 6.
Now that I was starting uni, I needed a car that would get me there and back, reliably and economically. It also had to be something that wouldn't attract too much attention as there have been many brickings / cars broken into at uni.
I set a budget of 5k for a good daily - at this point the GTR had just left. However, I didn't want something boring like a camry as I was still feeling the need to drive something cool!
While browsing gumtree one day (directly after watching an old Top Gear episode - guess which!), I saw a Porsche 924. You can probably see where this is heading.... All previous plans were out the window.
It was a 1982 Porsche 924 manual with 150km, full log booked history at Perth's main Porsche dealer, also where it was sold. An engine rebuild had occurred at 120km costing 5.5k in 1998 (all receipts provided).
So I grabbed dad and went to go have a look. The vendor's driveway was distinctively memorable. We thought we had the wrong place upon arrival as there was what looked like a never ending forest behind the letterbox. The only way in was a tiny little gravel road.
Well, since the letterbox and road name said it was correct, we trundled on in. The road forked into 2 with no suggestion of which way to go (still covered by immense forest). Guessing, we went left and followed for a good 500-800m still thinking we were off on a wild goose chase. Finally, a lovely old, huge house came into view with a massive separate garage, enough to hold a fleet full of cars came into view.
The 924 sat outside, looking totally at home. Everything looked picture perfect, except for this young punk and his balding dad, threatening to ruin the lovely oasis.
We parked up, waltzed over to the 924. First impressions were great! It was spotless! No rust, no scratches, no dents; just a few stone chips inevitable from the long gravel driveway. An old bloke proceeded to greet us, wife not far behind. They'd had it for years and years and were 2nd owners. 1st owners were another family member. It was for sale now due to lack of use.
After a quick going over, my suspicions were correct. It was simply a peach! The only downside was cracking to the dash, covered by a picture of a German flag and dash mat. Oh and the poo brown interior...
After a quick test drive, well not really quick. After crawling all the way back to civilisation, a proper test drive ensued. Basically I just went through the gears and revs, watching the gauges. All was fine.
6500 was the advertised price, 5000 was the figure to have it home
Now I should stress, I bought it nearing summer but it was still cool, and I did buy it in the evening time so didn't really get a chance to test the A/C, which didn't work... Other than that, it was going perfect! Great balance but obviously lacking in power compared to my previous toys.
I loved the poise of it, the spongy, comfy yet somehow balanced suspension. I then hit up my mate with the limited edition GTR for a late night hoon through the hills.
He was in front and just couldn't leave me - possibly due to me having more balls than him but I put it down to the handling of the Porsche
So annoyed he was, we stopped afterward and he wanted to have a quick play for himself.
Here is all 6 foot 3, 105kg of him trying to fit in - seat was all the way back in the picture! Laughter ensued. (I'm only 5ft 8")
I found another photo location, far better than the previous one. Getting there also involved some challenging roads which didn't bother me! I only had a cheap digi-cam though (which doubled as a video recorder - I recorded the drive but wasn't going very fast so won't bother uploading as its about 40mins long).
One day, one headlight stopped popping up, the electric windows both failed and the wipers followed. This seemed odd as everything happened at once. I parked it up and went to sleep.
However the next day, a freak hailstorm hit 90% of the metro area - it missed us (hills) but did leave tonnes of sideways rain. I didn't drive it far that day in fear of damage. I did however make it to the local Burger King (without wipers!). Pleased to report that there were absolutely zero leaks. With the big sunroof and hatch, this was a pleasant surprise .
Next day after all the heavy rain, all the above problems fixed themselves... I left it at that!
By now though, summer was here and it was bloody hot! I'm talking 40+ degrees. After about 2 weeks of having full days at uni, returning to a Porsche without AC, that'd been sitting in the sun all day, I was pretty over it... I should note that my dad's mechanic specialises in high end luxury cars and was head mechanic of Perth's Lambo/Ferrari/Maserati etc dealer. He only left there to start his own place. Anyway, he said something about the 924's fuel injection system being rubbish and expensive to repair if it went wrong, added to the fact that although there was AC, it was never going to work. This news basically led me to put it for sale after about a month and a bit. It sold pretty quickly with me getting back exactly what I paid for it. Another old bloke and wife bought it. T'was a rather sad sight seeing it drive off but I knew for sure that it would be well kept and I also knew roughly where it would live. It would only be receiving occasional usage on those perfect days.
The hunt for #7 was on.
Ok, car number 6.
Now that I was starting uni, I needed a car that would get me there and back, reliably and economically. It also had to be something that wouldn't attract too much attention as there have been many brickings / cars broken into at uni.
I set a budget of 5k for a good daily - at this point the GTR had just left. However, I didn't want something boring like a camry as I was still feeling the need to drive something cool!
While browsing gumtree one day (directly after watching an old Top Gear episode - guess which!), I saw a Porsche 924. You can probably see where this is heading.... All previous plans were out the window.
It was a 1982 Porsche 924 manual with 150km, full log booked history at Perth's main Porsche dealer, also where it was sold. An engine rebuild had occurred at 120km costing 5.5k in 1998 (all receipts provided).
So I grabbed dad and went to go have a look. The vendor's driveway was distinctively memorable. We thought we had the wrong place upon arrival as there was what looked like a never ending forest behind the letterbox. The only way in was a tiny little gravel road.
Well, since the letterbox and road name said it was correct, we trundled on in. The road forked into 2 with no suggestion of which way to go (still covered by immense forest). Guessing, we went left and followed for a good 500-800m still thinking we were off on a wild goose chase. Finally, a lovely old, huge house came into view with a massive separate garage, enough to hold a fleet full of cars came into view.
The 924 sat outside, looking totally at home. Everything looked picture perfect, except for this young punk and his balding dad, threatening to ruin the lovely oasis.
We parked up, waltzed over to the 924. First impressions were great! It was spotless! No rust, no scratches, no dents; just a few stone chips inevitable from the long gravel driveway. An old bloke proceeded to greet us, wife not far behind. They'd had it for years and years and were 2nd owners. 1st owners were another family member. It was for sale now due to lack of use.
After a quick going over, my suspicions were correct. It was simply a peach! The only downside was cracking to the dash, covered by a picture of a German flag and dash mat. Oh and the poo brown interior...
After a quick test drive, well not really quick. After crawling all the way back to civilisation, a proper test drive ensued. Basically I just went through the gears and revs, watching the gauges. All was fine.
6500 was the advertised price, 5000 was the figure to have it home
Now I should stress, I bought it nearing summer but it was still cool, and I did buy it in the evening time so didn't really get a chance to test the A/C, which didn't work... Other than that, it was going perfect! Great balance but obviously lacking in power compared to my previous toys.
I loved the poise of it, the spongy, comfy yet somehow balanced suspension. I then hit up my mate with the limited edition GTR for a late night hoon through the hills.
He was in front and just couldn't leave me - possibly due to me having more balls than him but I put it down to the handling of the Porsche
So annoyed he was, we stopped afterward and he wanted to have a quick play for himself.
Here is all 6 foot 3, 105kg of him trying to fit in - seat was all the way back in the picture! Laughter ensued. (I'm only 5ft 8")
I found another photo location, far better than the previous one. Getting there also involved some challenging roads which didn't bother me! I only had a cheap digi-cam though (which doubled as a video recorder - I recorded the drive but wasn't going very fast so won't bother uploading as its about 40mins long).
One day, one headlight stopped popping up, the electric windows both failed and the wipers followed. This seemed odd as everything happened at once. I parked it up and went to sleep.
However the next day, a freak hailstorm hit 90% of the metro area - it missed us (hills) but did leave tonnes of sideways rain. I didn't drive it far that day in fear of damage. I did however make it to the local Burger King (without wipers!). Pleased to report that there were absolutely zero leaks. With the big sunroof and hatch, this was a pleasant surprise
.Next day after all the heavy rain, all the above problems fixed themselves... I left it at that!
By now though, summer was here and it was bloody hot! I'm talking 40+ degrees. After about 2 weeks of having full days at uni, returning to a Porsche without AC, that'd been sitting in the sun all day, I was pretty over it... I should note that my dad's mechanic specialises in high end luxury cars and was head mechanic of Perth's Lambo/Ferrari/Maserati etc dealer. He only left there to start his own place. Anyway, he said something about the 924's fuel injection system being rubbish and expensive to repair if it went wrong, added to the fact that although there was AC, it was never going to work. This news basically led me to put it for sale after about a month and a bit. It sold pretty quickly with me getting back exactly what I paid for it. Another old bloke and wife bought it. T'was a rather sad sight seeing it drive off but I knew for sure that it would be well kept and I also knew roughly where it would live. It would only be receiving occasional usage on those perfect days.
The hunt for #7 was on.
Edited by Ten Four on Thursday 29th September 15:44
Thanks for the responses!
At this point in time, my sister 15, was nearly turning the magical 16 and With my influence, I got my parents to buy her a first car - a 1992 Nissan Silvia S13 (auto, non turbo).
Basically because she couldn't drive it yet for a good few months, I used this as daily uni transport. I did however, spend money fixing up things on it, a new exhaust etc.
(Pink plates went on AFTER I was done with it haha)
This daily drive meant I could look for something fun, something exciting, something fast...
I was looking around at what was available and nothing really popped out until one day on the skyline forum (again) when I found an advertisement in the national section with one picture and a brief description.
It was for a 1989 Nissan Skyline R32 GTR - The original Godzilla.
However the price was 23.5kono and everything I had was 17.
Still, I PM'd the seller saying what a great car he had and that I wish I could buy it but was around 5k short. He replied saying to come down and have a look anyway. This suited me!
Original pic from advert:
Now before I went to look at it, the seller sent me a link of his build for the car. (The car had a rebuild as the original engine gave up the ghost when he bought it about 4 years ago.) This included pictures and looked expensive! Forged pistons, sump baffle, head-work, ceramic coated exhaust - the lot! He even had all bolts gold plated as that was his old man's specialty. It looked great in the pictures.
For the viewing, I brought a GTR savvy mate as I knew the basics but he knew specifics. The arrangement was to meet at the vendor's work which we did. He ran a business that equipped 4WDs for big mining companies. Brand new 80k+ Landcruisers sat there in rows and rows but parked far in the corner, was this GTR.
Firstly, I'd like to say, I despised the colour of wheels. Faded red meant pink, ugh! Anyway, I got my mate to start going over the car. I went in and found the owner. I then told him my story about only having 17k and that was why I didn't want to waste his time if he didn't want to accept it. I never really got a clear answer from this but by now we were outside the car.
My mate had given it the all clear apart from 2 spots of rust - 1 on the rear window on the drivers side (tiny), 1 spot in the boot rubber and a small dent on the left hand rear arch. No leaks of any kind.
Moving on, a test drive occurred. I wasn't even in the car for this. I just left it to my mate who sat in the passenger seat, owner driving.
After 5 minutes, they came back and I got the all clear from my mate so I proceeded to ask the owner some questions.
Turns out he bought the car in 2005 for 30k stock standard drove it for a while till the oil pump failed - resulting in the starvation of oil in the engine and thus failure. He then decided to rebuild and upgrade the entire car. This meant sending the engine off for a rebuild which was fine. However, he sent the engine over east to a known racing company to be rebuilt. The cost was 18,500!!! Next was the suspension, everything was upgraded to bilstein and whiteline - another 4 to 5k here. Loads more money was spent.
When it came down to it, he reckoned he'd spent 60k on the car in total.... here I was, offering less than the cost to build the engine...
When it came to price, he said it had to go. He had just been through a divorce and even proceeds from sale were split 50/50. I felt awful, wanting to run and hide in the corner. Reluctantly, he said if that's all I had, that's all he would get. The GTR was mine.
Pics after a wash:
The chassis had done 65k kms, engine 5k kms... Did I mention 400hp at the wheels??
Quickly, I booked in for another outing at the airstrip with the skyline forum. This was so far the best fun I'd had in my entire life!
(Cooling off)
Me being pretty happy with life!
I loved the car. By now I was getting used to the power levels (lol) and I was starting to dislike the exhaust that came with it (super quiet), plus the car came with a adjustable sway bar not installed which wouldn't currently fit as the current exhaust had huge mufflers to quieten it down. This was surely no good for flow!
So I got a new stainless drainpipe installed
This was pretty loud as it was straight through but the pickup and handling (after new swaybar was on) made the car feel totally reborn! Boost levels were increased a little from 20 to 22 psi (motor built to run 25 all day..). This being the case, I booked it in for a re-tune to compensate. Power was slightly increased though I requested boost be turned back down to 20 - more on this later.
Some pictures during a run through the hills.
^Fav pic of the night
Next step was to paint those awful coloured wheels. My mate painted them though not to the result I was after.. Still, the look was far, far improved.
After this, I spent 1500 on getting all rust removed properly with new metal welded in to get it looking perfect. I had many great memories in this car and is still probably my favourite out of the lot.
However, performing the above modifications left me with some debt (again).
I did some research into other people with similar modifications, especially turbos and found they were making loads more power than me. I should have been making about 480hp at the wheels at 20-22psi. I was worried especially as the motor was still fresh and cost a fortune to build.
This and debt led me to putting it on the market. I had one bloke interested and he sent it for inspection which took 4hours instead of 2. The result was the garage thought my engine was either piston slapping or being a normal clattery forged engine. He proceeded to offer me 15k (advertised at 25). I declined.
It couldn't have been piston slapping! It was making 400hp at the wheels, not 200! They were trying to be sneaky..
I then had very little interest for a month until one morning I had a call just before I was about to uni. The call lasted 2 hours and I missed my class! (Whoops). The call was from a DR. Ron Laura. (Website: http://dr-ronlaura.com/). He'd called from Sydney interested in my GTR. Reasons were the power output and the relatively fresh engine but most of all, the car looking standard from outside and under the bonnet. I had stock wheels on the car now too and had sold off the black ones to a mate.
Anyway, I got the phone call 10am Wednesday morning and I was picking up Mr Laura from Perth's domestic airport Thursday evening! At first glance, I thought he was a retired wrestler. He is a really, really nice bloke though!
Ron (as I was allowed to call him) loved the car. He had booked in a local hotel for a late arrival so I dropped him there.... where they forgot to leave the key out. Brilliant.
Luckily, we had a spare bedroom as my sister was at my mum's place so Ron spent the night there. He wanted to call the previous owner to find out more about the build and car history (fair enough). I gave him his number. Now funnily enough, the previous owner had actually heard of Dr. Ron through body-building circles and wanted to meet up to discuss training or something... and the car of course.
So, Friday morning at 8am, we met up, me included. They had a good chat and at around 11, we were off to the bank at an agreed price of 24,500.
Pictures outside the bank.
Money sorted, I dropped Ron (well he did the driving, I didn't get to drive it the entire time!) back at the airport then headed to the car depot with my mate (to bring me home).
Really don't know why I was smiling as I was about to say goodbye to the greatest car I've ever had. This was to be Ron's 23rd car......................... in current possession.
The car made it safely over with no issues. Since then, Ron's spent money adding another fuel pump, rebuilding the turbos, buying a new clutch (the HKS twin-plate gave up at the new power levels!) and performing other jobs. The car now makes 580HP at the wheels, still looking totally standard. The cause of my lower power figure, was a blocked cat......
At this point in time, my sister 15, was nearly turning the magical 16 and With my influence, I got my parents to buy her a first car - a 1992 Nissan Silvia S13 (auto, non turbo).
Basically because she couldn't drive it yet for a good few months, I used this as daily uni transport. I did however, spend money fixing up things on it, a new exhaust etc.
(Pink plates went on AFTER I was done with it haha)
This daily drive meant I could look for something fun, something exciting, something fast...
I was looking around at what was available and nothing really popped out until one day on the skyline forum (again) when I found an advertisement in the national section with one picture and a brief description.
It was for a 1989 Nissan Skyline R32 GTR - The original Godzilla.
However the price was 23.5kono and everything I had was 17.
Still, I PM'd the seller saying what a great car he had and that I wish I could buy it but was around 5k short. He replied saying to come down and have a look anyway. This suited me!
Original pic from advert:
Now before I went to look at it, the seller sent me a link of his build for the car. (The car had a rebuild as the original engine gave up the ghost when he bought it about 4 years ago.) This included pictures and looked expensive! Forged pistons, sump baffle, head-work, ceramic coated exhaust - the lot! He even had all bolts gold plated as that was his old man's specialty. It looked great in the pictures.
For the viewing, I brought a GTR savvy mate as I knew the basics but he knew specifics. The arrangement was to meet at the vendor's work which we did. He ran a business that equipped 4WDs for big mining companies. Brand new 80k+ Landcruisers sat there in rows and rows but parked far in the corner, was this GTR.
Firstly, I'd like to say, I despised the colour of wheels. Faded red meant pink, ugh! Anyway, I got my mate to start going over the car. I went in and found the owner. I then told him my story about only having 17k and that was why I didn't want to waste his time if he didn't want to accept it. I never really got a clear answer from this but by now we were outside the car.
My mate had given it the all clear apart from 2 spots of rust - 1 on the rear window on the drivers side (tiny), 1 spot in the boot rubber and a small dent on the left hand rear arch. No leaks of any kind.
Moving on, a test drive occurred. I wasn't even in the car for this. I just left it to my mate who sat in the passenger seat, owner driving.
After 5 minutes, they came back and I got the all clear from my mate so I proceeded to ask the owner some questions.
Turns out he bought the car in 2005 for 30k stock standard drove it for a while till the oil pump failed - resulting in the starvation of oil in the engine and thus failure. He then decided to rebuild and upgrade the entire car. This meant sending the engine off for a rebuild which was fine. However, he sent the engine over east to a known racing company to be rebuilt. The cost was 18,500!!! Next was the suspension, everything was upgraded to bilstein and whiteline - another 4 to 5k here. Loads more money was spent.
When it came down to it, he reckoned he'd spent 60k on the car in total.... here I was, offering less than the cost to build the engine...
When it came to price, he said it had to go. He had just been through a divorce and even proceeds from sale were split 50/50. I felt awful, wanting to run and hide in the corner. Reluctantly, he said if that's all I had, that's all he would get. The GTR was mine.
Pics after a wash:
The chassis had done 65k kms, engine 5k kms... Did I mention 400hp at the wheels??
Quickly, I booked in for another outing at the airstrip with the skyline forum. This was so far the best fun I'd had in my entire life!
(Cooling off)
Me being pretty happy with life!
I loved the car. By now I was getting used to the power levels (lol) and I was starting to dislike the exhaust that came with it (super quiet), plus the car came with a adjustable sway bar not installed which wouldn't currently fit as the current exhaust had huge mufflers to quieten it down. This was surely no good for flow!
So I got a new stainless drainpipe installed
This was pretty loud as it was straight through but the pickup and handling (after new swaybar was on) made the car feel totally reborn! Boost levels were increased a little from 20 to 22 psi (motor built to run 25 all day..). This being the case, I booked it in for a re-tune to compensate. Power was slightly increased though I requested boost be turned back down to 20 - more on this later.
Some pictures during a run through the hills.
^Fav pic of the night
Next step was to paint those awful coloured wheels. My mate painted them though not to the result I was after.. Still, the look was far, far improved.
After this, I spent 1500 on getting all rust removed properly with new metal welded in to get it looking perfect. I had many great memories in this car and is still probably my favourite out of the lot.
However, performing the above modifications left me with some debt (again).
I did some research into other people with similar modifications, especially turbos and found they were making loads more power than me. I should have been making about 480hp at the wheels at 20-22psi. I was worried especially as the motor was still fresh and cost a fortune to build.
This and debt led me to putting it on the market. I had one bloke interested and he sent it for inspection which took 4hours instead of 2. The result was the garage thought my engine was either piston slapping or being a normal clattery forged engine. He proceeded to offer me 15k (advertised at 25). I declined.
It couldn't have been piston slapping! It was making 400hp at the wheels, not 200! They were trying to be sneaky..
I then had very little interest for a month until one morning I had a call just before I was about to uni. The call lasted 2 hours and I missed my class! (Whoops). The call was from a DR. Ron Laura. (Website: http://dr-ronlaura.com/). He'd called from Sydney interested in my GTR. Reasons were the power output and the relatively fresh engine but most of all, the car looking standard from outside and under the bonnet. I had stock wheels on the car now too and had sold off the black ones to a mate.
Anyway, I got the phone call 10am Wednesday morning and I was picking up Mr Laura from Perth's domestic airport Thursday evening! At first glance, I thought he was a retired wrestler. He is a really, really nice bloke though!
Ron (as I was allowed to call him) loved the car. He had booked in a local hotel for a late arrival so I dropped him there.... where they forgot to leave the key out. Brilliant.
Luckily, we had a spare bedroom as my sister was at my mum's place so Ron spent the night there. He wanted to call the previous owner to find out more about the build and car history (fair enough). I gave him his number. Now funnily enough, the previous owner had actually heard of Dr. Ron through body-building circles and wanted to meet up to discuss training or something... and the car of course.
So, Friday morning at 8am, we met up, me included. They had a good chat and at around 11, we were off to the bank at an agreed price of 24,500.
Pictures outside the bank.
Money sorted, I dropped Ron (well he did the driving, I didn't get to drive it the entire time!) back at the airport then headed to the car depot with my mate (to bring me home).
Really don't know why I was smiling as I was about to say goodbye to the greatest car I've ever had. This was to be Ron's 23rd car......................... in current possession.
The car made it safely over with no issues. Since then, Ron's spent money adding another fuel pump, rebuilding the turbos, buying a new clutch (the HKS twin-plate gave up at the new power levels!) and performing other jobs. The car now makes 580HP at the wheels, still looking totally standard. The cause of my lower power figure, was a blocked cat......
Edited by Ten Four on Friday 30th September 12:02
Insurance was third party fire and theft only (covers someone else's car if I hit them but not mine) - this kept costs around $350 a year. Just had to be careful that I don't hit someone!
I didn't make a 7k profit, more like 2.5k. I've probably left out some stuff I had to do to the cars excluding running costs due to memory. Ron knew what I bought it at but I showed him where the money was spent - especially meeting the old owner in person as he got to look at the car and he knew what had changed.
I didn't make a 7k profit, more like 2.5k. I've probably left out some stuff I had to do to the cars excluding running costs due to memory. Ron knew what I bought it at but I showed him where the money was spent - especially meeting the old owner in person as he got to look at the car and he knew what had changed.
Haven't forgotten! Been reading comments too .
Just stupid busy with assignments at the moment - should get some updates real soon though.
I've noticed the insurance thing in the UK is awful... Hence why I've been putting off my holiday/trip till I finish uni but even then, age is an issue... We'll see though. £8000 is madness!
.Just stupid busy with assignments at the moment - should get some updates real soon though.
I've noticed the insurance thing in the UK is awful... Hence why I've been putting off my holiday/trip till I finish uni but even then, age is an issue... We'll see though. £8000 is madness!
Yeah, not too keen on insurance costs considering what I buy will live in a shed...
Anyway, #8.
About the time the GTR sold, I lost the privilege of driving my sister's S13 as she had turned 16 and was learning to drive on it. So I needed something I could leave at uni, yet was fun to drive and would keep me debt free.
I was super impressed with the 540i and was disappointed that I couldn't get to know it better, so I set out looking at BMWs. There was only 1 other 540i for sale but it had 200k kms and the owner wanted 20k. Pass.
Then I began looking at M3s. There were 3 for sale.
- White E36 M3 EVO SMG 110km $25k
- Silver E36 M3 EVO SMG 70km $30k
- Silver E36 M3 EVO Manual 150km (UK import) $28k
Unfortunately, I don't have pics of all the cars. The white E36 had an awesome interior (imo). It was tan with purple suede dash and seat bolsters (individual spec?)
I did my research and saw that the SMG was one to avoid. Still, we gave it a shot and went to look at the white one. When we got there, the car wasn't there (wholesale place). After inquiring about it, we were informed that it had just been to the BMW main dealer as the SMG pump light was on.. Great. They said it'd back within 15mins so after making the trip, we waited anyway.
The car was pretty immaculate and I asked about any oil leaks - zero.
Looked underneath and there was oil everywhere... Apparently the reason the light came on, was that there was low fluid in the pump so it needed topping up..
After all the effort, I wanted to see how the SMG box performed but I wasn't covered by their insurance policy (too young, hah!) so the salesman drove it, then my dad.
I have to say, the changes are super slow I was generally super disappointed... Not sure if it was just us not knowing how to drive it but it felt poor.
Arriving home, I gave my dads mechanic a buzz asking him about them. He said not to buy.
Still, aside from the oil leak at the back of the block, it seemed relatively clean. They wouldn't budge on price, such is their policy... Fine, I went to the bank to get a bank cheque for 25k. (Borrowing 3k from dad). I still had strong doubts on the way to getting it.
10mins before getting there, dad received a phone call informing him that the M3 had been sold. I was kind of happy in a sense...
I looked up the phone number of the manual M3 and we headed there straight away to look.
This car wasn't in the best condition cosmetically. It had a crease just behind the RHR wheel arch (which I never spotted), some scrapes on the RHS of the rear bumper, a cracked fog light, peeling/scratched front lip, small hole in the driver's side bolster and the rear seats dented from something a former owner must have stored in it. It had a little light rust underneath but definitely wasn't bad. The AC also didn't work. (Coming into winter.. didn't really care)
However, the car drove great but it had a super stiff accelerator and this took a little getting use to. The seller said he'd paid 48k for it 3 years ago and brought it over from Canberra. He was a young-ish American bloke and did lots of fly in fly out work, saying he'd barely used it in the past year. He had lots of Royal purple invoices and assured me that every oil in the car was royal purple. He said the ECU had also been reflashed costing $1200 and he'd had a different cam installed? Other mods were Alpine sound system, Scorpion catback, HIDS with angel eyes, Eibach springs and ACS wheels.
Now due to being an import, sale prices are around 25% less than that of Australian delivered cars. I basically called him, arrived 30mins later, drove it and told him I'd give him 20k, bearing in mind the import status and cosmetic issues. Eventually, he hesitantly agreed at 21k. I was stoked! Manual > SMG
The next day, we arrived with the bank cheque and while signing the documents inside his house, I noticed 4 BMW M3 models on the shelf. His wife then informed me that he'd actually cried the night before while thinking about his M3 and letting it go... Awkward.
Paperwork signed, I was handed the keys and jumped (not literally) into the M3. Turned it on and jumped forward. He'd left it in first
. 
After I managed to find reverse and get it going, we trundled on home safely with a new toy!
Right, new car. This meant booking in for another run at the airstrip! I also noted the rear two tyres were mixed (crazy BMW owners...) and nearing the end of their life, so I kind of went with a no holding back attitude...
The car was great all day except towards the end when one exhaust mount broke and the clutch became hard to engage/disengage (later found to be stretched clutch cable). All in all, was a great day! It performed much better than the 540i..
(Wear our the tyres you say?)
(Cooling off)
After this, I immediately got a new mount welded on for the exhaust and two new rear tyres. Luckily, I knew someone in the interior business and he re-trimmed my driver's side seat bolster for $120 which included re-bolstering the whole seat. It now felt like new again!
I was driving the car daily now to get to uni and back. One week I decided to measure fuel consumption and got 8.8L/100km or 32.1MPG which I was pretty happy with.
Also, I hit up the place where my old R32 was tuned and got them to put the M3 on the dyno.
Was pretty chuffed with that at the rear wheels!
Next up was a drive through my usual hills route. This took place on a great cool, sunny Perth weekend. At the pub which was a slight detour, I spotted a E46 M3 cab so I had to have a few snaps..
Didn't get to meet the owner though. After a good fish n chips lunch without a drink (P plate = 0.00 blood alcohol
), I set off back toward my dad's place with one final stop that gave me what was probably my favourite picture of the M3.
Time passed, me happy driving the beamer, waiting for another cruise to come up.
Finally one did,
(Raining in the picture)
This was one that went a fair way east inland. The weather cleared up by lunch time and on the way back, this is where things took a turn for the worse .
On the way back, still far from civilisation, I'd got stuck with a couple of others at the far back and we were trying to catch up. This was because of someone in something really, really old, doing 60kmh in a 110 zone and we couldn't overtake.
Eventually, an overtaking lane came up and I gunned it, leaving him far behind. I topped 160kmh (100mph in old speak ) and was just letting it roll back to 100kmh in 5th. As I was rolling back, a big flash went off.
A speed camera hiding behind a tree had been placed right in the middle of the overtaking lane, which was also a semi-steep downhill. The guy behind me also got flashed but I'm not sure at what speed.
I was panicking. Anything 45kmh and over the speed limit meant car impound for 30days, huge impound and towing fees, fines and license cancellation for 3 months (plus I was on Ps - meant I'd have to redo everything including learning, test, booking 25hrs etc).
Anyway after making it home, I told dad - not too happy evidently. I panicked and put the M3 for sale. If they impounded the car, it meant $1500 in towing and impound fees plus I'd lose the car for a month - not worth it.
Listed at $23,500, it was the cheapest M3 on the market and within days I had someone keen on it (I did list AC as inoperative but had a quote of 1k to fix everything including gas and a new compressor). He made an offer of 21k and I'd half accepted this when someone else came and looked at it, wanted it but offered 22k. I told the guy who came first and said if he wanted it, 21,500. Deal done. Car sold. I lost around $500 on it but that was fine.
For sale pictures:
A week and a bit after the car had gone, I received my fine.
143kmh in a 110 zone, $700 fine and 5 demerit points. (Meant I had 5 left, after losing 2 in the R33 GTR, 70 in 60 zone).
I was so relieved. The $700 fine was hefty but could've been much worse. If I had done 139 instead, the fine would have been a mere $300 and 3 points but I wasn't complaining.
I was also beginning to miss the sound of turbo.....
Anyway, #8.
About the time the GTR sold, I lost the privilege of driving my sister's S13 as she had turned 16 and was learning to drive on it. So I needed something I could leave at uni, yet was fun to drive and would keep me debt free.
I was super impressed with the 540i and was disappointed that I couldn't get to know it better, so I set out looking at BMWs. There was only 1 other 540i for sale but it had 200k kms and the owner wanted 20k. Pass.
Then I began looking at M3s. There were 3 for sale.
- White E36 M3 EVO SMG 110km $25k
- Silver E36 M3 EVO SMG 70km $30k
- Silver E36 M3 EVO Manual 150km (UK import) $28k
Unfortunately, I don't have pics of all the cars. The white E36 had an awesome interior (imo). It was tan with purple suede dash and seat bolsters (individual spec?)
I did my research and saw that the SMG was one to avoid. Still, we gave it a shot and went to look at the white one. When we got there, the car wasn't there (wholesale place). After inquiring about it, we were informed that it had just been to the BMW main dealer as the SMG pump light was on.. Great. They said it'd back within 15mins so after making the trip, we waited anyway.
The car was pretty immaculate and I asked about any oil leaks - zero.
Looked underneath and there was oil everywhere... Apparently the reason the light came on, was that there was low fluid in the pump so it needed topping up..
After all the effort, I wanted to see how the SMG box performed but I wasn't covered by their insurance policy (too young, hah!) so the salesman drove it, then my dad.
I have to say, the changes are super slow I was generally super disappointed... Not sure if it was just us not knowing how to drive it but it felt poor.
Arriving home, I gave my dads mechanic a buzz asking him about them. He said not to buy.
Still, aside from the oil leak at the back of the block, it seemed relatively clean. They wouldn't budge on price, such is their policy... Fine, I went to the bank to get a bank cheque for 25k. (Borrowing 3k from dad). I still had strong doubts on the way to getting it.
10mins before getting there, dad received a phone call informing him that the M3 had been sold. I was kind of happy in a sense...
I looked up the phone number of the manual M3 and we headed there straight away to look.
This car wasn't in the best condition cosmetically. It had a crease just behind the RHR wheel arch (which I never spotted), some scrapes on the RHS of the rear bumper, a cracked fog light, peeling/scratched front lip, small hole in the driver's side bolster and the rear seats dented from something a former owner must have stored in it. It had a little light rust underneath but definitely wasn't bad. The AC also didn't work. (Coming into winter.. didn't really care)
However, the car drove great but it had a super stiff accelerator and this took a little getting use to. The seller said he'd paid 48k for it 3 years ago and brought it over from Canberra. He was a young-ish American bloke and did lots of fly in fly out work, saying he'd barely used it in the past year. He had lots of Royal purple invoices and assured me that every oil in the car was royal purple. He said the ECU had also been reflashed costing $1200 and he'd had a different cam installed? Other mods were Alpine sound system, Scorpion catback, HIDS with angel eyes, Eibach springs and ACS wheels.
Now due to being an import, sale prices are around 25% less than that of Australian delivered cars. I basically called him, arrived 30mins later, drove it and told him I'd give him 20k, bearing in mind the import status and cosmetic issues. Eventually, he hesitantly agreed at 21k. I was stoked! Manual > SMG
The next day, we arrived with the bank cheque and while signing the documents inside his house, I noticed 4 BMW M3 models on the shelf. His wife then informed me that he'd actually cried the night before while thinking about his M3 and letting it go... Awkward.
Paperwork signed, I was handed the keys and jumped (not literally) into the M3. Turned it on and jumped forward. He'd left it in first
. After I managed to find reverse and get it going, we trundled on home safely with a new toy! Right, new car. This meant booking in for another run at the airstrip! I also noted the rear two tyres were mixed (crazy BMW owners...) and nearing the end of their life, so I kind of went with a no holding back attitude...
The car was great all day except towards the end when one exhaust mount broke and the clutch became hard to engage/disengage (later found to be stretched clutch cable). All in all, was a great day! It performed much better than the 540i..
(Wear our the tyres you say?)
(Cooling off)
After this, I immediately got a new mount welded on for the exhaust and two new rear tyres. Luckily, I knew someone in the interior business and he re-trimmed my driver's side seat bolster for $120 which included re-bolstering the whole seat. It now felt like new again!
I was driving the car daily now to get to uni and back. One week I decided to measure fuel consumption and got 8.8L/100km or 32.1MPG which I was pretty happy with.
Also, I hit up the place where my old R32 was tuned and got them to put the M3 on the dyno.
Was pretty chuffed with that at the rear wheels!
Next up was a drive through my usual hills route. This took place on a great cool, sunny Perth weekend. At the pub which was a slight detour, I spotted a E46 M3 cab so I had to have a few snaps..
Didn't get to meet the owner though. After a good fish n chips lunch without a drink (P plate = 0.00 blood alcohol
), I set off back toward my dad's place with one final stop that gave me what was probably my favourite picture of the M3.Time passed, me happy driving the beamer, waiting for another cruise to come up.
Finally one did,
(Raining in the picture)
This was one that went a fair way east inland. The weather cleared up by lunch time and on the way back, this is where things took a turn for the worse
.On the way back, still far from civilisation, I'd got stuck with a couple of others at the far back and we were trying to catch up. This was because of someone in something really, really old, doing 60kmh in a 110 zone and we couldn't overtake.
Eventually, an overtaking lane came up and I gunned it, leaving him far behind. I topped 160kmh (100mph in old speak
) and was just letting it roll back to 100kmh in 5th. As I was rolling back, a big flash went off.A speed camera hiding behind a tree had been placed right in the middle of the overtaking lane, which was also a semi-steep downhill. The guy behind me also got flashed but I'm not sure at what speed.
I was panicking. Anything 45kmh and over the speed limit meant car impound for 30days, huge impound and towing fees, fines and license cancellation for 3 months (plus I was on Ps - meant I'd have to redo everything including learning, test, booking 25hrs etc). Anyway after making it home, I told dad - not too happy evidently. I panicked and put the M3 for sale. If they impounded the car, it meant $1500 in towing and impound fees plus I'd lose the car for a month - not worth it.
Listed at $23,500, it was the cheapest M3 on the market and within days I had someone keen on it (I did list AC as inoperative but had a quote of 1k to fix everything including gas and a new compressor). He made an offer of 21k and I'd half accepted this when someone else came and looked at it, wanted it but offered 22k. I told the guy who came first and said if he wanted it, 21,500. Deal done. Car sold. I lost around $500 on it but that was fine.
For sale pictures:
A week and a bit after the car had gone, I received my fine.
143kmh in a 110 zone, $700 fine and 5 demerit points. (Meant I had 5 left, after losing 2 in the R33 GTR, 70 in 60 zone).
I was so relieved. The $700 fine was hefty but could've been much worse. If I had done 139 instead, the fine would have been a mere $300 and 3 points but I wasn't complaining.
I was also beginning to miss the sound of turbo.....
Edited by Ten Four on Tuesday 4th October 06:53
Right, so not looking for anything in particular now. I'd been without a "nice" car for a month or so. That horrific speeding fine had deterred me from buying another performance car for a little while....
Inevitably, I was back looking and was browsing a local newspaper. An ad half caught my eye, enough so that I read it. It went along the lines of: Supra, Toyota 1994. 43000kms, twin turbo getrag manual. 19000ono.
I was fairly hesitent. 43k kms on a 94 Supra? Yeah right...
Anyway, it was only a 15min drive-ish to the suburb so I gave the seller a call and organised to view it.
The address led us to a main road through a town just before the hills, outside a shopping centre. The house looked like a standard sort of older house, nothing you'd look twice at.
There was a ML320 Mercedes parked outside.
I rung the doorbell and an old man (no other way of putting it.. lol) opened the door. I said I was here to view the Supra? (Was thinking I had the wrong house..) He said oh yes and said wait a minute while he opened the garage.
Unveiled to me was a Supra, hidden under 4 car covers. Each one had a methodical way of coming off. Dad and I just sat and watched in awe.
Finally they were all off. This left us drooling at an absolutely mint, unmolested Supra........ THAT HAD THE SAME WHEELS AS MY R32 GTR! I asked what the associated story was with it. Turns out this was the wife's car (she came to greet us 5mins later) and was a little present, 11 YEARS AGO!!! They bought it off an importer, 5 years old with 39,800kms, put on 4 new Kumho tyres and had done 3500kms since! (At a cost of $39,500)
I also found out that it was originally an automatic but the conversion was done before it hit Australian shores and was never registered as an auto in Australia. It did have the proper 6 speed getrag box though.
The mods the car had were the ones it came from Japan with:
-HKS fully adjustable coilover suspension
-Japanese catback exhaust (very very quiet)
-Sparco wheels
-HKS pod filter
-Sparco accelerator pedal
-Switch in engine bay to disconnect battery
It even still had original factory option wind deflectors, Supra floor mats and working factory auto front spoiler. I requested that we be taken for a test drive. The seller drove, dad in passenger seat and me with my tiny but round frame squeezed into the back. (Supras are NOT 4 seaters despite what Toyota say, lol)
The drive felt as it should, brilliant. The only noise came from the rear coilovers - probably due to age or simply not being used and needing refilling with gas.
After we returned to the seller's home. He pointed out a few D-type Jaguar framed photos on the wall that my dad had been noticing. Turns out, he built that car from scratch (replica) and that was his son racing it at Bathurst!
What was even more amazing, was the garage was drive through, the other side consisting of a caravan with a trailer for their Suzuki Jimny and next to it, another shed!
He brought us inside the shed and the contents were: The very same D-Type Jaguar replica in the pictures and an 1980s F1 car (this is what he told us, I can't confirm and don't have pics, sorry). The sight was awesome. He was a retired motorcross champion in his day and his son now races cars and holds a lap record at Barbagallo Raceway in Perth. They use the caravan and Jimny to travel across Australia to see their son race.
So awesome!!
Back to the Supra, I told them I was keen and asked for the best price although it wasn't really negotiable (fair enough, it was MINT.) We agreed at 18,500. It also came with an additional, never fitted Veilside spoiler (yuck) and a new in-box K&N pod filter to replace the old HKS one.
I also learnt the ML320 outside had a mere 49,000kms on it.
The day of sale, I couldn't wait! I'd also forgotten how good Toyota air conds were! We arrived, signed the papers and handed over the cheque and I jumped into the Supra. Excitement would be the understatement of the year.
Pictures:
Plans for it were to keep it as it is. It felt criminal to modify it so I kept it nearly the same as when I got it.
I brought it to my dad's mechanic for an inspection (after purchase) and to do a major service and fix anything that needed fixing.
He couldn't believe the condition of it. The only faults were poop brown (no exaggeration) coolant. It was also still running an automatic radiator. It wasn't overheating or anything but I just thought it'd be a good time to put in a brand new one especially since summer was coming. I also got a genuine Toyota oil filter and ordered some smurf blood (Royal Purple) for it.
The coolant system had to be totally flushed 3 times for all the poo to be removed!
The car was running better than ever.
So.... off to the air strip! This time though, we got to use the track next to it. Its only a small track though but still awesome fun.
By now, I taught myself to heel and toe and was super competitive...
My competition:
A man with a cone on his head.
A girl.
A toddler.
More seriously, my mate. His car is a 4 door R32 Skyline with 4wd (Disabled for his burnout..). His car has a GTR engine transplant, still running 4wd. He made 320hp at all 4 wheels on a dyno day... His number plate reads [V8EATER]...
I'd guestimated my Supra at around 260hp at the rear wheels as I had a run with my mates limited edition GTR and we were about even, him having the edge from stationary due to 4WD. His car made 246 at all 4 wheels.
However, both myself and my mate with the 4 door R32 had a disadvantage.
Him on Chinese tyres, me on 11 year old Kumhos lol.
Intense...
General pics
(England represent!)
If you're wondering why someone brought a shopping trolley, its a Mitsubishi Legnum. Stock they have 276BHP and are 4wd. That one wasn't standard.
Back to my mate and I.
He had been pounding round all day and set a best time of 1:09.8. Remember this is a short track, mostly corners and he has 4wd... He's no mug either, being a many time over sprint car champion...
I did a 1:10.0 and a 1:10.1 in my last run out. I was so annoyed!
The Supra performed brilliantly all day though. I did drive it really hard and it went perfect without a hint of disagreement. I still think that was the best handling car I've had to this day. I was simply at one with it and weight balance etc was predictable and easy to handle, even with s
tty tyres. (Maybe largely down to the coilovers?)
I met up with a guy I call my friend (cone on head dude
), for some photos and these are the results.
But I needed a daily drive as there was no way I was leaving this at uni.
I kept the Supra for a bit whilst I hunted for a "bunky"...
So while I had the Supra, I had #10; a 1999 Hyundai Sonata V6 auto with minimal paint...
Cost me $800 + $150 auction fee
.
It had 265kms, fairly high but seemed okay, until I showed it to my dad's mechanic who reckoned the head gasket was ever so slightly going... This wouldn't do especially since summer here is insane and I needed something totally reliable.
I sold it on for $1300...
Number 11
Won it on eBay for $950. I thought it'd be super reliable. It being a 1990 Toyota Corolla.
Got to the sellers house at a pre-arranged time, 6pm. He wasn't home. We waited till 6:30pm then called, said he'd been held up and wouldn't be too long.
7:30pm, still not here and pretty fed up, we called again and he apologised saying he'd be 30mins.
Fine, we waited.
He finally arrived at 9pm.
It was super cold at night and high up in the hills. I drove it and it seemed fine. Money changed hands and I went home in it.
This lasted me 80kms before spectacularly going pop with tonnes of steam coming out the engine... Sold it broken for $250.
At this point, I'd sold the Supra . Reason being, it became a shed warrior with me too scared to put kms on it and scared of other people hurting it. I sold it for $21750, profiting about $1500.
Again, my choice of buyer wasn't the best.
Firstly he was from Scotland
Secondly, he was not much older than me and worked as a 2nd hand car salesmen.
Thirdly, the plans of what he told me he wanted to do to the car made me vomit inside...
Said plans were:
-Paint interior panels white
-Order stupid body kit for it
-Paint wheels 2 tone
-Aftermarket turbos (mmm fair enough)
-Race seats...
-Other things I can't remember right now that made me want to not sell it to him
I still have his number as he invited me to look at it after he was "done" with it... I haven't called him.
So now the Supra was gone, it was time for something I could worry "less" about while again still being fun/fast.
Inevitably, I was back looking and was browsing a local newspaper. An ad half caught my eye, enough so that I read it. It went along the lines of: Supra, Toyota 1994. 43000kms, twin turbo getrag manual. 19000ono.
I was fairly hesitent. 43k kms on a 94 Supra? Yeah right...
Anyway, it was only a 15min drive-ish to the suburb so I gave the seller a call and organised to view it.
The address led us to a main road through a town just before the hills, outside a shopping centre. The house looked like a standard sort of older house, nothing you'd look twice at.
There was a ML320 Mercedes parked outside.
I rung the doorbell and an old man (no other way of putting it.. lol) opened the door. I said I was here to view the Supra? (Was thinking I had the wrong house..) He said oh yes and said wait a minute while he opened the garage.
Unveiled to me was a Supra, hidden under 4 car covers. Each one had a methodical way of coming off. Dad and I just sat and watched in awe.
Finally they were all off. This left us drooling at an absolutely mint, unmolested Supra........ THAT HAD THE SAME WHEELS AS MY R32 GTR! I asked what the associated story was with it. Turns out this was the wife's car (she came to greet us 5mins later) and was a little present, 11 YEARS AGO!!! They bought it off an importer, 5 years old with 39,800kms, put on 4 new Kumho tyres and had done 3500kms since! (At a cost of $39,500)
I also found out that it was originally an automatic but the conversion was done before it hit Australian shores and was never registered as an auto in Australia. It did have the proper 6 speed getrag box though.
The mods the car had were the ones it came from Japan with:
-HKS fully adjustable coilover suspension
-Japanese catback exhaust (very very quiet)
-Sparco wheels
-HKS pod filter
-Sparco accelerator pedal
-Switch in engine bay to disconnect battery
It even still had original factory option wind deflectors, Supra floor mats and working factory auto front spoiler. I requested that we be taken for a test drive. The seller drove, dad in passenger seat and me with my tiny but round frame squeezed into the back. (Supras are NOT 4 seaters despite what Toyota say, lol)
The drive felt as it should, brilliant. The only noise came from the rear coilovers - probably due to age or simply not being used and needing refilling with gas.
After we returned to the seller's home. He pointed out a few D-type Jaguar framed photos on the wall that my dad had been noticing. Turns out, he built that car from scratch (replica) and that was his son racing it at Bathurst!
What was even more amazing, was the garage was drive through, the other side consisting of a caravan with a trailer for their Suzuki Jimny and next to it, another shed!
He brought us inside the shed and the contents were: The very same D-Type Jaguar replica in the pictures and an 1980s F1 car (this is what he told us, I can't confirm and don't have pics, sorry). The sight was awesome. He was a retired motorcross champion in his day and his son now races cars and holds a lap record at Barbagallo Raceway in Perth. They use the caravan and Jimny to travel across Australia to see their son race.
So awesome!!
Back to the Supra, I told them I was keen and asked for the best price although it wasn't really negotiable (fair enough, it was MINT.) We agreed at 18,500. It also came with an additional, never fitted Veilside spoiler (yuck) and a new in-box K&N pod filter to replace the old HKS one.
I also learnt the ML320 outside had a mere 49,000kms on it.
The day of sale, I couldn't wait! I'd also forgotten how good Toyota air conds were! We arrived, signed the papers and handed over the cheque and I jumped into the Supra. Excitement would be the understatement of the year.
Pictures:
Plans for it were to keep it as it is. It felt criminal to modify it so I kept it nearly the same as when I got it.
I brought it to my dad's mechanic for an inspection (after purchase) and to do a major service and fix anything that needed fixing.
He couldn't believe the condition of it. The only faults were poop brown (no exaggeration) coolant. It was also still running an automatic radiator. It wasn't overheating or anything but I just thought it'd be a good time to put in a brand new one especially since summer was coming. I also got a genuine Toyota oil filter and ordered some smurf blood (Royal Purple) for it.
The coolant system had to be totally flushed 3 times for all the poo to be removed!
The car was running better than ever.
So.... off to the air strip! This time though, we got to use the track next to it. Its only a small track though but still awesome fun.
By now, I taught myself to heel and toe and was super competitive...
My competition:
A man with a cone on his head.
A girl.
A toddler.
More seriously, my mate. His car is a 4 door R32 Skyline with 4wd (Disabled for his burnout..). His car has a GTR engine transplant, still running 4wd. He made 320hp at all 4 wheels on a dyno day... His number plate reads [V8EATER]...
I'd guestimated my Supra at around 260hp at the rear wheels as I had a run with my mates limited edition GTR and we were about even, him having the edge from stationary due to 4WD. His car made 246 at all 4 wheels.
However, both myself and my mate with the 4 door R32 had a disadvantage.
Him on Chinese tyres, me on 11 year old Kumhos lol.
Intense...
General pics
(England represent!)
If you're wondering why someone brought a shopping trolley, its a Mitsubishi Legnum. Stock they have 276BHP and are 4wd. That one wasn't standard.
Back to my mate and I.
He had been pounding round all day and set a best time of 1:09.8. Remember this is a short track, mostly corners and he has 4wd... He's no mug either, being a many time over sprint car champion...
I did a 1:10.0 and a 1:10.1 in my last run out. I was so annoyed!
The Supra performed brilliantly all day though. I did drive it really hard and it went perfect without a hint of disagreement. I still think that was the best handling car I've had to this day. I was simply at one with it and weight balance etc was predictable and easy to handle, even with s
tty tyres. (Maybe largely down to the coilovers?)I met up with a guy I call my friend (cone on head dude
), for some photos and these are the results.But I needed a daily drive as there was no way I was leaving this at uni.
I kept the Supra for a bit whilst I hunted for a "bunky"...
So while I had the Supra, I had #10; a 1999 Hyundai Sonata V6 auto with minimal paint...
Cost me $800 + $150 auction fee
.It had 265kms, fairly high but seemed okay, until I showed it to my dad's mechanic who reckoned the head gasket was ever so slightly going... This wouldn't do especially since summer here is insane and I needed something totally reliable.
I sold it on for $1300...
Number 11
Won it on eBay for $950. I thought it'd be super reliable. It being a 1990 Toyota Corolla.
Got to the sellers house at a pre-arranged time, 6pm. He wasn't home. We waited till 6:30pm then called, said he'd been held up and wouldn't be too long.
7:30pm, still not here and pretty fed up, we called again and he apologised saying he'd be 30mins.
Fine, we waited.
He finally arrived at 9pm.
It was super cold at night and high up in the hills. I drove it and it seemed fine. Money changed hands and I went home in it.
This lasted me 80kms before spectacularly going pop with tonnes of steam coming out the engine... Sold it broken for $250.
At this point, I'd sold the Supra
. Reason being, it became a shed warrior with me too scared to put kms on it and scared of other people hurting it. I sold it for $21750, profiting about $1500.Again, my choice of buyer wasn't the best.
Firstly he was from Scotland
Secondly, he was not much older than me and worked as a 2nd hand car salesmen.
Thirdly, the plans of what he told me he wanted to do to the car made me vomit inside...
Said plans were:
-Paint interior panels white
-Order stupid body kit for it
-Paint wheels 2 tone
-Aftermarket turbos (mmm fair enough)
-Race seats...
-Other things I can't remember right now that made me want to not sell it to him
I still have his number as he invited me to look at it after he was "done" with it... I haven't called him.
So now the Supra was gone, it was time for something I could worry "less" about while again still being fun/fast.
Edited by Ten Four on Friday 7th October 10:48
MrQuick said:
Hey were you selling this on CarPoint by any chance, I remember that dyno graph and the photo of the car on the hill overlooking the city.
If so, you have no clue how close I was to calling up and perhaps just buying over the phone, the car seemed as though it was in xcellent condition, especially for the price you were selling for.
I'm in Sydney though and it massively put me off that you're in Perth and never ended up calling you up.
Excellent read mate, can't wait for more.
Small world! Carsales mate but yeah, would've been mine! It sold pretty quickly and there is regret there.. Ultimate car with power, anonymity, comfort and economy.If so, you have no clue how close I was to calling up and perhaps just buying over the phone, the car seemed as though it was in xcellent condition, especially for the price you were selling for.
I'm in Sydney though and it massively put me off that you're in Perth and never ended up calling you up.
Excellent read mate, can't wait for more.
Funnily enough, the 2nd guy who called and offered 22 did it over the phone and stayed by that after his test drive. He wanted to strip it and turn it into a race car!
The 540i was also sold over the phone and he transferred $500 deposit to someone he'd never met (me!).
BMW owners and buying over the phone?
Edited by Ten Four on Tuesday 4th October 10:08
The M-itch is an annoying one... It never goes away
Thanks for the comments.
The hyundai was actually good, comfy, quiet, cold AC and had enough power for overtakes etc.
Corolla was crap... lol. Clunky, cheap plastic, individual door locks, no p/s and broke quickly..
Haha nothing wrong with the Scottish! He was plainly bullstting (imo) cause he said he'd had an 800bhp Impreza, been in cop chases etc... (In Scotland)
Right, first things first, I needed a daily to be left at uni. This time, I was a little wiser after the Corolla pooped itself. The budget was still to be as cheap as possible. This meant browsing gumtree
One day I saw advertised, Nissan Pulsar SSS Vector 1990. Top model in its day, it had 170km and was white, however no mention of AC (meaning broken). It was at $900. Within 2 hours of the ad being posted up, I was on my way to view. Annoyingly, the seller called me when I was halfway there saying someone else had already been to view and drive it and were deciding on whether or not to buy.
This being the case, I put the pedal down a little harder in dad's LS400...
Anyway I got there, car was still available. Good. (or bad??). It was fairly clean bar a gigantic rust patch (to me) in a semi-weird spot, the LHS door but nearer the top of it above where the hinges are. Sort of on the A-pillar. There was also no air con, the pipes were in the boot... Happily though, 6 months rego had just been paid. It drove fine, temp gauge didn't work (dodgy) but there was no oil in the coolant and vise versa. Box and engine seemed great. What probably sold me, was the seats.. COMFY! They looked like little recaros.
$700 and the papers were signed.
It was actually quite fun to drive (to my surprise). Apparently it had a LSD according to the sticker on the boot. Sporty suspension and being generally nimble made it "fun" to drive.
The exhaust was stuffed though, had a decent rust hole in it. Back on gumtree, I found someone wrecking a hatch version and to my luck, it had an aftermarket exhaust on it with a oval shape muffler (not loud). $70 and my car now sounded quite decent - a nice bass-y sound without that silly "ricer" scream.
I kept it like this for a little bit as it gave me the opportunity to buy something not so sensible..
To be honest, I wasn't really sure what to get next. I just had a look at everything really.
I quite fancied a boxster but they were still 30-35k for the standard 2.5L, about 10-15k above my budget and slow... That passed, I was then being bored and browsed eBay.
Bad move.
I stumbled across this R32 GTR that needed some work and was unlicensed but it was "cheap" at 14k and had a forged engine rebuild (according to the advert/owner, no papers to prove - more later) plus many other mods.
Next thoughts were of the utter joy experienced with the previous GTR... This had a half cage so I could do proper track work. I rang to view it. It was located about 45mins from me, straight down the freeway a fair distance south, so I booked a weekend to go look.
Advert pictures:
In person, it looked like a proper beast, though there had to be many changes for it to be road legal. There was only 1 tiny, tiny spot of rust on the drivers side side skirt where it joined the body. After getting him to start it up, piles of black smoke came out the exhaust. It hadn't been tuned since leaving Japan, 6 years ago. He'd bought it when he was 18 in 2005 with 141,526km and loved it to bits since. However, he worked in the Navy and would be out to sea for 6-10months at a time and never got to drive it, also forgetting to pay registration in the process. I got the owner to take me for a very brief (illegal..) drive round the block, it wouldn't rev past 4k properly though up to the point of that, it felt damn quick.
I then learnt he'd been yellow stickered (defected) for having a leaky injector in the past and he replaced them with standard items - most likely the reason for the inability to rev properly past 4k (insufficient fuel flow for the power).
I wanted it, the stupid idiot kid inside me wanted to buy an unrego'd, 99% chance ex-circut car in Japan, 21 year old R32 GTR with 147,747km on a replacement dash. (Standard go to 180, this went to 280).
$13000 bank cheque later, I was driving it to the nearest petrol station on a temporary movement permit. You can imagine the head-snapping that occurred.... P plates in this mean, track-spec R32 GTR.
First pictures home:
This was the mod list that I had, I'm sure there would've been plenty more additions that I wasn't aware of.
Engine:
N1 turbos
Greddy piping
Twin Blitz bovs
HKS pods
Rebuilt engine with forged internals. (The importer said it had a full build before being sent over which was why it was imported. No receipts however. The only parts I confirmed were the metal headgasket and baffled sump.)
Catch can setup
3" Blitz exhaust, mild steel
Electronics & Accessories:
HKS F-CON V PRO ECU
HKS Kansai dash
Turbo Timer (Not used but is there and fully functional)
APEXi boost gauge
Blitz Sequential Electronic Boost Controller
Greddy oil pressure & water temp gauges (with memory & high/low settings)
Alarm with immobiliser
GTR gear & handbrake boots
Carpeted parcel shelf (to make it look tidy)
Silly metal gearknob that got hot in the sun
Suspension/Drive line
Half cage (bolt in, legal with permit)
HKS Coilovers (rock hard, adjustable)
HKS Twin plate clutch
HICAS lock bar
Strut brace
Rear strut brace
Cusco Camber Arms
Exterior:
East bear mirrors
Enkei wheels (255/45/17)
Tommy Kaira front bar
N1 side skirts
N1 front lip
N1 rear window (no wiper hole)
Huge genuine carbon fibre spoiler
Bonnet pins
Boot pins
Now this was a bit of a project to get it on the road, but it was ok as in the meantime I had the Pulsar.
This being the case, I took it to the pits to get a list of what needed doing to make it legal. I took off the bonnet pins (legally not allowed - they aren't 100% flush with the bonnet.... What if you were to hit someone and they rubbed against it.. Yeah, extremely dangerous), left the boot pins and took the spoiler off (also illegal).
This left me with 6 holes in the bonnet, 20 in the boot (6 current spoiler, god knows how many others its had) and and I still had a cracked bottom corner fibreglass front bar. There was also the problem with the cage, but I had a secret weapon...
There was no dash lights and tail lights but brake lights were working. I took it to an auto sparky and got raped, lucky I had some lube.. I was charged $220 to diagnose and replace a faulty headlight switch
, which I had to get the switch myself and that cost $50.
Pits day, I lined up behind a fair few other cars. This is the biggest time waste ever. I ventured to the one 35mins away cause I heard the inspectors were the most lenient...
After a couple of hours, it was my turn. The inspector came to me and said, ah, this'll be fun eh? I nodded
Nice roll cage he commented, what are we going to do with you!
I yelled.. "I'VE GOT A PERMIT FOR IT!"
I ransacked the glovebox, trying to avoid turning the AC on, found it and handed it over.
He read it, walked back to his office and said it all checks out. Woohoo, only 100 other things to fail me for!
He then went through the usual things like lights, wipers, washers (didn't work) and under the car to check for leaks. Next was opening the bonnet to find any illegal modifications. I had twin pod filters but they were secured. There were also 2 illegal blitz blow off valves but these were well hidden in the tyre guard. As the bonnet was up, it started flapping about in the wind, the support not holding it. This is due to it being aluminium which luckily, the inspector knew was a factory issue. I must add, the twin plate clutch leaves a distinctive rattle, sounding like something is broken.
After checking if there was any play in the suspension, he requested keys and took it for a test drive.
Surprisingly, he didn't stall and took off, bouncing over any slight bump in the road (totally solid suspension).
Eventually he came back, said he'd go write up the paperwork. I asked if I passed? He said I did. I was bewildered. Not known to me then, was that this car being an 89, didn't have to comply to "modern" standards and it was listed on the car registration document. Still, it should have failed for: suspension not having enough movement, steering wheel too small, washers broken and lots of holes in the bonnet and boot. Hah! I was so happy!
Sidestep here, I was looking in the Quokka (local paper) and found a 1994 Nissan Skyline R33 GTS4 Manual (non turbo but with GTR 4wd). It was $2200 and had minor damage in the front drivers guard/door. There was also some paint fade on the RHS rear and boot/bumper. I bought it purely for the money-making potential.
So right now, I had 2 skylines and 1 pulsar. Along with my sister's car, my mums place was now looking like an old Japanese nissan dealership...
I put the GTR on a hold for a bit whilst I fixed up this R33.
The point of it was to make money, so I kept spending to a minimum but wanted it to look tidy-ish. I sourced a new guard for $25, door complete with glass, motor and trim for $100. Sadly they were a different colour but were cheap enough. There was also no gearknob so I put the one from the GTR in it. The handbrake trim was non-existent so I ordered a new one for $20.
The car was mechanically great and I advertised it with both the pics of the car before and after panel replacement to show damage wasn't structural. I got LOADS of calls when I put up on gumtree at $4300 with pictures. First person to view and drive offered 4k which I gladly accepted. Easiest $1700 I'd ever made! More money to blow into the GTR!
I met up with a different mate, new to Perth and keen to photograph cars. These were his results:
The tiny go-kart size steering wheel was on my replacement list but finding a standard steering wheel is extremely difficult in good condition. (1989 car, go figure..) So for the time being, the momo remained. (Must admit, pressing those red buttons for the horn was pretty cool... Wish it was a seccret NOS button like the fast and the furious movies! )
I was getting stty fuel economy with the old tune and I bet the spoiler didn't help. (Went back on after I passed the pits.. Looked worse without a spoiler imo. Yes I know it was huge..) I bought some brand new Sard 700CC injectors online and brought it to a performance shop (also an importer of parts / cars). They installed them. However, it was at this point that I spied an absolutely awesome exhaust they had for sale.... It was a custom, front pipe back piece with no resonator, no cat and the only muffler being a cannon on the end. After some convincing, I bought it
I'd bought loads of stuff from them before so I was known, he installed the new injectors and exhaust (including purchase price!) for $700.
Now that all that was sorted, it was time for a tune. I should mention that the previous owner thought the turbos were standard. They weren't. Sadly, there was only 1 place in the whole of Western Australia that could tune the ECU I had. They told me it would cost $900-1200 to tune.
With a new ECU costing about $1600 then a tune required for it at my preferred tuners ($400-500), it was cheaper to go ahead, and I did.
A week later, I got a call saying it was ready but they'd misjudged how long it would take to tune... I asked how much as I would be bringing cash.
$1600, CASH!
With no choice, I reluctantly paid up. The upside was, 400HP at the wheels at 20psi, dropping back to 18 at max power output.
This was fun...
Next step, change gearbox oil (not that it needed it, but I didn't know what was in there or for how long). I didn't change engine oil as the previous owner said he changed it 6-monthly when he could and had big bottles of Castrol to prove it (also gave me 2 more bottles as he now had no use for them). Redline lightweight shockproof was ordered for the box at a discounted price of $120.
I'd also finally sourced a standard steering wheel.
It was coming together nicely
I'd booked a day with the photographer as my other mate had sold his R33 GTR LM (the blue one) and the new owner wanted to meet up, plus the photographer wanted to take pictures of it. He said he wouldn't be selling it for a good many years to come (older bloke) and it would be his daily drive with minimal modifications. He's a really nice guy and I've kept in contact since. (Also, you're never going to read this, so I'd like to point out that your daughters are all pretty hot
)
Righto, next. I was fed up of looking out for police and evading them because my spoiler stood out like dogs balls (Plus I hated it, it ruined the car's look even though it was actually functional - don't ask how I know). I sold it off to a Silvia owner for $100 to go on their drift car. This spoiler was genuine carbon fiber and would have cost an arm and a leg new.. Oh well. I scored another boot and standard spoiler for $165 in white. Finding a replacement bonnet was proving a mission and a half as all the GTST owners wanted them for upgrades and because it was aluminium, no one wanted to work on it. Happily, I found someone keen to give it a go. (First impressions were great, he had an old escort in his garage fully restored to a race car - currently without engine but with huge 335 rear tyres. It wasn't his but a customer's he was working on). He managed to weld on some new metal and the holes were gone! Just paint now.
Before the paint shop and repairing of bonnet holes, I organised a cruise out to the country. (In the pictures, I have a standard spoiler. I found this cheap to cover up the boot holes as a temporary replacement). This was insane fun and I won't talk about the speeds achieved on a public forum... Speed limit officer!
Pictures - apologies for quality
Booked it into the paint shop, I'm using a different one these days due to quality control. The new place did a fantastic job, however they weren't cheap. Painting and fiber-glassing the bonnet (due to uneven sink-age where the new metal had been welded on) and front bumper, painting the boot, spoiler and rear bumper (getting rid of those awful boot straps) came to $2150. It looked like new now and I don't regret it one bit.
Pics with my mate's R34 GTR (so mint...)
(^favourite pic of my car and still my background)
There was to be a JDM car meet (Show and shine) so I attended. Unfortunately, I only managed to find a few pics of my car. The turnout was huge, approximately 500-600 cars turned up!
Sidestep again...
The Pulsar was leaking oil. The originally clean engine bay now had seepage coming from the block. I had to top it up weekly with about 500ml. Needless to say I chucked it up for sale for a cheap price and someone came and bought it.
Now I needed a new daily as everyone knew when I was at uni..... I even had mates texting me saying I'd been spotted - quite often I'd return with both my wipers up
. I had to drive the GTR and it just stood out like crazy. You also have no idea what its like to drive with solid suspension and a half cage... Any little imperfection in the road is felt. Going over bumps means neutral, 1-2kmh. Hell, I got it on 3 wheels everyday while reversing back into the garage. (Angle of entry, that's how stiff it was..) Luckily no damage was done during that in-between period for during which I hunted for my next car.
I was sick of stupid cars breaking down on me so I upped the budget considerably for something a little more decent. #15 was a 1999 AU Ford Falcon. I spied it at a dealer and it needed a fair bit of TLC but was mechanically sound. Cost was $2500. I found out it was an ex-police car by looking through the logbook. There was a dent in the boot and a rip in the rear seats. Being an ex-cop car, it had firm aftermarket suspension. Because I meant to keep it, I spent a good sum of money giving it a major service, new brakes, exhaust and found some replacement seats for the rear. I removed the hubcaps for that proper "chaser" look
I did buy some wheels for it but when they wouldn't fit. The hub was different even though the stud pattern was the same (off a Japanese car). It would cost me another $400 to machine the hubs and at that point I gave up as I'd already spent $300 getting them reconditioned, excluding the initial purchase price. Fun fact, the guy I use to spray wheels used leftover Lamborghini black paint to paint the centres of these.
Pity really as I reckon they would have looked awesome.
I was happy with this as it had a 4L straight six so plenty of power, sounded good, was comfortable, super reliable etc.
One day my mate said he needed a tow car for his race bike and asked if I knew of any cars to suit (I'm the car salesman you see...) and I said I had this daily driver but it wasn't really for sale.
He convinced me to let him have a look / drive... I did. He liked it and wanted it if I could fit a towbar to it.
Sigh, off I went to find a towbar. I eventually got one and installed it then waved goodbye to my most liked daily driver (bar the R33 GTR). We agreed $4000 - I lost $109 on that but to this day, its still running strong and hasn't put a foot wrong.
It is absolutely awesome fun in the wet.... (He found that out too )
Ugh. This meant I had to find #16!
I popped back on gumtree... One afternoon, I found a lovely 1992 Range Rover Vogue SE for sale. I saw it, freshly listed and thought... That car looks familiar... It was.
My neighbour owned it. I walked next door and asked to view, he'd advertised it stupid cheap at 3k because it had a condition - they got to use it till they left the country (going back to the UK). That was fine with me, deal done, $3000.
Err, 160km, seat covers since new, never been off road...
So now I had 2 grey cars, both gas guzzlers (obviously the RR being MUCH MUCH worse). The best ever fuel consumption I got out of the RR was 21.8L/100km or 13MPG.. HOW DO YOU PEOPLE RUN THESE THINGS???
That said, we found that it was consistently starting on 7 cylinders and would go to 8 (always), and it was also running rich.
Sorry for the poor quality pics.
The novelty soon wore off. I had planned to turn it into a full-time off-roader but decided there would be too much cost involved, plus I didn't want to do it to such a clean example!
Sadly, this went for sale and it sold for 5k with a million people crawling all over it. (Quick 2k profit, yay!)
I sold the GTR just after I sold this. The reason was, end of this year I would be going to England for a year or so as a study break / gap year. It was only AFTER I sold it, that my parents said it wasn't happening till I finished uni... Joy. It sold for $19500 - I lost about a grand on it.
The worst part was, that I never got to take it to the airport or the track at Barbagallo. The even more annoying part was, that I had actually booked and paid for a full day of track work at Barbagallo months in advance with the GTR but the bloke who bought it placed a deposit 2 days before the actual day, and collected it the day before... Worse still! He worked 7 days on, 7 days off and couldn't attend the track day...
Didn't want to sell the GTR like that
That leaves me with 17 and 18, my 2 current cars. This has been an absolutely gigantic update and has taken .... ~5hours?
Thanks for the comments.
The hyundai was actually good, comfy, quiet, cold AC and had enough power for overtakes etc.
Corolla was crap... lol. Clunky, cheap plastic, individual door locks, no p/s and broke quickly..
Haha nothing wrong with the Scottish! He was plainly bulls
tting (imo) cause he said he'd had an 800bhp Impreza, been in cop chases etc... (In Scotland)Right, first things first, I needed a daily to be left at uni. This time, I was a little wiser after the Corolla pooped itself. The budget was still to be as cheap as possible. This meant browsing gumtree
One day I saw advertised, Nissan Pulsar SSS Vector 1990. Top model in its day, it had 170km and was white, however no mention of AC (meaning broken). It was at $900. Within 2 hours of the ad being posted up, I was on my way to view. Annoyingly, the seller called me when I was halfway there saying someone else had already been to view and drive it and were deciding on whether or not to buy.
This being the case, I put the pedal down a little harder in dad's LS400...
Anyway I got there, car was still available. Good. (or bad??). It was fairly clean bar a gigantic rust patch (to me) in a semi-weird spot, the LHS door but nearer the top of it above where the hinges are. Sort of on the A-pillar. There was also no air con, the pipes were in the boot... Happily though, 6 months rego had just been paid. It drove fine, temp gauge didn't work (dodgy) but there was no oil in the coolant and vise versa. Box and engine seemed great. What probably sold me, was the seats.. COMFY! They looked like little recaros.
$700 and the papers were signed.
It was actually quite fun to drive (to my surprise). Apparently it had a LSD according to the sticker on the boot. Sporty suspension and being generally nimble made it "fun" to drive.
The exhaust was stuffed though, had a decent rust hole in it. Back on gumtree, I found someone wrecking a hatch version and to my luck, it had an aftermarket exhaust on it with a oval shape muffler (not loud). $70 and my car now sounded quite decent - a nice bass-y sound without that silly "ricer" scream.
I kept it like this for a little bit as it gave me the opportunity to buy something not so sensible..
To be honest, I wasn't really sure what to get next. I just had a look at everything really.
I quite fancied a boxster but they were still 30-35k for the standard 2.5L, about 10-15k above my budget and slow... That passed, I was then being bored and browsed eBay.
Bad move.
I stumbled across this R32 GTR that needed some work and was unlicensed but it was "cheap" at 14k and had a forged engine rebuild (according to the advert/owner, no papers to prove - more later) plus many other mods.
Next thoughts were of the utter joy experienced with the previous GTR... This had a half cage so I could do proper track work. I rang to view it. It was located about 45mins from me, straight down the freeway a fair distance south, so I booked a weekend to go look.
Advert pictures:
In person, it looked like a proper beast, though there had to be many changes for it to be road legal. There was only 1 tiny, tiny spot of rust on the drivers side side skirt where it joined the body. After getting him to start it up, piles of black smoke came out the exhaust. It hadn't been tuned since leaving Japan, 6 years ago. He'd bought it when he was 18 in 2005 with 141,526km and loved it to bits since. However, he worked in the Navy and would be out to sea for 6-10months at a time and never got to drive it, also forgetting to pay registration in the process. I got the owner to take me for a very brief (illegal..) drive round the block, it wouldn't rev past 4k properly though up to the point of that, it felt damn quick.
I then learnt he'd been yellow stickered (defected) for having a leaky injector in the past and he replaced them with standard items - most likely the reason for the inability to rev properly past 4k (insufficient fuel flow for the power).
I wanted it, the stupid idiot kid inside me wanted to buy an unrego'd, 99% chance ex-circut car in Japan, 21 year old R32 GTR with 147,747km on a replacement dash. (Standard go to 180, this went to 280).
$13000 bank cheque later, I was driving it to the nearest petrol station on a temporary movement permit. You can imagine the head-snapping that occurred.... P plates in this mean, track-spec R32 GTR.
First pictures home:
This was the mod list that I had, I'm sure there would've been plenty more additions that I wasn't aware of.
Engine:
N1 turbos
Greddy piping
Twin Blitz bovs
HKS pods
Rebuilt engine with forged internals. (The importer said it had a full build before being sent over which was why it was imported. No receipts however. The only parts I confirmed were the metal headgasket and baffled sump.)
Catch can setup
3" Blitz exhaust, mild steel
Electronics & Accessories:
HKS F-CON V PRO ECU
HKS Kansai dash
Turbo Timer (Not used but is there and fully functional)
APEXi boost gauge
Blitz Sequential Electronic Boost Controller
Greddy oil pressure & water temp gauges (with memory & high/low settings)
Alarm with immobiliser
GTR gear & handbrake boots
Carpeted parcel shelf (to make it look tidy)
Silly metal gearknob that got hot in the sun
Suspension/Drive line
Half cage (bolt in, legal with permit)
HKS Coilovers (rock hard, adjustable)
HKS Twin plate clutch
HICAS lock bar
Strut brace
Rear strut brace
Cusco Camber Arms
Exterior:
East bear mirrors
Enkei wheels (255/45/17)
Tommy Kaira front bar
N1 side skirts
N1 front lip
N1 rear window (no wiper hole)
Huge genuine carbon fibre spoiler
Bonnet pins
Boot pins
Now this was a bit of a project to get it on the road, but it was ok as in the meantime I had the Pulsar.
This being the case, I took it to the pits to get a list of what needed doing to make it legal. I took off the bonnet pins (legally not allowed - they aren't 100% flush with the bonnet.... What if you were to hit someone and they rubbed against it.. Yeah, extremely dangerous), left the boot pins and took the spoiler off (also illegal).
This left me with 6 holes in the bonnet, 20 in the boot (6 current spoiler, god knows how many others its had) and and I still had a cracked bottom corner fibreglass front bar. There was also the problem with the cage, but I had a secret weapon...
There was no dash lights and tail lights but brake lights were working. I took it to an auto sparky and got raped, lucky I had some lube.. I was charged $220 to diagnose and replace a faulty headlight switch
, which I had to get the switch myself and that cost $50.Pits day, I lined up behind a fair few other cars. This is the biggest time waste ever. I ventured to the one 35mins away cause I heard the inspectors were the most lenient...
After a couple of hours, it was my turn. The inspector came to me and said, ah, this'll be fun eh? I nodded
Nice roll cage he commented, what are we going to do with you!
I yelled.. "I'VE GOT A PERMIT FOR IT!"
I ransacked the glovebox, trying to avoid turning the AC on, found it and handed it over.
He read it, walked back to his office and said it all checks out. Woohoo, only 100 other things to fail me for!
He then went through the usual things like lights, wipers, washers (didn't work) and under the car to check for leaks. Next was opening the bonnet to find any illegal modifications. I had twin pod filters but they were secured. There were also 2 illegal blitz blow off valves but these were well hidden in the tyre guard. As the bonnet was up, it started flapping about in the wind, the support not holding it. This is due to it being aluminium which luckily, the inspector knew was a factory issue. I must add, the twin plate clutch leaves a distinctive rattle, sounding like something is broken.
After checking if there was any play in the suspension, he requested keys and took it for a test drive.
Surprisingly, he didn't stall and took off, bouncing over any slight bump in the road (totally solid suspension).
Eventually he came back, said he'd go write up the paperwork. I asked if I passed? He said I did. I was bewildered. Not known to me then, was that this car being an 89, didn't have to comply to "modern" standards and it was listed on the car registration document. Still, it should have failed for: suspension not having enough movement, steering wheel too small, washers broken and lots of holes in the bonnet and boot. Hah! I was so happy!
Sidestep here, I was looking in the Quokka (local paper) and found a 1994 Nissan Skyline R33 GTS4 Manual (non turbo but with GTR 4wd). It was $2200 and had minor damage in the front drivers guard/door. There was also some paint fade on the RHS rear and boot/bumper. I bought it purely for the money-making potential.
So right now, I had 2 skylines and 1 pulsar. Along with my sister's car, my mums place was now looking like an old Japanese nissan dealership...
I put the GTR on a hold for a bit whilst I fixed up this R33.
The point of it was to make money, so I kept spending to a minimum but wanted it to look tidy-ish. I sourced a new guard for $25, door complete with glass, motor and trim for $100. Sadly they were a different colour but were cheap enough. There was also no gearknob so I put the one from the GTR in it. The handbrake trim was non-existent so I ordered a new one for $20.
The car was mechanically great and I advertised it with both the pics of the car before and after panel replacement to show damage wasn't structural. I got LOADS of calls when I put up on gumtree at $4300 with pictures. First person to view and drive offered 4k which I gladly accepted. Easiest $1700 I'd ever made!
More money to blow into the GTR!I met up with a different mate, new to Perth and keen to photograph cars. These were his results:
The tiny go-kart size steering wheel was on my replacement list but finding a standard steering wheel is extremely difficult in good condition. (1989 car, go figure..) So for the time being, the momo remained. (Must admit, pressing those red buttons for the horn was pretty cool... Wish it was a seccret NOS button like the fast and the furious movies!
)I was getting s
tty fuel economy with the old tune and I bet the spoiler didn't help. (Went back on after I passed the pits.. Looked worse without a spoiler imo. Yes I know it was huge..) I bought some brand new Sard 700CC injectors online and brought it to a performance shop (also an importer of parts / cars). They installed them. However, it was at this point that I spied an absolutely awesome exhaust they had for sale.... It was a custom, front pipe back piece with no resonator, no cat and the only muffler being a cannon on the end. After some convincing, I bought it I'd bought loads of stuff from them before so I was known, he installed the new injectors and exhaust (including purchase price!) for $700.
Now that all that was sorted, it was time for a tune. I should mention that the previous owner thought the turbos were standard. They weren't. Sadly, there was only 1 place in the whole of Western Australia that could tune the ECU I had. They told me it would cost $900-1200 to tune.
With a new ECU costing about $1600 then a tune required for it at my preferred tuners ($400-500), it was cheaper to go ahead, and I did.
A week later, I got a call saying it was ready but they'd misjudged how long it would take to tune... I asked how much as I would be bringing cash.
$1600, CASH!
With no choice, I reluctantly paid up. The upside was, 400HP at the wheels at 20psi, dropping back to 18 at max power output.
This was fun...
Next step, change gearbox oil (not that it needed it, but I didn't know what was in there or for how long). I didn't change engine oil as the previous owner said he changed it 6-monthly when he could and had big bottles of Castrol to prove it (also gave me 2 more bottles as he now had no use for them). Redline lightweight shockproof was ordered for the box at a discounted price of $120.
I'd also finally sourced a standard steering wheel.
It was coming together nicely
I'd booked a day with the photographer as my other mate had sold his R33 GTR LM (the blue one) and the new owner wanted to meet up, plus the photographer wanted to take pictures of it. He said he wouldn't be selling it for a good many years to come (older bloke) and it would be his daily drive with minimal modifications. He's a really nice guy and I've kept in contact since. (Also, you're never going to read this, so I'd like to point out that your daughters are all pretty hot
)Righto, next. I was fed up of looking out for police and evading them because my spoiler stood out like dogs balls (Plus I hated it, it ruined the car's look even though it was actually functional - don't ask how I know). I sold it off to a Silvia owner for $100 to go on their drift car. This spoiler was genuine carbon fiber and would have cost an arm and a leg new.. Oh well. I scored another boot and standard spoiler for $165 in white. Finding a replacement bonnet was proving a mission and a half as all the GTST owners wanted them for upgrades and because it was aluminium, no one wanted to work on it. Happily, I found someone keen to give it a go. (First impressions were great, he had an old escort in his garage fully restored to a race car - currently without engine but with huge 335 rear tyres. It wasn't his but a customer's he was working on). He managed to weld on some new metal and the holes were gone! Just paint now.
Before the paint shop and repairing of bonnet holes, I organised a cruise out to the country. (In the pictures, I have a standard spoiler. I found this cheap to cover up the boot holes as a temporary replacement). This was insane fun and I won't talk about the speeds achieved on a public forum... Speed limit officer!
Pictures - apologies for quality
Booked it into the paint shop, I'm using a different one these days due to quality control. The new place did a fantastic job, however they weren't cheap. Painting and fiber-glassing the bonnet (due to uneven sink-age where the new metal had been welded on) and front bumper, painting the boot, spoiler and rear bumper (getting rid of those awful boot straps) came to $2150. It looked like new now and I don't regret it one bit.
Pics with my mate's R34 GTR (so mint...)
(^favourite pic of my car and still my background)
There was to be a JDM car meet (Show and shine) so I attended. Unfortunately, I only managed to find a few pics of my car. The turnout was huge, approximately 500-600 cars turned up!
Sidestep again...
The Pulsar was leaking oil. The originally clean engine bay now had seepage coming from the block. I had to top it up weekly with about 500ml. Needless to say I chucked it up for sale for a cheap price and someone came and bought it.
Now I needed a new daily as everyone knew when I was at uni..... I even had mates texting me saying I'd been spotted - quite often I'd return with both my wipers up
. I had to drive the GTR and it just stood out like crazy. You also have no idea what its like to drive with solid suspension and a half cage... Any little imperfection in the road is felt. Going over bumps means neutral, 1-2kmh. Hell, I got it on 3 wheels everyday while reversing back into the garage. (Angle of entry, that's how stiff it was..) Luckily no damage was done during that in-between period for during which I hunted for my next car.I was sick of stupid cars breaking down on me so I upped the budget considerably for something a little more decent. #15 was a 1999 AU Ford Falcon. I spied it at a dealer and it needed a fair bit of TLC but was mechanically sound. Cost was $2500. I found out it was an ex-police car by looking through the logbook. There was a dent in the boot and a rip in the rear seats. Being an ex-cop car, it had firm aftermarket suspension. Because I meant to keep it, I spent a good sum of money giving it a major service, new brakes, exhaust and found some replacement seats for the rear. I removed the hubcaps for that proper "chaser" look
I did buy some wheels for it but when they wouldn't fit. The hub was different even though the stud pattern was the same (off a Japanese car). It would cost me another $400 to machine the hubs and at that point I gave up as I'd already spent $300 getting them reconditioned, excluding the initial purchase price. Fun fact, the guy I use to spray wheels used leftover Lamborghini black paint to paint the centres of these.
Pity really as I reckon they would have looked awesome.
I was happy with this as it had a 4L straight six so plenty of power, sounded good, was comfortable, super reliable etc.
One day my mate said he needed a tow car for his race bike and asked if I knew of any cars to suit (I'm the car salesman you see...) and I said I had this daily driver but it wasn't really for sale.
He convinced me to let him have a look / drive... I did. He liked it and wanted it if I could fit a towbar to it.
Sigh, off I went to find a towbar. I eventually got one and installed it then waved goodbye to my most liked daily driver (bar the R33 GTR). We agreed $4000 - I lost $109 on that but to this day, its still running strong and hasn't put a foot wrong.
It is absolutely awesome fun in the wet.... (He found that out too
)Ugh. This meant I had to find #16!
I popped back on gumtree... One afternoon, I found a lovely 1992 Range Rover Vogue SE for sale. I saw it, freshly listed and thought... That car looks familiar... It was.
My neighbour owned it. I walked next door and asked to view, he'd advertised it stupid cheap at 3k because it had a condition - they got to use it till they left the country (going back to the UK). That was fine with me, deal done, $3000.
Err, 160km, seat covers since new, never been off road...
So now I had 2 grey cars, both gas guzzlers (obviously the RR being MUCH MUCH worse). The best ever fuel consumption I got out of the RR was 21.8L/100km or 13MPG.. HOW DO YOU PEOPLE RUN THESE THINGS???
That said, we found that it was consistently starting on 7 cylinders and would go to 8 (always), and it was also running rich.
Sorry for the poor quality pics.
The novelty soon wore off. I had planned to turn it into a full-time off-roader but decided there would be too much cost involved, plus I didn't want to do it to such a clean example!
Sadly, this went for sale and it sold for 5k with a million people crawling all over it. (Quick 2k profit, yay!)
I sold the GTR just after I sold this. The reason was, end of this year I would be going to England for a year or so as a study break / gap year. It was only AFTER I sold it, that my parents said it wasn't happening till I finished uni... Joy. It sold for $19500 - I lost about a grand on it.
The worst part was, that I never got to take it to the airport or the track at Barbagallo. The even more annoying part was, that I had actually booked and paid for a full day of track work at Barbagallo months in advance with the GTR but the bloke who bought it placed a deposit 2 days before the actual day, and collected it the day before... Worse still! He worked 7 days on, 7 days off and couldn't attend the track day...
Didn't want to sell the GTR like that
That leaves me with 17 and 18, my 2 current cars. This has been an absolutely gigantic update and has taken .... ~5hours?
Edited by Ten Four on Friday 7th October 18:16
mig25_foxbat2003 said:
Top update, I can't even imagine what 17 and 18 are going to be! Couldn't believe it when a RR Vogue turned up - you really do have a fantastic car history. That R32 was gorgeous, what a shame you had to let it go - looked a bit daft with the carrying handle on the back mind.
Haha cheers mate! I do love both Euros and Jappers
Agree on the spoiler.
Right. As promised the final "current" update.
If you're squeamish, don't read any further....
So right now, I had no cars and had to drive the S13 Silvia with pink number plates around for necessity trips to uni and such.
I was fairly over cars at this point as there would be nothing I could afford that could best the GTR. I turned to the dark side (insert evil laugh here) and bought the most ugly, slow, pathetic-excuse-of-a-car possible.
A mazda 121.
Yup, the bubble car. Reasons: economical, had air con, cheap. The negatives: everyone asks if I'm batting for the other team
Here it is in all its (lack of) glory..
Note pink reflective stickers that were a non-factory add on...
Since then, the RHS front door trim is now in the boot and it only had 3 hubcaps and my dads daily had 2.. So now it has no hubcaps and my dad's daily has 4.
On the bright side, it has been totally brilliant. I have literally, not put a cent into it other than fuel and today, that's 8500kms later! I paid $1650 for it but had to put 6 months registration on it soon after - approx $2k. I've been thinking about servicing it.
Now.. Me being me, I was back looking for cars as the bubble with its estimated 40-50BHP struggled to keep me happy.. Heck I don't drive it at 100kmh as it feels like its dying (no tacho).
I found a 1996 R33 GTST skyline auto for sale that I thought would do me great as a daily driver. Con: it was unregistered.
I went to look at it. It had a flat battery, space saver wheel, scruffy interior and a boot full of the previous owner's belongings. This ranged from shoes, jeans, beer glasses, assignment papers to a passport. I never actually met the owner as he was interstate. After a massive faff to find a battery that would fit (in the boot, factory), a sneaky test drive eventuated. It drove fine aside from a misfire but I assumed (prayed) all was well and bought it for $3500.
Biggest mistake ever.
I organised payment and obtained a temporary movement permit and drove it home. My mate said he'd be happy to help out with all the mechanical work it needed to pass the licensing test. He may have regretted saying this now as the car lived at his house for a good 3 months.
I bought it at an evening viewing so I didn't notice the body condition... It has rust where both of the side skirts join the body at the front, the front bumper reinforcement bar was totally missing and there was what looked to be repaired damage at the rear of the passenger door.
Sigh. The mechanical side however seemed fine. I underestimated the work required to bring this up to scratch.
Money was spent on:
New pads all round
All rotors skimmed
Set of tyres (4)
LHR seatbelt
New radiator (old one blocked)
New windscreen (cracked, didn't notice this...)
Starter motor
Front reinforcement bumper support
Replacement front bumper in the wrong colour (not allowed fibreglass )
New battery (current one was fine, but didn't meet the requirements of the licensing centre )
New sparkplugs (fixed misfire)
General service
Eventually it was registered. Yay. I could bring it home now.
Then I discovered the AC was broken. (Winter when I bought it you see..)
To hell with it. I was totally over this car and put it for sale. (About 2 weeks ago). I'd put it up at 6900. Next thing to happen, was me driving it home from my mates place (finally) and the damn thing overheated on the freeway! I only knew as a kind bloke pulled up next to me and yelled he could smell coolant and I glanced at my temperature gauge to see it rocketing. This was totally unexpected as it had been fine between driving to and from the licensing centre and having a new radiator with fresh coolant.
This was Perth's first "hot" day, 35degrees and here I was sitting on the freeway shoulder in a sky-sauna waiting for the tow truck.
After what seemed like a year, he came and dropped the car and I home. My mate really couldn't be bothered with it anymore and that was fair enough. I filled the radiator up and drove to a workshop that I'm known at (luckily, 3mins away).
I essentially told them to fix it if it was a leak or leave it if it had a BHG. I got a call saying they'd found a leak and fixed it, yay. The bad news was that it may happen again if I don't change all the hoses in the engine bay but that would be at a big cost. I figured I was selling it anyway so as long as it performed well in the meantime, it would be ok.
Next, I dropped the price to 6000 and had many people come look. The car has performed well during all test drives however the most recent was the most eventful (yesterday). An American guy came to look at it, seemed fairly "normal" until he got the keys. Next thing I know, we were doing 160kmh through an 80 zone on the freeway and hitting the limiter, holding it in gears etc. I then learnt he'd had his scooter impounded earlier for reckless driving as he was doing 105 in the emergency lane through a tunnel - 80 speed limit. A proper douche bag I'd say...
Finally, we returned home, he said 5k but he had to look at one more car and get his GF's tick of approval (to be her car, hence auto). Fine I said.
Still no call back...
For sale pictures make it look better than it really is... (sort of)
I'm thinking about dropping the advertised to 5k firm and just getting rid... However I'm unsure whether or not I should get the front bumper fixed and sprayed. (LHS held on by a bolt due to broken mounting tab.....)
In the meantime, I've been pondering other cars. I was extremely close to buying a 2001 Boxster S. The only thing that held me back, was the fact that it was rusty underneath - not heavy but basically everywhere (UK car). That was $29,000.
That sold, I spied a yellow one, year 2000 but Australia delivered at a dealer. Funny thing about this car, was that there were 2 advertisements for it, one private seller (35k), one dealer (46k). I rang the private number but no answer. I then contacted the dealer requesting the story and they told me they'd bought it off the private seller.
Probably at 30k too. (Market price would've been 37k, was an urgent sale from the ad description.)
I waited it out, saw the price drop... and drop... finally saw it in an autotrader magazine for $34k.
I just had to offload the stupid, soul-reaping, smelly (previous owner smoked), silver skyline first to get the funds (and negotiate a bit off the 34k price).
No luck, it was sold and I'm still stuck with the skyline. Previous to looking at both Porsches and purchasing the skyline, I had a close look at this car:
A 1999 black on black Honda S2000 that was in immaculate condition.
Picture two young guys walking into a dealership at a $20k advertised sports car. The salesman would've been so happy to see us!
My mate and I had a good look over it but didn't request a test drive. It seemed to be the exact car I wanted. I told the salesman I'd be looking at one other one then I'd get back to him.
I rung up, said I'd offer 16k for it. He said no and that was the end of that. (Wish I bought it now, wouldn't have had that stupid skyline!)
As it stands, I've got the skyline in my shed and my bubble, overdue for a service and possibly CV joints sitting outside exposed to a storm tonight. As soon as I sell the Skyline, I'm putting the bubble for sale and then will simply buy one nice, super cold air-conditioned (or convertible), reliable, comfortable car that will last me a year or so until I come to England.
I'll keep this topic updated with whatever happens if there is interest? It'd regard the sales of current cars and the purchasing of future ones. Thanks for reading!
If you're squeamish, don't read any further....
So right now, I had no cars and had to drive the S13 Silvia with pink number plates around for necessity trips to uni and such.
I was fairly over cars at this point as there would be nothing I could afford that could best the GTR. I turned to the dark side (insert evil laugh here) and bought the most ugly, slow, pathetic-excuse-of-a-car possible.
A mazda 121.
Yup, the bubble car. Reasons: economical, had air con, cheap. The negatives: everyone asks if I'm batting for the other team
Here it is in all its (lack of) glory..
Note pink reflective stickers that were a non-factory add on...
Since then, the RHS front door trim is now in the boot and it only had 3 hubcaps and my dads daily had 2.. So now it has no hubcaps and my dad's daily has 4.
On the bright side, it has been totally brilliant. I have literally, not put a cent into it other than fuel and today, that's 8500kms later! I paid $1650 for it but had to put 6 months registration on it soon after - approx $2k. I've been thinking about servicing it.
Now.. Me being me, I was back looking for cars as the bubble with its estimated 40-50BHP struggled to keep me happy.. Heck I don't drive it at 100kmh as it feels like its dying (no tacho).
I found a 1996 R33 GTST skyline auto for sale that I thought would do me great as a daily driver. Con: it was unregistered.
I went to look at it. It had a flat battery, space saver wheel, scruffy interior and a boot full of the previous owner's belongings. This ranged from shoes, jeans, beer glasses, assignment papers to a passport. I never actually met the owner as he was interstate. After a massive faff to find a battery that would fit (in the boot, factory), a sneaky test drive eventuated. It drove fine aside from a misfire but I assumed (prayed) all was well and bought it for $3500.
Biggest mistake ever.
I organised payment and obtained a temporary movement permit and drove it home. My mate said he'd be happy to help out with all the mechanical work it needed to pass the licensing test. He may have regretted saying this now as the car lived at his house for a good 3 months.
I bought it at an evening viewing so I didn't notice the body condition... It has rust where both of the side skirts join the body at the front, the front bumper reinforcement bar was totally missing and there was what looked to be repaired damage at the rear of the passenger door.
Sigh. The mechanical side however seemed fine. I underestimated the work required to bring this up to scratch.
Money was spent on:
New pads all round
All rotors skimmed
Set of tyres (4)
LHR seatbelt
New radiator (old one blocked)
New windscreen (cracked, didn't notice this...)
Starter motor
Front reinforcement bumper support
Replacement front bumper in the wrong colour (not allowed fibreglass
)New battery (current one was fine, but didn't meet the requirements of the licensing centre
)New sparkplugs (fixed misfire)
General service
Eventually it was registered. Yay. I could bring it home now.
Then I discovered the AC was broken.
(Winter when I bought it you see..)To hell with it. I was totally over this car and put it for sale. (About 2 weeks ago). I'd put it up at 6900. Next thing to happen, was me driving it home from my mates place (finally) and the damn thing overheated on the freeway! I only knew as a kind bloke pulled up next to me and yelled he could smell coolant and I glanced at my temperature gauge to see it rocketing. This was totally unexpected as it had been fine between driving to and from the licensing centre and having a new radiator with fresh coolant.
This was Perth's first "hot" day, 35degrees and here I was sitting on the freeway shoulder in a sky-sauna waiting for the tow truck.
After what seemed like a year, he came and dropped the car and I home. My mate really couldn't be bothered with it anymore and that was fair enough. I filled the radiator up and drove to a workshop that I'm known at (luckily, 3mins away).
I essentially told them to fix it if it was a leak or leave it if it had a BHG. I got a call saying they'd found a leak and fixed it, yay. The bad news was that it may happen again if I don't change all the hoses in the engine bay but that would be at a big cost. I figured I was selling it anyway so as long as it performed well in the meantime, it would be ok.
Next, I dropped the price to 6000 and had many people come look. The car has performed well during all test drives however the most recent was the most eventful (yesterday). An American guy came to look at it, seemed fairly "normal" until he got the keys. Next thing I know, we were doing 160kmh through an 80 zone on the freeway and hitting the limiter, holding it in gears etc. I then learnt he'd had his scooter impounded earlier for reckless driving as he was doing 105 in the emergency lane through a tunnel - 80 speed limit. A proper douche bag I'd say...
Finally, we returned home, he said 5k but he had to look at one more car and get his GF's tick of approval (to be her car, hence auto). Fine I said.
Still no call back...
For sale pictures make it look better than it really is... (sort of)
I'm thinking about dropping the advertised to 5k firm and just getting rid... However I'm unsure whether or not I should get the front bumper fixed and sprayed. (LHS held on by a bolt due to broken mounting tab.....)
In the meantime, I've been pondering other cars. I was extremely close to buying a 2001 Boxster S. The only thing that held me back, was the fact that it was rusty underneath - not heavy but basically everywhere (UK car). That was $29,000.
That sold, I spied a yellow one, year 2000 but Australia delivered at a dealer. Funny thing about this car, was that there were 2 advertisements for it, one private seller (35k), one dealer (46k). I rang the private number but no answer. I then contacted the dealer requesting the story and they told me they'd bought it off the private seller.
Probably at 30k too. (Market price would've been 37k, was an urgent sale from the ad description.)
I waited it out, saw the price drop... and drop... finally saw it in an autotrader magazine for $34k.
I just had to offload the stupid, soul-reaping, smelly (previous owner smoked), silver skyline first to get the funds (and negotiate a bit off the 34k price).
No luck, it was sold and I'm still stuck with the skyline. Previous to looking at both Porsches and purchasing the skyline, I had a close look at this car:
A 1999 black on black Honda S2000 that was in immaculate condition.
Picture two young guys walking into a dealership at a $20k advertised sports car. The salesman would've been so happy to see us!
My mate and I had a good look over it but didn't request a test drive. It seemed to be the exact car I wanted. I told the salesman I'd be looking at one other one then I'd get back to him.
I rung up, said I'd offer 16k for it. He said no and that was the end of that. (Wish I bought it now, wouldn't have had that stupid skyline!)
As it stands, I've got the skyline in my shed and my bubble, overdue for a service and possibly CV joints sitting outside exposed to a storm tonight. As soon as I sell the Skyline, I'm putting the bubble for sale and then will simply buy one nice, super cold air-conditioned (or convertible), reliable, comfortable car that will last me a year or so until I come to England.
I'll keep this topic updated with whatever happens if there is interest? It'd regard the sales of current cars and the purchasing of future ones. Thanks for reading!
Edited by Ten Four on Wednesday 2nd November 15:42
NiceCupOfTea said:
Fantastic read, chap. Just spent 2 hours reading this on my Sunday am when I should have been mowing the lawn and going to the garden centre! Incredible list of machinery and you're still in your teens!
Didn't get my first car until I was 25, and I couldn't afford to insure half those cars even now and I am 36 Not really a huge Jap fan but really impressed by the Supra and some of the Skylines. Love the M3 though. Still so expensive to run over here though - the "M-tax" I will own an e36 coupe if I can ever find an unmolested one...
Glad I kept you from the worst possible hobby of all time... Didn't get my first car until I was 25, and I couldn't afford to insure half those cars even now and I am 36
Not really a huge Jap fan but really impressed by the Supra and some of the Skylines. Love the M3 though. Still so expensive to run over here though - the "M-tax" I will own an e36 coupe if I can ever find an unmolested one...I still really, really miss the Supra and have the blokes number but don't want to see what he's turned it into
.Bungleaio said:
What a history! Fair play to you mate, it sounds like it's not really cost you much with you're careful buying and selling.
Oh you had to say it! 
NoVetec said:
Fantastic write-up and history mate, well done!
Maybe sell the bubble and get some German metal again?
I'm very much leaning toward this. Thinking E39 523/528i. One just popped up at a good price and decent mileage.. Its dark green though but I suppose that shouldn't matter as a daily driver...Maybe sell the bubble and get some German metal again?
However... On topic of car hunting, I've seen nothing much really. Then for fun, I clicked Ferrari on carsales.com.au and found this:
A Ferrari 308 GTSI?
Now, its advertised at 39k which I didn't have. I sent the seller an email saying I'd give him 30 cash (no finance) after an inspection to which he replied 34k. (I'd noticed the car has been for sale for a while now and he "may" be desperate to sell...)
Its a LHD New York city delivered car with 16k miles on it will all books and new clutch, belts etc - targa model.
I've emailed my dad's mechanic for his thoughts as he's had one personally and knows absolutely everything about them. He reckons I should set up and appointment to view with him...
My head says no, my bank account says no, my heart says yes.
God dammit...
nev996 said:
well.......i mormally just go to the porsche section on the ph forum but yesterday i dont know why i had a look on here and am so glad i did. you have done exactly what i would love to do ...only now at age 48 but still quite young at heart an not in bad nik we had no mobile fones or even decent cameras while i was young so its a memory thing. i think im near to about 70 cars now and making a list.
anyway i digress......i started reading yesterday then had to go out an then read some more on my return and then off to work last night by this time im roughly 2 thirds thru, so while at work all night ( i drive the petrol tankers and have a few garages on your grandads doorstep in rotherham.....brinsworh is one and parkhall the other and a few in sheffield and surrounding areas) so while at work i couldnt wait to get home to finish the story and i really really enjoyed it. me thinks you hav an old head on young shoulders. i love the detail you provide mixed with some humour. there has been some very fortunate encounters along the way and some good business decisions made. great that your dad has been around and good old grampappy in rotherham.
my grandad ysed to help me along sometimes with cars. the other thing i thought was real nice was that in years to come you will look back at those times you spent with your dad searching for all these motors and i know he probably got on you nerves sometimes but those memories will be priceless in years to come. so glad ive read it and really hope things continue onwards and upwards for you. have only just seen the bit on the ferrari and have to say thats brave but you hav balls so go for it son. regards nev.
Mate, you and I think alike. I love comments like these anyway i digress......i started reading yesterday then had to go out an then read some more on my return and then off to work last night by this time im roughly 2 thirds thru, so while at work all night ( i drive the petrol tankers and have a few garages on your grandads doorstep in rotherham.....brinsworh is one and parkhall the other and a few in sheffield and surrounding areas) so while at work i couldnt wait to get home to finish the story and i really really enjoyed it. me thinks you hav an old head on young shoulders. i love the detail you provide mixed with some humour. there has been some very fortunate encounters along the way and some good business decisions made. great that your dad has been around and good old grampappy in rotherham.
my grandad ysed to help me along sometimes with cars. the other thing i thought was real nice was that in years to come you will look back at those times you spent with your dad searching for all these motors and i know he probably got on you nerves sometimes but those memories will be priceless in years to come. so glad ive read it and really hope things continue onwards and upwards for you. have only just seen the bit on the ferrari and have to say thats brave but you hav balls so go for it son. regards nev.
mig25_foxbat2003 said:
Told you so
Shhh!! As for the Ferrari, I've had another discussion with the seller and he says he won't pop below 34k as he has someone interested at 33k. I basically said if it falls through, let me know...
I have a hunch that his 33k offer is either rubbish, or one pending finance so you never know... (I haven't actually met him / seen the car so that emotional side hasn't affected me yet!)
In the meantime, back to looking at more cars!
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