Max Power Live
Discussion
I got a call last week inviting me to take the Boss Cerbera to the NEC for the Max Live show. Never been before so thought it might be fun....
The obligatory "laydeez"...
Terry Grant showing what Speed Sixes are all about...
...and changing a wheel on his Legend ...while it was donutting!
Worth going just to see 'Steer From The Rear'. Watching this lot 'formation drifting' made me want to turf the Boss out and get in the ring with Terry.
The obligatory "laydeez"...
Terry Grant showing what Speed Sixes are all about...
...and changing a wheel on his Legend ...while it was donutting!
Worth going just to see 'Steer From The Rear'. Watching this lot 'formation drifting' made me want to turf the Boss out and get in the ring with Terry.
To be honest, it did - mainly because of the sheer quality (if not taste) of some of the modded cars. The talent it must take to create some of the shapes/interiors they make ain't to be sniffed at IMHO. There's a more than the usual chav fodder there. A Supra with chrome paint was remarkable, some of the Skylines were stunning and there were Lambos a 645 BMW, and a couple of modded TVRs.
The show itself wasn't very big. Some of the 'laydeez' were scary
Highlight had to be Terry Grant's antics and the Steer From The Rear crew. Worth going for that alone.
The show itself wasn't very big. Some of the 'laydeez' were scary
Highlight had to be Terry Grant's antics and the Steer From The Rear crew. Worth going for that alone.
Much of the anti-modification on here is uncalled for, although there are a lot of badly modified cars around there are also some truly amazing cars. And some people are just hypocrites - have a go about kids driving round in their cars together then participate in the blatenely named "Poseurs Run 2006" for Ferraris and Lambo's only 
Boosted LS1 said:
I wouldn't give lax power any of my time. Started off as a good mag years ago and then soon went for the bling bling crap and loud speakers, oh and cheap thrills. They haven't changed!
Bah humbug an' all that. LOL! Max Power was for the generation after me. I count myself as Street Machine generation - hence the V8 and cubic inches obsession I guess.
I took the outside back cover of the first issues of Max Power to place ads for ICE products (high power American subs). Max Power was the logical successor to Street Machine which, a decade before, had been the logical successor to Custom Car in terms of where car-modding was at. Max Power arrived at a time when car tuning had changed. All of a sudden, common-or-garden cars that teenagers could afford had fuel injection and ECUs where once there were carbs and - maybe - electronic ignition.
Tuning for my teenage peer group was all about Webers, Piper Cams, Cherry Bombs and jacking up the rear (or lowering the lot if you favoured 'roundy roundy' over the quarter mile). Fuel injection and ECUs (XR3i etc) was a black art. The first teenage generation that got their hands on this kit couldn't do anything with it. The pissing contest shifted to ICE until the expression 'chipping it' arrived. Max Power began serving this generation. Spotting that emerging mega-ICE trend early - provoking it even - was one of my most successful marketing campaigns.
At school, I remember a friend's jack the lad father buying a brand new XR3i (1980-ish?) and junking the injection stuff in favour of a pair of rorty Dellortos (and doing a Cibie quad headlamp conversion!). Point being it was considered easier to butcher a loom to go back to what he understood than delve into them thar new fangled computerised engines. (Bear in mind [a minority of] homes had VIC 20 computers then - with programmes on cassette tapes). These cars were what, a few years later, teenagers got to buy secondhand ...and load full of hi-fi.
While there is much comedy to be found in wannabe Max cars, the 'real deal' is an art form. Casting my mind back, wannabe cars in my day were ladder bars to jack up leaf-sprung primered Fords and Vauxhalls in a bid to emulate the art form chrome Jag IRS suspended magazine cover cars. What I grew up thinking looks cool looked daft to my elders and - with hindsight - looks daft to me now. But at the time, it was where it was at.
Shoot me but I was gobsmacked by the craftsmanship of some of the cars at Max Live. I would feel a proper c
t driving one (which, bluntly, ranks me as 'old' I guess... 
) but the chrome Supra, a purple 3 series convertible and the orange 3 series on the Meguiars stand were truly stunning. There's nothing new in naked birds running around cars either - Custom Car was virtually a w
k mag in the late 70s/early 80s. It's back in fashion, it ain't new. Anyway, to the Max Power generation, TVRs are a hero car. TVRs have solenoid door locks, trick paint, mad interiors... TVR's future customers are driving the Saxos we're so often rude about just as I, as a TVR customer in the end, was once smoking about in a Starsky-striped Viva that made my mother tut and saw me pulled over by the BiB for 'Waitrose car park getaways' on a regular basis.
What's that old saying about the more things change, the more things stay the same? In many ways, the Max Live show was a trip down memory lane.
He he,
I started off with Fast Car, Performance Tuning (that was a good mag but short lived),CCC, Dave Walker and Dave Vizard. So, used to get a wealth of tecnnical information. Then Max Power came along with lots of turbo articles, well for a couple of months they did before moving towards what they have become now. It's seems that the 'yoof' of the day has been sold short. They drive cars with appendedges glued on that have a big sub and nothing under the bonnet. Bling seems to be the main driving force today, in many walks of life but bling is also cheap & nasty if over done.
Oh well, I'm ready to join the Grumpy Old Men but at least I've had the experience of a big engine in a small car and some pretty fast japanese motorbikes all by the time I reached 21. Not a saxo with a metallic paint job or a 50 cc hair dryer! Come to think of it, I blame the government as it's them who made kids ride small machines, take two part tests and pay high insurance in the first place!
Boosted.
I started off with Fast Car, Performance Tuning (that was a good mag but short lived),CCC, Dave Walker and Dave Vizard. So, used to get a wealth of tecnnical information. Then Max Power came along with lots of turbo articles, well for a couple of months they did before moving towards what they have become now. It's seems that the 'yoof' of the day has been sold short. They drive cars with appendedges glued on that have a big sub and nothing under the bonnet. Bling seems to be the main driving force today, in many walks of life but bling is also cheap & nasty if over done.
Oh well, I'm ready to join the Grumpy Old Men but at least I've had the experience of a big engine in a small car and some pretty fast japanese motorbikes all by the time I reached 21. Not a saxo with a metallic paint job or a 50 cc hair dryer! Come to think of it, I blame the government as it's them who made kids ride small machines, take two part tests and pay high insurance in the first place!
Boosted.
Boosted LS1 said:
He he,
I started off with Fast Car, Performance Tuning (that was a good mag but short lived),CCC, Dave Walker and Dave Vizard. So, used to get a wealth of tecnnical information. Then Max Power came along with lots of turbo articles, well for a couple of months they did before moving towards what they have become now. It's seems that the 'yoof' of the day has been sold short. They drive cars with appendedges glued on that have a big sub and nothing under the bonnet. Bling seems to be the main driving force today, in many walks of life but bling is also cheap & nasty if over done.
Oh well, I'm ready to join the Grumpy Old Men but at least I've had the experience of a big engine in a small car and some pretty fast japanese motorbikes all by the time I reached 21. Not a saxo with a metallic paint job or a 50 cc hair dryer! Come to think of it, I blame the government as it's them who made kids ride small machines, take two part tests and pay high insurance in the first place!
Boosted.
I started off with Fast Car, Performance Tuning (that was a good mag but short lived),CCC, Dave Walker and Dave Vizard. So, used to get a wealth of tecnnical information. Then Max Power came along with lots of turbo articles, well for a couple of months they did before moving towards what they have become now. It's seems that the 'yoof' of the day has been sold short. They drive cars with appendedges glued on that have a big sub and nothing under the bonnet. Bling seems to be the main driving force today, in many walks of life but bling is also cheap & nasty if over done.
Oh well, I'm ready to join the Grumpy Old Men but at least I've had the experience of a big engine in a small car and some pretty fast japanese motorbikes all by the time I reached 21. Not a saxo with a metallic paint job or a 50 cc hair dryer! Come to think of it, I blame the government as it's them who made kids ride small machines, take two part tests and pay high insurance in the first place!
Boosted.
As with Boosted, i started out reading Fast Car (from the very early 80's i might add-not the shat that it represents today) along with articles from A series maestro (unfortunate name/car interface there) David Vizard amongst others.
Also used to read CCC etc, all technically orientated stuff.
And then along came "max" power.
What a sad sack excuse for a "tuning" mag. Ive yet to see anything in there that mildly represents "proper" modifying, its always the same crap-stick on kits and shiney crud that dosent actually *DO* anything to improve the cars performance.
To me, most "max" power cars are simply a Danny La Rue/Lilly Savage hybrid; ie, pretending to be something it aint.
The sooner the "max" craze dies a horrible death, the better.
)BossCerbera said:
I got a call last week inviting me to take the Boss Cerbera to the NEC for the Max Live show. Never been before so thought it might be fun....
The obligatory "laydeez"...
Terry Grant showing what Speed Sixes are all about...
...and changing a wheel on his Legend ...while it was donutting!
Worth going just to see 'Steer From The Rear'. Watching this lot 'formation drifting' made me want to turf the Boss out and get in the ring with Terry.
The obligatory "laydeez"...
Terry Grant showing what Speed Sixes are all about...
...and changing a wheel on his Legend ...while it was donutting!
Worth going just to see 'Steer From The Rear'. Watching this lot 'formation drifting' made me want to turf the Boss out and get in the ring with Terry.
I was going to this in the Cerby if i hadn't sold it the week before
Having said that the whole boot is taken up in the astra by a boombox full of subwoofers I inherited off the previous owner
. mad mark said:
The trouble is, the insurance company's are killing off tuning cars like we used to do.
So there is more of a tendancy to go for hifi and body mods, rather than fitting V8's into Escorts or Cortina's.
Hense less techie articles
So there is more of a tendancy to go for hifi and body mods, rather than fitting V8's into Escorts or Cortina's.
Hense less techie articles
I have to agree that this may indeed be the cause. Perhaps this started after people started nicking Cosworths.
Boosted.
Well, well Phil . . . you surely have a broad scoop . . . but hey, why not:
posted this stuff yesterdaynight.
Click on the Edmunds for the tasty footage
Wonder about this chain: going from one to the other . . . the silver one that is
Did she leave a mark BTW
Edit for bad spelling . . .
posted this stuff yesterdaynight.
Click on the Edmunds for the tasty footage
BossCerbera said:
The show itself wasn't very big. Some of the 'laydeez' were scary
Wonder about this chain: going from one to the other . . . the silver one that is Did she leave a mark BTW
Edit for bad spelling . . .
Edited by dinkel on Sunday 2nd July 21:49
Gassing Station | General Gassing [Archive] | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff