- What’s that? A racing crab!?
-Michael
Events; Americarna 2011 – Invercargill
April 14, 2011
I’m sure you all know what a mass of American cars look like? Not exactly breaking the boundaries of excitement. So instead of sharing them all I’ll share what I consider the pick of the crop with just a link to the photobucket album where the rest of the photos are…
Plymouth Awesome
Chrysler Awesome
Mercury Awesome
more Plymouth Awesome
Buick Awesome
Author’s Cars; Sunny Head
April 12, 2011
I apologise for the lack of updates, my world is a bit up in the air at the moment. Just as a random token of nothing, here’s the latest thing that I bought in recent times.
- Double Valve Springs
- Over-sized Stainless Valves
- Ported and Flow-Tested
- Indicative shot of work done.
It will be a while until I can actually use it but I managed to pick up the package for less than what the stainless valves would cost, so even though it was an extreme stretch of my current financial situation, I think it was worth it.
-Michael
Special Kei
April 6, 2011
Petrol prices are rapidly approaching NZ$2.50 a litre for the “good stuff” (read: 98 octane) and public consciousness is once again turning towards small fuel efficient vehicles as a form of personal transport. While I still love my daily driven supercharged AW11 MR2 and wouldn’t give it up for a newer car in any great hurry, I’ve warmed to the idea of importing an ’80s kei car to take over everyday duties if the MR2 ever gets sold. But no way an hell am I gonna settle for something with less power than a wet fart, so I did some interwebs trawling and came up with this:
Presenting the CC72A Suzuki Alto Works RS-R.
550cc of fury.
Publications all over the globe have spent years waxing lyrical about the kei car phenomenon, and the Japanese penchant for shoehorning the latest technology of the time into the most compact and mundane of things really shines through here. Where else in the world could you find Grandmama’s Little Shopping Cart with a twin cam, turbocharged, injected, intercooled 3-cylinder engine with full-time 4WD? Even better when you consider this was all the way back in 1987.
If you haven’t already read Autospeed’s 2004 writeup on the Alto Works, I suggest you go read it post haste. And then go watch some of the nutty Japanese videos on youtube. Those 3 cylinder engines sound AWESOME!
And if forums all over the web are to be believed, you can get 100kW out of the damn things with a bit of effort.
Though I’d have one without the hot pink interior, thanks.
Authors’ cars: Savanna RX-7 two seater conversion begins
April 4, 2011
If you thought my pace on the Skyline was glacial, the task of converting my RX-7 to a pure two seater is proving to be a few orders of magnitude worse. At the rate this is going, I don’t see it being back on the road this year unless I fly over to the States and hand pick the parts myself.
the first piece of the puzzle has now arrived in the form of a complete rear carpet section (in the correct colour and trim). Discovered it going for cheap on eBay partway through last month, so I promptly bought and had it shipped to NZ – and the goddamn freight ended up costing more than the item. At least it only took 14 days to get here.
One thing down, about 400 to go...
the search continues in the form of a daily trawl of eBay; a listing for a pair of rear trim panels has now appeared, but the seller has quoted phenomenal shipping to NZ – easily over $100US. Fun times.
Some days I wonder if it would’ve just been easier all along to have the rear pillars re-engineered, the interior hacked to pieces, and an extra $3000 handed over JUST for a pair of seatbelts in the back.
