EVENT – Forza Horizon Launch

With the upcoming release of Forza Horizon, the new installment in the Forza Motorsport franchise, the much anticipated game was officially launched at the Australian International Motorshow in Sydney and automotive bloggers from all over Australia were invited to attend the event and have a go at their new release. Read more

EVENT – World Time Attack Challenge: Friday Morning

It’s a sunny but windy day here in Sydney, Australia. We’re at the new Sydney Motorsport Park, formerly known as Eastern Creek Raceway. With the World Time Attack Challenge (WTAC) underway, cars from all over the world have gathered to race against the clock. With the morning session done and dusted, the current leader is Nemo Racing’s Mitsubishi Evo 9 with an astonishing time of 1:25.74, a whole 3 second faster than the record set by Tarzan Yamada in the Cyber Evo last year.

Read more

EVENT – Showcased Presented By The-Lowdown.com

It was a beautiful sunny day in Sydney, Australia as it played host to the one of the best meets Sydney has ever seen; Showcased presented by THE-LOWDOWN.com. This was the perfect opportunity for enthusiasts from all over Australia to come together and share their love for cars, whether it’s a time attack machine or a show car on bags, this meet had it all. With cars from interstate driving more than ten hours to attend and workshops working overtime to get their car ready to be debuted at Showcased. Read more

NEWS SCOOP – MITSUHIRO KINOSHITA DRIVING IN 2012 WTAC WITH JUST JAP R35

One of the most popular Japanese time attack drivers for fans around the world is going “Down Under” again for the WTAC this year. I was at a dinner gathering up in Nagano for some amazing fun in the snow before my trip to Thailand the next day, which incidentally, was almost a month ago now, when Mitsuhiro Kinoshita told me about the plans… Read more

FEATURE – A MITSUBISHI EVOLUTION VIII THAT IS BARELY STREET LEGAL

The very first thought that ran through my mind when Dan’s Evo 8 drove towards me was “How the hell does this thing have plates?” I’ve stood next to less imposing, quieter race cars on pit lane before. This raw and purpose-built machine clearly looked out of place being driven on the street. That’s not to say I was disappointed to see it on the street – quite the opposite. Read more

EVENT – SKYLINES AUSTRALIA (SAU) AND PROJECTD SOCIAL DRIFT

Can one venue contain both the Skylines Australia Drag Day and the ProjectD Social Drifts on the same day at the same time?

Click on the pictures for 1000px goodness!

Last weekend hundreds of punters converged at the massive car park at the Western Sydney International Dragway… Read more

Cosplay & JDM – Similarities?

Sometimes to better understand the tuning that goes on in Japan, you have to live and experience the culture of Japan. That was the premise of going to watch the Anime Matsuri @ the George Street Cinemas (In Sydney, Australia) for the 14th Japanese Film Festival’s Anime Matsuri. Matsuri simply translated means “festival”. Thus there were many different films to watch and enjoy. My mate (whom we shall call Mr Tartare) recommended watching “Time of Eve”, which was a beautifully done up film (must watch). But the best part of the film was before even entering the cinema. There were people in cosplay roaming around the popcorn counter. In Sydney this is highly unusual, but it made me realise in Japan on a weekend, that this is very normal (in Tokyo).

But while i was shaking my head in disbelief at them, i realised that in a way people who love JDM are similar to these guys. We love to experience the culture of the scene as well as the tuning parts offered. For without the culture, the parts wouldn’t be at the level they are. We love the subway hooks, the wakaba leaf, the domokun and even the touge monster.

Unlike the cosplay people, we don’t dress up ourselves. But we do dress up our cars to get that little bit of the culture in our lives. It’s simple really, our costumes are our cars. So next time i think about giggling at cosplayers, i’m going to remember that i too love the culture

Gran Turismo 5 (GT5) Launch in Sydney.

It was all smiles and excitement as people filtered into the midnight launch event organised by Harvey Norman and Sony. A Sony enforced ban on the sale of the game till midnight of the 25th November ensured a large crowd at the event. Gran Turismo 5 is easily this year’s most coveted and anticipated racing game. With constant delays that have pushed back the release date of the game till now. The game shows off Sony’s Playstation 3′s graphic capabilities and gives the game a hyper realistic feel. It’s definitely no Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, but something a little more serious, but no less fun.

Before even stepping into the store there were a few nice cars downstairs, including this R35 GT-R. I have a feeling that a lot of the customers would have rather have had the chance to win this than the scale model.

There were 4 of these set ups, i would have happily taken home one. It’s definitely THE way to enjoy the game. A Playstation 3 controller just won’t cut it.

Mr Kazunori Yamauchi has outdone himself this time, the cars are so beautifully rendered with excruciatingly fine details present on all cars.

The crowd eager to try their hand at winning the prize.

But in the end this was what it was about. A copy of the game to bring home and enjoy for hours on end.

Interview with Justin Fox, Founder of JDMST

Justin Fox, a name relatively well known amongst the Sydney import tuner/JDM scene, yet strangely mysterious hidden behind the walls of JDMST. He is an enigmatic and yet charming individual and is the founder of JDMstyletuning.com, a forum for JDM enthusiasts that now has a large following worldwide. The forum established in 2005, prides itself on quality tuning and quality JDM parts. Anyone can join and contribute. The regular End of Month Meets (EOMM) are a great way to socialise with other members of the forum and check out their rides. This busy man also founded Sex in Art, VWGolf.net.au (together with Christina Lock) and Bikes Move Us. We managed to catch up with him recently and asked him a few questions.

Benson Lau: What do you work as now?

Justin Fox: I’m still doing graphic and web design for select clients but I spend most of my time running my own sites: Australian INfront, JDMST, VWGolf.net.au, Bikes Move Us, Sex in Art, my blog and now Modern Pet Shop. (Edit: Since this interview was conducted a new project, www.ordinaryextraordinary.com.au)

BL: When did you first get into cars and why did you get into cars?

JF: My Dad was super into cars, so too my cousin from Indonesia who came out to Australia to study in the mid 80′s. My Dad changed cars a lot in his time and every year, without fail, he’d take me to the Motor Show. My cousin, who lived with me at the time, was car obsessed in high school. He often drew cars with huge wheels, Indo style!

BL: What do you remember about your Dad’s passion of cars? What from that got you more keenly interested into cars?

JF: Lots of little things. He had a lot of car magazines which I always looked through. He was always changing cars every couple of years. I got to start them up before school as a little kid. He drove fast and cornered hard. I remembered often sitting in the car, eyes shut with a pen to a pad of paper, at the end of a drive I’d have a pretty dynamic artwork from all the times the pen left the pad when Dad was cornering hard!

He always liked to have the very latest models. He imported his own Honda Accord (flip light version) and got it landed months before Honda Australia started selling them. He also owned a white 4WS Honda Prelude way before anyone else owned one (before it became Wheels Car of the Year). I remember that he had the wheels powder coated white on that car. One afternoon I put a ding in his door when my skateboard went flying into it, he was pretty angry, that made me realise how much he loved his cars (that cars weren’t just cars to him!). Lots of little things.

BL: What was your first car?

JF: I’d ridden motorbikes for a couple of years and my parents offered to buy the car for me so long as I sold my bike. To be honest I’d had enough of bikes at the time. I never quite got confident on them and came close to falling off more than a few times. I remember not knowing what to look for in a car, but I wanted anything but a Honda as my Dad used to always complain about how he wanted more power from his Honda’s. I ended up buying a 2nd hand automatic Toyota Celica (T180).

BL: Why and what did you first modify? What got you started in the tuning scene?

JF: I often visited Hong Kong in those years as my family had business over there. I used to linger in the autmotive section of the Sogo department store. On one trip I ended up buying a gunmetal grey toyota badge for my bonnet, a clamp-on exhaust tip and also some Tom’s Racing Stickers, which I stuck on the doors. Later on I got a loud stero system, painted the rear tail lights and indicators black and bought a 2nd hand set of VW Golf VR6 BBS wheels, which happened to bolt straight on. The guys at Pedders (a chain of car suspension workshops in Australia)  cut my springs to lower the car and I got the guys at Midas mufflers (a chain of  general car servicing workshops in Australia) to make me a custom exhaust!

BL: Why did your parents want you to sell the bike?

JF: Yeah I regret wanting a bike so bad. I fought with my Dad a lot about the bike and put him and my Mum through a lot of worry. He refused to let me ride one but he taught me from an early age that if it’s food I want he’ll treat me to anything but if I wanted toys I had to go out and make my own money, so I did (Woolworths night packing FTW!). I got my riding license, sold my tricked out mountain bike for $3000 and bought myself my 1st bike despite my parents not wanting me to.

BL: What did you enjoy about the Celica?

JF: It was my first car so I very much enjoyed the freedom of driving more than the car itself. I didn’t have to wear a helmet, or protective clothing, or worry about bad weather. I could blast my heavy metal through the stereo and I could take friends places. I drove it every day, it was more about function than passion (but I secretly did really wish I had a GT4, or at least a hood scoop to make my car look like one!).

BL: What happened to the Celica?

JF: I ran it into the ground. Due to a slow leak from a small hole in the radiator I blew the head and after that it went through the Sydney hail storm which absolutely demolished it. That year of the hail storm I had stopped paying full comprehensive insurance on it too, really bad luck. A few months later I couldn’t stand the mouldy smell inside the car (every time it rained there were puddles of water under the carpet), the electrics were dying too so I traded it in for a new Alfa 147 for $4000 (which I thought was a deal considering the car was so dead).

BL: And how did you move from purely modifying to tuning your car?

JF: When I owned the Alfa, Alfa Romeo Australia invited me out to a track day at Eastern Creek. One of the instructors said I had some potential and I did well out there, that one comment and time behind the wheel on a race track got me pretty excited. A few weeks later I was in the city when a guy in a suit approached me (whilst I was in the car). He liked what I had done to the Alfa and invited me out to a Burrows Drive Day at Eastern Creek. I mustered the courage to attended and I was hooked. I did a lot of track days in the Alfa, when the Alfa wasn’t enough (to overtake the fast guys in their Ferrari’s and Porsche’s) I sold the Alfa and bought the GT-R.

BL: What made you start JDMstyletuning.com?

JF: In 1999 I founded a successfull online design community (Australian INfront) and I was itching to use the skills I had developed in creating that community on my new passion (cars).
I realised from joining various forums that the Nissan guys hated the Honda guys. Subaru, Mitsubishi, Toyota…I saw a lot of tension out there. Being an outsider at the time I thought it was ridiculous as all these guys hated each other but they were all into the same thing. Japanese cars and modifying them. My mission was to unite them all. To get all these guys to see the bigger picture which suggests that we are a group of like minded individuals who share a passion for Japanese cars be it Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Suzuki or Toyota.
Friends at the time were important too.

I was hanging out with Zi (JDMyard, a tuner workshop in Sydney) a lot and I’m sure we talked about JDMST. Amir Parsinejad (RaceBorn) was around, so too Howard Lim, Christina Lock, Andrew Price, Garth Ivers, Alan Li, Lilian Truong and Nico Tjen. I roped all these guys in. It was February 2005, Speed magazine was still around and was an inspiration to me at the time. I approached photographers Easton Chang and Dean Summers to help me with contributing photos for the JDMST front page (I actually used one of Mark Pakula’s photos in the mock-up, long story short but he found it and some people at Auto Salon magazine, a now defunct Australian tuning and modifying magazine, were quite mad with me!). We had our first meet at Krispy Kreme’s Mascot, it was a killer turnout, there was a buzz in the air and for me, that night really solidified JDMST and it’s potential.

BL: Do you feel like the mission has been accomplished with the uniting of the JDM scene? Or is it still some ways off?

JF: I think so. JDMST goes through ups and downs but it’s largely organic and so far in regards to statistics (currently over 8000 unique visitors daily), it’s gone from strength to strength.

BL: What do you think is the JDM tuner’s mindset?

JF: It depends on the tuner, and the project. There’s so many scenes within the scene and so many ways to tune the same car. Personally I’ve always done the same thing with every single car I’ve owned. Instead of focusing on power I like to lighten the car to make it feel better in corners. I spend the most time sorting out the handling and I try my best to use Japanese parts because I love them. When I bought the Golf I had intentions to bag it. I thought of rocking up to meets and letting the car drop until the skirts touch the ground, sure it would look crazy but in the end it just isn’t me. I’m still upset I didn’t do it as now I find myself doing the same thing I do to all my cars on the Golf. Ripping weight out, semi-slicks and track work. It’s been fun, but it’s all getting a little safe and maybe a little boring.

BL: What do you think is the direction of the tuning scene in Australia?

JF: I think JDM Style and Tuning in Australia peaked a few years ago and right now it’s transforming almost into 2 different levels/classes. At some stage a lot of people lost the ability to spend more than they earned on quality JDM parts (in my opinion, trial and error and going for broke was what it was all about!). A lot of opportunistic brands came from nowhere, selling much more affordable performance and styling gear. People started buying this gear and giving it rave reviews (viral) which in turn inspired more people into seeing value in buying cheaper gear (in some cases replica/counterfeit products).

I can’t speak for the entire tuning scene, but in regards to JDMST; I don’t believe that we have our own unique style (nor are we desperately trying to find one). There’s always going to be JDMST members who hate on people for being too literally inspired by overseas movements but hey, trends are addictive (and for those who get caught up in it, fun). Personally I’ve always looked to Japan and the States and admired what they’re doing over there with both Japanese cars and Euro cars, both from a stylisting point as well as performance. For the moment I’m happy for our scene to continue to be inspired by what we’re seeing overseas.

BL: Do you see parallels between how the Japanese automobile manufacturers broke into the US car market and how the Taiwanese and Chinese brands are breaking into the aftermarket tuning scene? Or is it a completely different scenario?

JF: I’ve never thought of it that way but I think it’s pretty evident that the financial crisis has affected our hobby. People are placing much more value in cheaper goods despite knowing they’re not as good as more expensive quality goods. Where people perceive value, that’s what’s changing everything.

BL: What have you owned?

JF: Toyota T180 Celica, Alfa Romeo 147, Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R, Toyota AE86 Levin GTV, Honda EG Civic VTi, Honda EG Civic Si, Honda Integra DC5R, Honda Integra DC25R, Kia Spectra (! BL: verified), BMW 318i, Toyota MR2 Spyder, Mitsubish Evo 6.5 TME, Mazda MX5 NA Clubman, Honda S2000, Honda Jazz manual, Honda Jazz auto, Honda Jazz K20A, Honda ED Civic, Nissan Skyline V35 350GT, VW Golf MKV GTI.

BL: Out of all the cars you have owned, which let you down the most, taking into account reliability, driving feel and expectations?

JF: Somewhere in the middle I felt the need to stop the addiction. I was spending more money than I was earning and I just had to get out of the hobby. I bought a Kia Mentor for a daily. It was cheap, looked cheap and felt cheap (the car was designed so bad I couldn’t see out of the boot!). I now knew why people with Hyundai Excels drove so aggressively. When you own a car as shit as this you can’t help but drive the wheels off it. A week in the car was ticking loudly, it sounded like it was going to blow up any minute, also, I somehow found my way to a Kia forum, saw that there was a guy modifying his Kia and I even asked him about a few mods he did. I had an epiphany, thinking about modifying a ticking time bomb was not on and I sold the car the week after.

BL: What car do you miss the most?

JF: Hard one to answer. I miss the MX-5 a lot. I learned more about driving in that car than any other. I miss the EVO TME a lot too, dead stock, such an amazing car that I sold way too early. I miss the S2000 a lot, it’s perhaps the only car I’ve ever bothered to put a kit on. I miss the AE86 as it was a special edition and I regret not having the balls to put the $5k into it to make it amazing. The ED Civic was a lot of fun too and it’s another one of the cars I can still clearly see in my mind’s eye, with the new owner driving off up the my hill.

BL: What cars are you looking forward to driving/owning in the future?

JF: From people who have driven it I’ve heard the new GT-R is amazing. I’d love to own one but even selling all 3 cars (GT-R, GTI and Christina’s R32) won’t buy me one. I’m itching to try one though, it’ll be the fastest car I’ve ever driven, no doubt.

BL: Any advice for people just getting started into tuning?

JF: Finding a good mechanic is a great start. Once you find one you like and trust you’ll also pick up a crew of like minded tuners as well as knowledge. I met heaps of friends through hanging out at IS Motor Racing (a tuning workshop in Sydney) and Indy has always looked after me.

The IKEA Phenomenon – Allen Key Tuning Packages

As tuning moves to be more mainstream i often wonder how it will affect the tuning world. In a way we are already experiencing the prepackage phenomenon at our local tuner shop with bolt ons, but its not IKEA style yet (although there is an Ikea car concept called the Leko, unsure if its a joke). There isn’t the provision of allen keys with every purchase. There isn’t a flat pack carton containing a plethora of parts from Koyo radiator, Garrett 3076R, BC Racing ER coilovers, Greddy Trust Spec R intercooler, Kakimoto R exhaust and AM Performance dump pipe. And i got a bit sidetracked there…

Places like MRT Performance in Sydney’s Inner West are already offering kits for Subaru and Mitsubishi vehicles. The popular XA, XB and XC kits are predesigned tuning packages that are meant to increase performance, without the fuss of tuning (which to me is part of the enjoyment of tuning). But as with Ikea products you do sometimes find things don’t quite fit properly; or the table may be wobbly and so on. The exhaust on these kits do sound a bit tinny, which ruins the aural sensation of driving a tuned up car. While it’s sad to be heading away from crafting the perfect combination of parts for your needs, the packaging of upgrades is the inevitable shift as tuning gets more mainstream.

The days of extremely well engineered quality parts are fast disappearing, with the flood of moderately well made Taiwanese and Chinese tuning parts. While some may think this would lead to the end of tuning, i think this will lead to levels of tuning. There will be the tuners that demand the best and go for “designer” parts. There will be people who find the off-the-shelf items from Ikea adequate and enough for their needs. Then there will be the people who only seek out the old parts, because “parts aren’t built like they used to be”.

Personally i dread the day when tuning parts are no longer crafted, but on the other hand… someone pass me the Allen keys and Ikea catalogue please?