Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i Fast Car

Some pretty big stuff happened 30 years ago. Dirty Dancing was released, the construction of the Channel Tunnel started and, more memorably still, Rick Astley was banging out Never Gonna Give You Up. But all of that pales into insignificance. Because without doubt the biggest event of 1987 was Fast Car magazine hitting the news-stand for the very first time. And who would have thought that 30 years on, we would still be making the magazine that defines car culture? It’s been one hell of a journey: we started out in a small office in Orpington, moved to a bigger one in Bath, then returned home to Kent in 2014. So much has changed in the world in that time. It’s hard to comprehend how long 30 years even is.…

Cake. Balloons. Streamers. An underlying political tension culminating in an ironic nod toward evolving views on gender equality. We put a lot of thought into how to construct the cover shoot for Fast Car’s 30th birthday issue. But the most important element, above all else, is the car. Just how in the hell do you choose one car to represent all that’s great about the modern modding scene, while also harking back across the last three decades? The answer was to get scientific. Jules donned his ketchup-smeared lab coat. Midge drew up a spreadsheet (which was rubbish, to be honest – he got bored and filled all the cells with pictures of wheels). And the rest of us set about trying to distil the logical essence of what makes a…

What makes a good base car for a stanced show project? The beauty of these builds is that, unlike red-blooded race cars or animalistic drift weapons, you really can start with anything you like. Shucks, it’s often the really unassuming stuff that goes down best in the car scene. Looking that little bit more ironically awesome when dumped on its derrière with some fat wheels wedged out the sides. Take our proud owner here Danny’s previous car: a humble 9N Polo. Where many wouldn’t have the vision to transform such a common sight into something that could win awards, Danny thrived on the challenge. His custom air suspension setup, bespoke interior and endless amounts of split rims bringing him trophy after trophy, even when pipped against much more expensive metal.…

“Once you start cutting there’s no going back. I’m wide-body for life!” You might find it hard to believe. But this fine specimen of a Nissan 350Z, which wins awards around the middle-east coast of the States every time it even threatens to go near a local car show, has also retained daily driver status for its proud owner, for over seven years now. But, using a slammed street-scraper to get to work, visit the family, and grab milk and bread. Isn’t that a recipe for disaster? North Carolina-resident Corey here isn’t the sort of guy who lets such trivial issues get the better of him. In fact, he’s owned no other vehicles in the seven years that have passed since picking up this then-stock 350Z back in 2010. And…

NAVDY, £599 The world’s first augmented-reality driving device is out this month and this thing, it has to be said, looks properly crazy. The idea with the Navdy is that it projects all the info you could ever need right there in front of you, like a second-generation heads-up display that makes sure you can keep looking forward while staying totally connected. You can make and receive calls, listen to messages, control music, receive calendar reminders and control the apps on your phone using your voice or simple hand gestures. The interactive navigation system is powered by Google Maps and it’ll also connect to your car with Navdy Dash to show your speed, RPM and automatically recommend nearby petrol stations when your fuel level is low. In other words, the…

BETTER BREATHING You just know that the very day the first car rolled off the production line, someone jumped in it and decided it needed to be faster. It’s human nature, it’s just what we do. Well, the simplest principle in tuning back then was cramming more air into the engine so more fuel could be burnt, while also getting the exhaust gasses out as efficiently as possible. And you know what? Nothing has changed. A decent high-flow air filter and exhaust combo has always been the first step in the long, slippery slope that ends in an all-encompassing addiction to enhancing power figures. Whether you drive a 1-litre 3-pot or a twin turbo V8 though, these always make a good start. HOOPS GLORIOUS HOOPS If there’s a number one…

No sector of the modified car world moves forward with quite the same relentless pace as that of in-car entertainment. Think about it. Unless you’re a fully paid -up ICE geek, then there’s a very good chance the headunit in your car will have already been superseded and replaced by something far more capable. This is very good news on the whole, as the sheer speed with which the industry moves forward means there’s no shortage of simply amazing tech to be had, with many feature-filled headunits now available for some seriously affordable figures. Proof of this amazing trickle-down of advanced technology can be clearly seen within the Pioneer range. Pioneer has long been a big name in the in car sound world, so much so that it wasn’t that…

It’s been a busy month on the S2000. Although we’ve not physically done a lot to the car, we’ve been hitting the boss’s credit card hard and sourcing some great upgrades for the Honda. Currently on the way we have a set of coilovers from Bilstein, some wheels from Rare Rims and also new discs and pads from EBC. We tell you, whoever wins this car is going to have one sorted motor. With show season just around the corner, one thing we thought we’d better arrange this month was some decent cleaning gear. So we gave our friends at Auto Finesse a buzz and asked main man James Batty if they would like to help out. Before we could even finish our sentence, he said: “Leave it with me.…

Guilty pleasure. That’s a heavily loaded term, isn’t it? Because life is short, no pleasure, no matter how deranged or subversive it may appear, should be considered guilty. You either like something or you don’t. Simple as that. Still, try telling yourself that when you walk through the front door to find your partner dancing around the house to S Club 7’s greatest hits. Or watching the godawful Mrs Brown’s Boys without any apparent sense of irony. People, it has to be said, are strange. But we love strange. It’s what makes life interesting. And this strange sense of colours and shapes isn’t lost on Ian Nixon, the man behind this rather striking Lada. “I have my own business restoring classic cars,” he says. “We restore high-end classics such as…

March. For some people, it’s the month where spring officially begins. It has the star sign of Pisces. It’s the month where daylight saving time starts and the clocks go forward. St David’s Day is celebrated in Wales and St Patrick’s Day in Northern Ireland. But for the VAG community it means just one thing. The UK show season opener, Ultimate Dubs. Firmly at home now at the familiar setting of the Telford International Centre and having the accolade of being the biggest indoor VAG shows in the UK, fighting for one of those prestigious undercover spots was going to be tough. In the weeks leading up to the show, social media erupted with teaser photos and the hashtag #UDPREP from people updating friends and followers on their winter makeovers…

As you’ve probably grasped by now, Fast Car is 30 whole years old. And right from issue one, it’s always been all about tuned cars. But just like the cars we feature, how to make them faster has moved on a long way since the ’80s. Gone are the days of us showing you how to home port your Mini cylinder head, showing you the best cam for your Capri, or how to fit an uprated Weber carb to your Nova SR. But at the same time, many aspects of tuning haven’t changed as much as you might think… FROM RACE TO ROAD If we had to sum up the changes in tuning over the last 30 years, it would be the fact that what was cutting-edge motorsport tuning back…

BILSTEIN CLUBSPORT KIT C63 AMG, From £POA For our birthday issue, we wanted the ultimate performance coilover technology, so we hit up BILSTEIN and they sent us this kit for the W204 C63 AMG. This is their Clubsport kit. “This is completely over the top for the road, but for track, it’s absolutely brilliant,” explains Aftermarket Sales Manager, Aaron Quilter. And you know what? We agree. BILSTEIN Clubsport is geared towards the real track day enthusiast and translates years of motorsport experience and race winning technology into a coilover for you to enjoy. With over 100 different damper setting variations possible, individual bump and rebound adjustment and camber adjustable top mounts BILSTEIN Clubsport should have any real driver drooling. Despite all the adjustment on offer BILSTEIN hasn’t made Clubsport hard…

Size: 625ml Price: £13 www.meguiars.co.uk What’s Mirror Bright all about? The Mirror Bright Polish Company was founded in 1901 by Frank Meguiar Jr. to perfect the finishes on fine furniture & the newly introduced automobile. The Meguiar’s passion continues today with the recently launched Mirror Bright range to celebrate the brand’s heritage. This special line of products, that protect and accentuate automobile finishes, is derived from over 110 years of experience, research and development. Is it any good? The short answer is yes! Meguiar’s Hot Rims All Wheel Cleaner has long been the benchmark product for cleaning all types of wheel finishes, without being too aggressive. Now Meguiar’s has launched this Mirror Bright Wheel Cleaner that boasts even more cleaning ability and is wrapped up in a retro looking bottle.…

“A BMW, painted a Skyline colour, running Skyline oily bits?” The father-and-son motif is a rich seam that’s run through Hollywood from time immemorial. From Catch Me If You Can, to Field of Dreams, Indiana Jones to Finding Nemo, the bond of dad and lad has always been one to tug on the heartstrings. And here we have our very own modern Hollywood tale. Two petrolheads, separated by a generation but bonded by DNA, hailing from that iconic dream-factory town and out to set the world afire with their own unique blend of automotive adventure and misbehaviour. The key protagonists here are Lee Coleman – VP at Hollywood’s-own Viacom by day, caped crusader of awesome engineering by night. And his son Dylan, a dyed-in-the-wool motorpunk with a keen understanding of…

This month I bit the tip of my tongue off, rolled an engine-less MX-5 right over my foot, got punched in the mush by a girl, had a tattoo and attended a meeting about the correct time and place to use an apostrophe. The most painful thing though, hasn’t been any of that. What really hurt was not having a great deal of time to spend on any of my own projects. I did manage to complete such interesting tasks as getting my arse to the local scrappy to find a Beetle engine cover and dash centre. I also found a few hours to rub these down, get them primed, and then box ‘em up ready for a spot of hydro dipping with my old friends at AquaGraphix. But the…

The winter of 2016/17 has been strenuous. Last season we were caught short by a little tangle with a fellow competitor, which took its toll on suspension parts. That’s always a risk when you build for lightness and speed. So from October to December we spent scanning the UK for someone who could replicate our magnesium front suspension uprights, as zero were left from 30 years ago anywhere in the world. Thankfully Creasey Castings, down on the east coast, were happy to cast a set for us. But not until brother Danny had spent umpteen hours fettling an old one into a pattern. You see, when a part is cast, it shrinks during cooling. So in effect, you have to start with a pattern that’s a little larger than required,…

So we are almost at the end of the 30th birthday issue. We’ve looked back, we are looking at the present, but what will the next 30 years bring? Well, we don’t have a crystal ball, fancy name or a bandana, so telling the future isn’t our speciality – if it were we’d all be a lot richer than we are now! What we do know is that history has a habit of repeating itself, and the modified car scene is no different – we are on one big fashion cycle like everyone else. So if you want to look to the future, start by looking at the past. The trends are all there just waiting to be rediscovered – just keep those Lexus lights and chrome spinners locked up…

The Fast Car cover shoot in numbers… 832 miles travelled 312 shots taken 120 pounds spent on cake 48 helium-inflated balloons 15 oxygen-inflated balloons 5 Domino’s pizzas 1 Daisy Watts…

When asked to conjure up an image of a car that’s both fast and luxurious, what pops into your head? A German Autobahn-smashing hyper saloon, perhaps? Or pretty much any vehicle that’s ever made an appearance in the James Bond film franchise? All justifiable answers, but we bet our last McChicken Nugget that the humble Vauxhall Corsa B wouldn’t feature very highly in your list. Don’t get us wrong, the mighty Corsa B is a fantastic everyday car. But pretty much everyone would look elsewhere if ‘performance’ and ‘mod cons’ featured close to the top of your want-list. Everyone except our man Dan West here, that is. He has single-handedly spent the last seven years transforming his five-door, 1.4 GLS-spec’d example of Vauxhall’s most popular little hatchback into a torque-steering,…

“I couldn’t even tell you how much it’s been lowered. But it’s safe to say it’s low!” The prices of *some* used cars are simply rocketing at the moment. People are clamouring over each other to withdraw their last pennies to invest their money in classic cars instead of putting it into a bank where you get almost zero interest for all your hard work. And, while the S2000 isn’t yet technically classed as a classic, it’s sure to be a future one. Investing in cars makes complete sense to us – if it doesn’t to you then why in the hell are you even reading this mag? However, even if the car doesn’t make you money, at least you can nip out for a drive to put the smile…

DYMAG BOXSTROM HYBRID RIMS, £12,000 Back in the ‘80s when they made Back To The Future 2 (Oh, for Christ sake, here we go – Jules), they showed us all tooling around in flying cars by 2015. Now obviously, as no one in their right mind would want to drive a motor anywhere but planted on the terra firma (especially a DeLorean), that was a little stupid. What they should have featured was these utterly bonkers new wheels from Dymag. These are very much the future of circular perfection. OK, so technically speaking, the Boxstrom here isn’t a whole wheel. It’s the barrel part. But perhaps the fact you get to choose your own face option too, just makes these composite items all the more awesome. In fact, Dymag are…

History is studded with examples of self-taught everyday heroes. People who, despite having no formal training in whatever it is they’ve decided to set their mind and their hand to, simply get on with learning how to do it on their own terms. There’s no whining, no histrionics – they merely identify a gap in their knowledge and attempt to fill it. People like Chris Gardner, protagonist in the biographical tale played by Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happiness. The doomed but plucky Frank Grimes in The Simpsons. And, of course, Dan Pritchard – intrepid MG ZR owner, who learnt all of his skills in carbon-fibre fabrication, bodywork design, paint spraying and air-ride installation, simply by googling tutorials and watching instructional YouTube videos. As the flawless results before you…

It’s fair to say my car had a very tough 2016. The arrival of a little Glenn meant the A6 didn’t get a lot of love last year. Apart from the odd clean, a spot of maintenance and the audio install, she’s pretty much not been touched. Well, it’s time for that to change. This year I’m going to give her a bit of a makeover. And that starts right now with the wheels! I had originally toyed with getting some new alloys. But I love my Vossens and although the CV1 is getting on now, a bit like my good self they have also aged rather fantastically. However, also like myself they could do with a bit of a freshen up. Luckily for me I know just the company…

DANNY ALLEN’S MK1 GOLF FC says : This stunning Mk1 blew everyone’s minds when it was debuted back at GTi International in 2002. Smoothing engine bays and off the hook restomods might be popular today, but when Danny built his Mk1 it was revolutionary, next level stuff that would have owned social media – if it was invented! We reckon Danny’s Mk1 still looks as fresh today and could compete with most builds currently doing the rounds. In fact, he’d probably pick up Best in Show if he rolled it out of his garage tomorrow and into the nearest Show and Shine. He keeps teasing us with a potential return once he’s sorted “a couple of bits” and we’d certainly love to see it back on the show circuit. But…

FC gets Ink As you’ve no doubt gathered, Fast Car is 30 years old this month and over that time it’s become a rather epic institution, a place where we’ve all been proud to work and preach the virtues of fettling your metal. What many don’t realise though, is that our longest serving staffers have been here for around half that time. Jules has 15 years on the clock and Midge is just behind with 13. But don’t worry, we’re not here to tell you they’ve decided to bugger off and let the mag fall into the hands of some young whipper-snappers with skinny jeans and no experience. Instead the boys have decided that they’re now ‘FC for life’ and, to celebrate this very special issue, they were determined to…