Innehållsförteckning för October 2016 från Fast Car

For as long as cars have existed, people have wanted to muck about with them. Ever since mankind first started nailing together automobiles as an alternative to horses, plucky young daredevils have been uprating parts and getting up to mischief. Early hot-rodders blew off steam in the wake of various wars and military tours by getting together to share their skills in the pursuit of going faster; NASCAR evolved from the criminal element’s enthusiasm for building super-fast sleepers for bootlegging purposes – and it’s not all battlefields and moonshine. It’s a basic, ingrained human behaviour. We’re compelled to modify our cars because, well, we just have to. And there’s a whole weight of history behind this that we can happily blame for it all. 1960s If there was one major…

Calibre Zero Sizes: 8x and 9x15 inches, 8x16 inches PCDs: 4x100 Offsets: ET25 Finishes: HyperBlack with polished dish CALIBRE ZERO, From £105 What with our world being rammed with glorious large diameter, forged wheels, it’s easy to go all magpie and forget about the smaller budget options out there. Yep, huge expensive hoops are one thing, but they’re not a whole lot of use if you’re rolling around in a small hatch like a Lupo or 106, right? Admittedly even us FC monkeys are guilty of neglect from time to time, especially when looking at new ‘WOW’ products to review. And it’s likely because of a market flooded with cast 6 and 7x15-inchers, which may look great on their own, but don’t always help matters if you want to use…

TOP FEATURES: •  500 WATTS (RMS)• 9.5X9.5X10.5 INCHES• QUARTER-INCH ALUMINIUM CHASSIS• LONG THROW L7 8-INCH WOOFER KICKER L7QB8 ENCLOSURE, £649.99 Here’s some great news for hardcore bass nuts, UK audio specialists Celsus are now the official UK distributors for high-end American brand Kicker. These guys, perhaps most famous for their mental-quality square subwoofers, are bound to cause a storm this season, because now we can actually get our hands on some of the most sought-after kit on the planet. That of course includes this super-sexy item – the world’s only all-aluminium subwoofer enclosure. At under 11-inches long, this particular box of tricks may be properly compact but there’s a definite case of little man syndrome here. It’s loud. And I mean seriously loud. Packing a specially designed, eight-inch long-throw reflex driver, designed for…

So back in June we ran a competition with the dream team that is Eibach UK and Demon Tweeks. The prize was pretty immense even if we do say so ourselves, with up to £1,700 worth of upgraded suspension and alignment products from industry leaders, Eibach, plus full fitting. And four-wheel alignment at those top dogs Demon Tweeks. But that was not all. The winner got free entry to the fantastic Fast Car Festival held on the last weekend in July, with the chance to display their newly ‘Tweeked’ (see what we did there?) ride on Eibach’s prominent show stand, with track time included. It was a great prize and a lot of you thought the same as we were inundated with entries. But only one of you could be…

“It may be a bit of a ‘look at me’ colour. But I just fell in love with it” If there’s one thing showbiz has taught us, it’s that the world needs double-acts. Jake and Elwood, Ren and Stimpy, Patsy and Edina… when two characters work together, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. So it is with Jay McToldridge and Carl Taylor, the charismatic duo behind the Players colossus that brings you stance-themed splendour at North Weald, titillates your retro lobe with the Players Classic down at Goodwood, and generally serves to make the modifying scene a better place. Naturally, however, when you separate the duo into its constituent parts, you’re still left with some pretty succulent ingredients. And the one under scrutiny today is the…

“I can’t drive something normal. Everything’s got to be scraping the floor and have nice wheels!” Bosozoku is a Japanese subculture that often takes a lot of explaining. Literally meaning ‘reckless tribe’, the ethos traces its roots back to illegal motorcycle street-racers of the 1950s, when outrageously styled bikes tore up the streets of suburban Japan with little regard for safety or the law. Fast-forward 60 years, however, and this is what boso means today... The modern Bosozoku car owes a lot to the styling treatments of their forefathers in the 1980s, which are enjoying a huge renaissance of late. We’re talking sump-clattering ride height, surreally caricatured bodykits, jutting sharknoses, comically extended exhausts, in-your-face retro colour-schemes. A deliberately jarring aesthetic. Imagine a Group 5 racer from the 1970s, if it…

Meguiar’s UK hosted another round of their now infamous summer hangouts, dubbed the BBQ Club. Back this year and bigger than ever, the BBQ Club sticks to the familiar format and invites car guys and girls to bring their latest builds to Meguiar’s UK HQ and chill in whatever sunshine British summer can muster. Being a BBQ event, it comes with a large helping of grilled meat and the first 50 cars are greeted with a swag bag chocked full of Meguiar’s goodies. This year over 100 motors from all aspects of car culture, crammed into the space surrounding Meguiar’s. We spotted low-riders, hot rods, old-school Fords, drift cars, VWs, Porsches, a police interceptor and even a Bedford Rascal with a bike engine! Each year Meguiar’s put together the most…

Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse.” That's a quote generally attributed to James Dean, okay, he didn’t actually say it (it was John Derek), but don’t be that guy. “It’s better to burn out than to fade away,” said US country-rocker Neil Young. In either case, these old famous dudes could have easily been talking about the Citroën Saxo, assuming they’d had access to some sort of time machine. No, wait. Come back. It does make sense! See, the Saxo is one of those cars that had a very distinct lifespan. It was launched, it was everywhere, and then it was nowhere. Much like the Mk1 Mondeo or the Rover 200, they were sufficiently affordable that loads of people bought them, but viewed as disposable enough for nobody…

The ‘fashion cycle’ is an industry term that roughly measures the amount of time a trend or fad will take to emerge, pass into the mainstream, then fall out of style. Of course, the obvious thing about cycles is that they go round and round, so things that have long been out of fashion can build momentum and become popular again – just look at how people are clamouring for three-spoke alloys and window louvres these days. A decade ago you’d have been laughed off the showground. A decade before that, you’d have been top dog. And so the wheels keep turning. It’s for this reason that you’re seeing a car wearing TSW Venoms here, without the slightest hint of irony or tongue-in-cheek mischief. Venoms are cool again, in the…

NICHE ASKARI Size: .........9, 10 and 10.5x20 PCD: .........5x112, 5x115, 5x120 Offset: ......18-38 Finish:......Gloss black with brushed face, all bronze NICHE ASKARI, FROM £205 (EACH) Got some seriously huge arches to fill? Sometimes only a set of dubs will do the job and these new cast hoops from the US of A may come in at more reasonable money than you might imagine. It’s true that the guys at Niche are probably more well known for their mentalist forged creations (more on their new range in a month or two), and that their name comes with more than a little kudos on the streets of California. But the new Sport Series mono blocks are designed to give you all the same pedigree without the usual premium multi-piece price tag. The…

Over the past few months we’ve talked a lot about how speakers change characteristics and quality as they change price. We’ve also looked at different types of bass enclosure and what’s best suited to different types of car. But there’s one other huge variable to consider over any other when building yourself that perfect system – what kind of music do you actually listen to? The thing about music is that it’s dynamic and a system that’s perfect for one type may not lend itself too well to another. The same can be said for the type of kit you invest your hard earned cash in. Choose carefully because it may not be up to scratch for your particular musical taste or, even worse, you might be paying well over…

Do you ever wake up in a cold sweat in the night with a fleeting urge to pack everything in and get away from it all? In an age of skinny frappe-induced, Instaobsessed monotony, it’s easier than ever to fall into the trap of a modern, grown-up lifestyle. And that’s not a good thing. How about if you never traded that cool hatchback motor you learnt to drive in for that boring German saloon you now own, for example? Mike Johnson here has done exactly this with his ’83 Fiesta that’s been by his side for over a decade now. And with 10 years of love poured into it, it’s just getting cooler and cooler by the day. This retro ride therefore acts as a window into what could’ve been…

There’s nothing better than a good ol’ fashioned roadtrip, that my friends is an undisputable fact. We all know that the king of roadtrips is the road rally, and it’s gotta be said that there’s plenty to choose from nowadays - one for every budget, driving ability or particular automotive fetish. Inspired by the Gumball 3000, Bullrun and Cannonball, more than a few have sprung up in recent years, so what makes The Cannon Run different? Well, the idea is to take some of the best elements from each and put together a selection of different events throughout the year. There’s the big European rally as something of a main attraction of course, but what’s also interesting is there’s quite a few smaller trips over various bank holiday weekends. Since…

“One fella said my car looked like a shellsuit in the new colours” Nowadays Porsche is an established brand, known throughout the globe as the maker of some of the finest performance and luxury machines money can buy, but it wasn’t always like this. For a large part of the 20th century the Stuttgart concern was known for one model and one model only. The 911. Now we’ve nothing against the 911 in the slightest. It’s a fine car and one of the most iconic machines ever built. But it’s also true that Porsche struggled to diversify, and at times being known for one model and one model alone threatened the company’s very future. By the time the late 1970s rolled round Porsche was getting serious about expanding both its…

Boaty McBoatface is one of the great tragedies of 2016. If you’re not familiar with the story, the National Environment Research Council held a poll for the public to choose a name for a new research ship. But instead of being sensible and asking people to vote on a predefined list of names, they gave the public free rein. So obviously someone made up Boaty McBoatface and everyone voted for it. Why wouldn’t you? Of course, the grown-ups in charge vetoed the idea and the noble McBoatface name was sidelined to live on as a small submersible. Such is life. All of this serves to prove, if nothing else, that lateral thinking is the key to happiness when it comes to matters aquatic. Just ask Ash Squires, the dude who’s…

For the past number of years, the modified car culture in the UK has been heavily influenced by many different car scenes. From German/ VAG to Japanese and the Ford and Vauxhall rivalries. Sometimes for those choosing to go down a French manufacture route, it can be hard to stand out at many shows. So what better way of celebrating these cars than with their own show! Held over a weekend at the famous Castle Combe circuit in Wiltshire, it’s the perfect location to celebrate all things French. Sponsored by Adrian Flux, the French Car Show now in its 16th year is back and bigger than ever, with a huge variety of cars in attendance – with many owners going down a track-car route as well as the select few…

BILLY FARROW’S CIVIC FC says : There’s plenty of EP Civics on the scene nowadays but rarely do they look quite as delicious as Billy’s here. I mean, who would have thought an EK9 wing would look so good on the original Type-R’s younger brother? We’ve not seen that before and, combined with the gold paint and the way he’s set it up to sit bang-on perfect, it certainly helps this one to stand right out from the crowd. We’re loving the tongue-in-cheek purple velvet interior touches too, it’s a little risqué sure, but he’s pulled off a spot of crazy flavour nicely. Some seriously smooth work there sunshine! SPEC: CIVIC EP MAIN MODS 8 and 9x16-inch Dare RS wheels; Pro Sport coilovers; CTR kit; Spoon rep wing mirrors; M2…