Quality > Quantity

Quality over Quantity has often been referred to for many things, and one of those is definitely cruises. A very well known car site here in Aus always has people organizing cruises, and yesterday we decided to attend one that had an "apparent" magazine coverage behind it. Firstly before we start this isn't a diss, nor do I promote dissing on this site. But promoting that your cruise will have magazine coverage, yet failing to get top dog cars to attend doesn't make all to much sense to me.

The meet as a whole wasn't actually that bad, and most people seemed well behaved, well for the few nano seconds we were stopped for at the meeting points, one thing people like to do on cruises is chat and look at cars, having one stopping point made it a little hard for photo coverage and to mingle with others. I decided not to drive and rolled with Logan in his 33 GTR and Gus's 32 GTR mainly to get shots of what i thought would be a lot of A grade cars. I think with a little more thought next time the organizers could really put something special together, promotion is the key to an awesome cruise.

However the day was not lost, what started out as a Nissan Cruise with around 80 cars, turned into a 3 car cruise with the GTR's. That may seem not as good, but when the 3 GTRs were the best cars at the cruise to begin with, it surely was something to behold overtaking trucks on full tilt. Was a great time to hang with good mates as well, many laughs to be had and also all of us frothing over Trent & Tess from Mercury Motorsports absolutely monster R34 GTR pushing a measly 850rwhp on the day. So at the end of the day, just because there are a lot of cars at your meet and cruise, doesn't mean it will be awesome, put in the effort of promoting your meet/cruise to the shithouse and make it something people will talk about for months to come. 

No hate towards the organizers or other attendee's all seemed like a good bunch, no idiocy from what i could see, which is a rare trait. Also I heard it was the organizers virgin cruise meet so for a first time organizing a meet, 80 cars is a hell of a turn out, look forward to seeing if they expand on it for the next one. 

Also sorry for the lack of 'variety' was stuff all opportunity to take pics throughout the cruise due to 1 lane and traffic.

Sitting on the side of the highway in the middle of no where deciding what to do haha

Only shots I got at the 1st meeting point, due to everyone bailing within 10 - 15min of arriving.

The intense Mercury Motorsport 34 GTR, capable of 930rwhp, but trent was running a measly 850rwhp on the day...bricks were shat.

Gus's 32 never ceases to turn heads, the colour is amazing in person, around 550rwhp and damn awesome fitment for a GTR.

Matyi's S15 gets driven how all Silvia's should....sideways

Logans 33, a million months in the making due to all kinds of issues and what not, but finally up and running. The noise on idle is disturbing, such a tough sound. Even after all the trouble he has had with getting it going, definitely worth the wait.

Cheers to Matyi, Logan, Gus, Trent & Tess for an awesome cruise day. Also props to the organizers for getting big numbers to their first meet, look forward to the next one, hopefully it will be a bit better.

Quality Ensues

There is always a group of people, no matter what culture or hobby, who are a step above the rest. The car scene is no different, and it seems that not only in Australia, but around the world that the Honda boys are definitely a step above the rest in terms of build quality and style. At every Honda-based event I have attended in the past 2 years, there have been top-grade cars. Of course there are always those who are a little slow on the uptake, but percentage-wise, Honda boys are definitely ahead of the rest.

Ozhonda, the largest Honda community site in Aus, always organises events here and there and I try and attend most of them. I just so happened to be free for a recent dyno day (yes OMG another one) held at 101 Motorcafe. I popped in for a look, and even though watching Hondas run on the dyno isn't exactly exciting, it was the quality of cars that appealed. As per usual, they were there in droves.

Of course it wasn't a Honda only event, and a few other makes showed up for the dyno: a few GTRs getting around including a 33 with a quite puzzling baby blue colour, as well as a 32 running some bodykit I had never seen before. A champagne coloured 180 also rocked up with some of the coolest number plates I have seen around, 321ONO, i laughed anyway. But i think my favorite car of the day was Joe's red EG Civic, if you know me personally this will come as no surprise as I do not hide the fact that I love that car.

101 is one of the top garages here in Queensland, has a cafe in it as well.

While these two S2Ks may not be stand out cars, they are still very nice rides. The black one is quite clean with those Advan RS wheels, but the red one was a little worse for wear. Being a track car and all, function was definitely over form for this little red S2K. See if you can work out the plates on the black S2000, some super good thinking there.

...and now let us observe a moment of silence for this NSX.

Tim's Toda EVERYTHING DC5, one of the best builds getting around.

ugh J Speeds look sooo good

The 32 i was talking about before...

Why does noone modify Accord Euros properly over here in Aus? Chris' one here is the only decent example I have seen since their release.

Gotta love those plates, and 360rwhp as well

Joe's Civic is so much win, same car different coloured wheels each side.

Weirdest colour i have ever seen on a 33 GTR, and matched with white GTCs, it makes for one very odd colouring.

11.9sec Turbo D Series. Yeah you heard it right: D SERIES.

Widebody FD RX7. Actually widebody is an understatement, more like gargantuan-body.

Twin turbo set up on 101's R32 GTR '80MBU'. Helped it run a 10.3 quarter mile on street tyres. Scary stuff.

Was a good day, good to catch up with some of the boys and also see some awesome cars. I didn't get shots of everything, but some cars didn't really need coverage if you know what I mean. I don't cover meets, I cover awesome cars haha. After all the runs were done, it was mainly people standing around chatting, then from out of no where, this guy in a Hillclimb built Swift drives out of the 101 garage, sits in the middle of the road annnnddd...

ahhahaha what a champ

One Night Stand

One Night Stand is a local drifting event held here in sunny Queensland, it always manages to show the up and comers and also a lot of sponsored teams turn out to support the event. Mez was out camera in hand to capture the night, Enjoy.

One Night Stand from MeZ Productions on Vimeo.

Spur Of The Moment Thing

Sometimes the best nights are the ones that are never really planned. I was sitting at home watching some stupid program on tv, and I get this phone call from my buddy Logan telling me that there is going to be epic cruise and why am I not on MSN. So i jumped on and within the hour we organized a cruise. Now it wasn't a cruise with 100 cars there were only 2, but the car quality was A grade and cruising with good mates and chilling is always a great way to spend a night.

The cars in attendance are quite popular in the Queensland car scene, specially Brad's S2000 which can probably lay claim as being one of the first S2000's in Queensland to really step it up in terms of overall build, parts quality and of course stance. It manages to drop jaws no matter where it goes, something about those white Meisters, carbon fibre roof, supercharger and titanium exhaust makes peeps go all googlie eyed. Car number two is the properly badass WPN26, something about GTR's always draws attention and Gus's definitely emphasizes that. Due to the love of GTR's, especially 32's, a lot of the time here in Aus unfortunately the quality is terrible and it is a sad sight, but Gus's immaculate 32 definitely proves that Nissan designed something truly special. 500+ rwhp yeah bring the reign.

Started off meeting at a big petrol station and chilled for a bit..

Rear Diffusers are dead fucking sexy

I am ridiculously happy with how Gus's shots turned out, just look awesome. Wallpaper on it's way.

We then ended up at the carpark of Seaworld on the Gold Coast, most random location but worked out to be an awesome backdrop, go figure.

mmmm yummy fitment

Seriously when people see Brad's Carbon roof, they shit massive bricks.

Enjoy the shots ladies and gents, wallpapers to come for sure, and this is definitely not the last time you will see these two cars on here. Cheers to Will & Ben for driving me out there and Brad, Gus & Logan for making it an awesome night.

-Downshift

Living In The Stone Age

First off, I am sorry to the regular readers about the massive lack of anything lately, it has been a good month since my last post, but I have my reasons.

Basically it goes like this, I was asked by my Auntie and Uncle if I was able to house sit their place while they jetsetted to the states for 4 weeks (envious to the max) I said sure why not. Now after about 2-3 days of bumming and playing loads of xbox I jumped on their PC and came to the sad realization that their internet was about the same speed as the internet Noah used when he was googling animals he needed for the maiden Ark voyage. I am not exaggerating either, it downloaded an excel spread sheet at 28.8kb/s.

So I have been living without any form of internet since the 20th of December, and will be living without till the 21st of January. But I had to come home to do some stuff and decided to let you all know the issues and also post and update or two depending on time to keep you all happy.

Cheers for waiting around, and sticking it out.

Rory,
Downshift Crew