Archive for May, 2009

Panda AE8….AE70!

Posted in Car stuff on May 30, 2009 by Stanley Carter

Still remember my wife’s younger brother’s AE70?  It looks like this when it was first sent for rust repair:

AE70 before rust treatment

AE70 before rust treatment

And this is how it looks after having all the metal work done:

AE70 completed body repairs

AE70 completed body repairs

And after another extra 2 months spent in a workshop at Sarikei, the car now looks like this:

AE70 transformed!

AE70 transformed!

AE70 transformed!

AE70 transformed!

AE70 transformed!

AE70 transformed!

Looks pretty impressive huh?  Now if I tell you all these, inclusive of the paint job, the skirts, the spoiler and everything else were done with merely RM550, would you believe it?  Well you better believe it, because I ain’t bluffing.

Apparently my wife’s bro found 2 malay brothers in Sarikei who work on metal and cars as their part time jobs, they’re extremely easy going but their business is bad, mostly due to their quality of work, the AE70 may look cool from my pictures, but that’s because I use my crappy camera phone to snap them, if you look closely on the car yourself, its pretty obvious the quality of the work done is not very pleasant, the only thing I do liked about is that rear spoiler, considering how cheap labor those 2 guys provide, hey I’m seriously considering sending my Charmant down to Sarikei just to custom make a rear spoiler for it, plus the infamous front ‘chin’ spoiler that can be seen on many customized old school rides.

Another thing worth mentioning is that all those body works are all made by metal, they’re not fiber, they’re metal!  Pretty rad, but I’m sure they’re heavy as well, and they look kinda clunky if you looked closer, I blame that on the craftsmanship, but hey, you simply CAN’T complain at all if you’re only paying RM550 for all of these, seriously, that’s like, so unbelievably CHEAP, minus the low quality work of course, haha!

Inspirations!

Posted in Car stuff on May 29, 2009 by Stanley Carter

Early last month, Edgar from Indonesia found some nice pictures and a youtube video of the RIP Japanese D1 Charmant driver, Ryoji Takada, who died in a truck accident many years back.  You can read about this Charmant D1 driver in his blog entry.

Here’s some picture of Ryoji’s D1 spec Charmant machine:

D1GP Charmant

D1GP Charmant

D1GP Charmant Black

D1GP Charmant Black

D1GP Charmant at Irwindale

D1GP Charmant at Irwindale

Seems like Ryoji did attended the D1 Irwindale, cool, real cool!  And here is a video of him drifting Ebisu circuit:

It’s a real shame that the ONLY Charmant driver in D1GP like Ryoji Takada had to die at such unfortunate circumstances, if only he’s still alive, I wonder how would he do now in D1, I think he might’ve moved to a newer car already, hmm~

Enough with dead people now, lets move on to the next Charmant drifter from Europe!  It was featured on Zamil’s latest blog entry, and I just couldn’t help but noticed how CLEAN this Charmant looks!  I’ll let the following pictures speak for themselves:

Europe Charmant Drifter

Europe Charmant Drifter

Europe Charmant Drifter

Europe Charmant Drifter

Europe Charmant Drifter

Europe Charmant Drifter

Europe Charmant Drifter

Europe Charmant Drifter

Europe Charmant Drifter

Europe Charmant Drifter

Judging from the last picture, it looks like this driver is Asian as well, but I could be wrong, but do check out his wheels man, this Charmant is definitely rocking some sexy old school wheels!  Watanabes at the front and SSR mesh at the rear, damn!  I’m dead jealous!  What is more impressive is the smoke this car generates during drifts, I must admit I’ve yet to achieve this kinda smoke with my current Charmant (except burnouts), might wanna push my car a little bit harder and see what it can achieve, haha!  Oh and yeah, this driver is ALIVE! LOL!

Anyways, I must say thanks to both Edgar and Zamil for featuring both these great Charmant drifters from across the globe, these two Charmants are definitely inspirations to me and I look forward in building up my Charmant as kickass as they are in the near future! ^^

Gimme DEEP DISH!!

Posted in Car stuff on May 22, 2009 by Stanley Carter

The only thing at the moment that would complete my Charmant looks would be a decent offset wheels!

Like I’ve mentioned before, I’m an easily satisfied person, I know my car doesn’t run with the best engine or the best parts, and even though I’ve just treated the rust and it’s now covered with a new paint, there’s still loads to work on the body, IF I wanted to.

But all of this can wait, as I’m pretty happy with how it is now, EXCEPT for my wheels… well, just look at them…

My Drift Charmant

My Drift Charmant

I’m currently rolling 14″ with 185/60/R14 at the front, and 13″ with 175/70/R13 at the rear.  Check out how pathetic my wheel fitment is especially the rear!  It used to be on steel rims before I bought this unknown branded meshed rims with pathetic offset for RM250 last year.  Please take note that my rear wheels are currently running with a pair of 1.5″ spacers as well!  And the wheels still look so tucked in the fender, how awful.

I have a lot of wheels on my mind that I think would fit my Charmant so nicely and how it would totally change the look of my Charmant, wheels such as:

The ever so sexy Long Champs

Yummilicious Work Equips

The godfather of old school wheels, Watanabe

Any of these wheels rolling on my Charmant would be a wet dream come true, if only I have RM1k++ to spare, I’d definitely source any one of those immediately.  But reality is harsh, I don’t have a big income job and I need to spend my money wisely since I have a wife and baby to take care of, ah… the responsibilities of a real MAN, LOL!

But hey, even though my car is rolling with pathetic offset wheels, I’m still a happy man, cause my Charmant is still driving strong and that’s what most important, car and drifting is just a hobby and things like this can wait, in the meantime, I’ll just keep my focus on my family.