Sweet Oblivion: April 2009

X body drifters. The smallest gang in the world?

Just how silly an idea is this? Sure, I could make my Cressida a sweet street sleeper but, to make a decent drift car from a old grampa car? Hmmm.. There's not a whole lot of them out there. Even less of them see any spirted driving at a track or practice day. Often picked up as a budget option, the internet is littered with projects started, all with the best of intentions, that never see the light of day. Am I to enjoy an unexploited gem or spunk all my money on a turd? Rare and random, they are out there and serve as my inspiration..

In my head I imagine it fast, light and noisey. The long wheel base makes for smooth, predictable transitions.. Who knows. We'll just have to wait and see I guess.

I discovered this article taken from an old Drift Tengoku magazine ages ago. It has long since been my biggest inspiration. Give it a click to get closer..

SO cool! And hey, they're all smiling! I'm sold! HAHA

I'm staying realistic. Keepin' it real even! I'm not planning on building a comp spec car, I'm far from having the skill to be competitive. But, I do hope to build myself a cool and unique car that I can have fun in. After all, that's what we're all about here.

Snapshot:

Best looking A70 Supra I've seen in a while..

Inspiration: Sekia hills

This place is where the UK should be looking inspiration on hardcore drifting. All the UK championships are good but they seem to be a way off the level of the Japanese grass-roots drifters let alone the D1GP guys.

What makes me qualified to judge? As the customer I felt a bit robbed paying £22 to watch BDC round one but, I'd gladly pay that to watch this!

Old whips: The long journey to Cressylicious

Like a lotta folks my first car was a Mini. My step dad found me a tidy one and I set to work spending all the money I had and didn't have on buying shiny things for it. A lot of people will say a Mini is a great car to learn to drive in and a great car to learn to drive fast. I agree! I became obsessed with squeezing as much out of it as I could. With a cooper carb, ITG filter, custom elliptical stub stack, maniflow manifold fully heat wrapped, several different exhausts, xenon light conversion (made night runs more visible!) all cooper trim, tiny mono steering wheel, steering drop bracket, custom dash in body colour, 32-point adjustable GAZ shocks, superlites on Yokohama rubber, grooved discs, EBC pads.. haha.. yeah you get the picture.

Next step was a ST162 Celica. Owned by a pilot before me, it was frickin mint! It was fully poly-bushed, had koni shocks and springs, piggyback ecu, EBC discs and pads, samco hoses, braided brake lines and wider GT4 wheels. Faster but poo handling.

At this point I had discovered drifting and wanted some rear wheel drive in my life. I bought this ex-demo FC3S RX7 from a performance shop in Scotland. Really nice car to drive. It was running 200bhp N/A with the help of some random Australian ecu and a K&N filter. I added a TRUE twin exhaust REALLY FECKIN LOUD!! kyb AGX shocks, cobra springs and was running Silkoline oil in the engine, box and diff. A chick who'd owned it further down the line had spent a fortune on making the paint and bodywork pretty. Too pretty!

Next probably my favourite and most missed car. A stupidly mint KP62 Starlet with only 26000 miles on the clock that I got silly cheap. Kept it tidy and chopped the springs. Did some skids on wet nights. Then after a combination of moving in with my girlfriend at the time and starting uni.. I had bills to pay! Sold it for more than twice what I bought it for. It got me out of a tight spot but.. this one hurt.

So I lasted about five minutes with no car and bought as much as I could with as little as I could. A sharknose 525 e28. Felt like a ganster driving about in it. Scary on twisty stuff though, build like a bloody tank!

My brief stint with a KE70. Bought on a whim, I was far to excited to check it properly. It was hiding rusty nastyness..

Next I went bigger and pimper with this GX71 Chaser. Old, low, crushed velour seats. It was auto and had a million miles on it, tatty and faded all over but it had so much character. The 1G engine was as smooth as anything and made all the right noises. I have nice summer memories of cruising to the beach with a different girlfriend haha.. I cut my yahoo.jp teeth on this finding all the parts and wheels for it.

Moving house again forced the sale of the Chaser. I have to move again soon, such is uni life! But history will not repeat it's self! I'm determined to keep my Cressida and do it justice.

Dtown kidz, unite!

I thought it was time to introduce the guys we roll with, the extended family. Not a team as such, just some hard driving, hard partying friends who've come to be known as the Dtown Kidz.

Fat mike. An awesome driving talent but eternally poor, builds expensive car slaying BMWs on the tightest budgets. Trampdrift founder and Derbys most wanted.

Topi. The gangster of the group, the blackest white kids you ever met. Drifts to hip hop and the sound of a thrashed 4fag.

Jimthejunior. Old head on young shoulders. Pimp sierra.

Chunk. The demo king.

The elusive Moose. Rarely seen in pics or vids but always lurking. Builds once, builds right. The "Face-man" of the group.

The rarest shot of all, a pre green Moose S13.

Old whips: The long journey to Buster

So how does a guy get from a humble hatchback to a mint FC, begging to drifted, after a chance encounter with a drift event?

Here's how!

After selling my daily runaround and selling anything that wasn't nailed down i got myself a mint S13. Drifting has away of biting you in the ass so it didn't stay mint for very long!

After the crash it was time for a quick and easy paint job and some serious mods. Stage two engine and some choice suspension.

Ready to hit some comps, I miss the Teeside track so bad! Was the UK's Ebisu!

The black car was sold to make way for something more sensible as I'd started uni. Those plans went right out of the window and I built a engine swapped, bike carb Volvo 340! Awesome car, awesome noise, hunger for prop shafts.

A random look through the for sale section lead me to buy a sil80, the best car I ever owned! Power, sorted suspension, cool wheels. Proper.

Hit up some more comps, this one was awesome! Team comp at Lydd, drifting how it should be, friends drifting and partying the night away!

Bring on Buster!

Favourite wheels: Billy

After chatting about lying awake at night thinking about wheels I thought I'd share my favourites. Everyone has theirs. These are mine. So in no particular order..

Hayashi Street

Panasport

Impul Hoshino

Work Equip

I don't know what the hell these are called. I've only ever seen them on this super silhouette. I'm guessing they're SSR. Whatever they are they're amazing. Check out the rears! OOOF!