Sneaker Freaker :: The Big Kahuna

Melbourne once again lived up to its well known weather last weekend, with a glorious sunny Saturday followed by a Sunday that seemed to have a bored two year old flicking the weather switch every 5 minutes.
Those that braved the cold conditions were rewarded with one of the best street events in town.
Sneaker Freaker took control of Globe Shoes head office in Port Melbourne to host ‘The Big Kahuna’ event, a massive Sneaker swap meet with truck loads of Melbourne street culture thrown in for good measure.


Some of Melbourne’s usual suspects like Saint Side, Fuel magazine and of course yours truly came along to make the day one to remember.

Globe’s warehouse and loading dock were over run with Sneaker Freaks snapping up rare and discontinued shoes from dozens of vendors.

The event was heaven for our fury little friends who love to chew old sneakers, thankfully their owners kept them on their leads as some of the sneakers on offer were worth more than $3000!!!

Aside from shoes and street ware, there were also a heap of classic cars invited along by the team from Fuel Magazine.

There were tonnes of old school cruisers and even a rad kombi on display!

This 1950’s Chevrolet Corvette convertible was a thing of neck snapping beauty.

The crew from Saint Side had a huge display of custom low rider bikes, each and every single one had it’s own unique theme. We loved the Louis Vuitton version.

The amount of work that goes into these creations is absolutely mind blowing. This was one of the more aggressively styled bikes on show.

Gold, Candy and Chrome as far as the eye can see!

Back inside there was plenty of wheeling and dealing going on with so many rare items up for grabs – it was certainly a buyers market.

Hosting an event at Globe’s warehouse would be a sin without some skateboard action. On show were plenty of vintage skateboards from the early 90’s and beyond.

All the skate paraphernalia was scattered around the Globe half pipe. Yep, they have a private skate park on site! Lunch breaks wouldn’t be for eating if you worked here!

In the outside area we had invited some of Melbourne’s best street cars along and despite the not so amazing weather, we were blown away by the dedicated owners that braved the weather and the driveway!!

Karl’s tough as nails KE Corolla wagon was a crowd favourite, complete with a Unicorn hood ornament that bled real rainbows!!

Later we found out that rainbow blood was in fact some oil escaping from the mighty 4AGE from the trip over to the event.

Josh brought back his S14 from the last event at Calder. This thing is absolutely perfect and clean enough to eat off!

The wheel choice on this blue EG Civic was spot on! Rays TE37V’s fill out the guards perfectly on this little hot hatch.

Some of the 100MM crew came down to party, we cannot wait to see what the boys have up their sleeve for the 100MM car show.

Probably the best line up of Melbourne’s street cars we’ve seen, so much quality!!

Billy’s 86 is still jaw-droppingly beautiful and we can’t wait to get some alone time with it after WTAC.

Chris’s E30 is spotless, we were really digging the new air splitters on the bonnet too.

Another of Melbourne’s best E30’s came along. Alistairs’ equipped E30 was one of the winners from the last event held at Calder, so we just had to invite him along.

While the weather wasn’t on our side for the day, the public certainly was with huge numbers coming along to see what all this Sneaker fuss was about.
We cannot thank the team from Sneaker Freaker Magazine enough for inviting us along and allowing us to showcase some of the best cars in Melbourne.
Until next time, thanks for reading.
– Gwyn.