GSS x Import Monster :: Summerdays and Enginebays

Just a few days ago with the help of the team at Import Monster here in Melbourne, Gripshiftslide and Co hosted our first event, ever!!
Not really knowing what to expect and also relying on our less than desirable organisational skills, we weren’t holding our breath.
Here is the day through 5 different photographers lenses…


With a few months of planning and casual chats with Aaron from Import Monster he happily (read – stupidly) allowed us to host our little event at the ‘IM’ Factory in Melbournes eastern suburbs.
The idea was simple; invite people, cook sausages, sell clothing from stalls and race some RC cars…  We could never have prepared for the actual turnout the event received!

The event kicked off at 12pm with most of the team arriving at around 10:30am to start setting up. We invited a few friends to come along to be part of our very first event including : Saint Side, Ilovedrift, De Croft, Driven Threads, WOT Hobbies and Immaculate Reflections.
By around 11:30am a few cars started rolling into the once empty street, by 12pm it was next to impossible to park on the main street and soon cars were pouring into side streets and factory carparks.
By this point we knew one thing… We needed more sausages!

One of the perks of hosting an event at Import Monster was that there was tonnes of cool wheels and Jap parts for sale on the day. This was just the outside wheel collection for all the stuff that wouldn’t fit in the shop!!

It wasn’t long before there were literally hundreds of people filling the tiny Import Monster driveway and we knew we had a hit on our hands.

Helping keep the cool vibe and fun we had Luke taking care of the tunes for over 4 straight hours!! Massive thank you goes out to this guy, word on the street is he forgot to ‘slip, slop, slap’ and looked like a lobster the next day.
Thanks Luke!

Across from the DJ we had WOT Hobbies with a makeshift drift track and heaps of cool RC shells.

These guys didn’t stop all day long and were the last to leave! A few people even brought their own RC cars along for a few friendly competitions with the crew.

Holden VE UTES are even finding their way into the RC drift scene now too!
We wish someone would actually build one to look exactly like this RC version.

We had plenty of cars make the trip from Geelong, Ballarat and even Bendigo!

Walking out onto the street everywhere you looked there were cars, people and more cars!
There were a few huffy sliders enjoying the wide industrial estate roads too.

Some cars managed to make their own parking spots on the grassy banks across the road. Here Todd’s Skoda wagon was looking great but will soon be looking even better after winning a $600 detailing package in our raffle/giveaway thanks to Immaculate Reflections.

After walking around for 30 minutes we found a few groups creating their own mini meets, we spotted this awesome group of Honda S2000’s.

We have to admit this one stole most of our attention. If the owner sees this, you sir, are doing it right!

Perfect and simple additions like classic bronze TE37 wheels make this S2K a massive neck breaker!

Further up one of the side streets this group of white cars decided it was a perfect opportunity for an impromptu photo shoot…

Obviously we were keen to hang around and see the result!
Somehow this sneaky black civic managed to squeeze in but we still enjoyed the lineup.

This is one of our favorite 370Z’s in Melbourne and we were lucky enough to have it attend our meet!

Even though the parking was scattered we couldn’t believe how social this meet was, everyone was mingling and hanging out.

One thing that surprised us given our strong Japanese car following was the amount of Euro’s that came along as well.

There was so much on offer and in the days after the event we have been seeing photos all over the web of cars we didn’t event see at the event! There was just way too much to take it all in!

One of the standouts was this Audi convertible, something you really don’t see a lot of here but it was certainly living up to the stance works sticker on the windshield with this perfect set of BBS RM wheels.

Fresh on the scene, Michael’s E30 wagon has only just recently acquired these new wheels and is already becoming a local internet sensation!

Now it seems Michael’s 2nd attempt at a daily isn’t exactly going to plan!

Hidden in a driveway nearby was the polar opposite of Michael’s E30 BMW. Now both cars are white and have some decent wheels, but the similarity’s stop there!
This one has a full roll cage, more suspension mods then you can poke a stick at and oh yeah, a Nissan RB30 motor!

Denis’s E30 is built for drift and only days after the engine was in and running the car was off to Winton for the Vicdrift summer matsuri!!

To make this humble little event catchy we decided to name it “Summerdays and Enginebays” so it wouldn’t have been complete without a few popped bonnets!

We spotted everyone chatting and checking out each others cars and setups. With the relaxed nature of the meet more people were taking the time to walk around and actually enjoy the cars on show rather than be ready with keys in hand in case the police paid a visit.

Some of the cars had a few surprises up their sleeves and the level of finish and fab work that some of these street cars had was astounding, Melbourne definitely had us very impressed!

Proving that it is still cool to be late at around 3Pm Thien brought down his unfinished Honda ‘K’ powered Mini, once unloaded of the trailer it was impossible to take a photo with out a bunch of heads peering into this little blue car.
This is shaping up to be one of the most exciting builds and we hope we can convince Thein into showing us a little more once it is close to completion.

We still can’t believe the amount of people that were there!

Back to car spotting we found Nick’s 86 now sporting a tofu inspired two tone colour scheme paying homage to the classic older brother.

The area isn’t exactly friendly when it comes to low cars and driveways so there was plenty of angled exits and shrieks of pain from on lookers when the all too familiar SCRAAAPPPEE!!! came from underneath the cars.

So this Corolla wagon is about as tough as they get, we can’t decide if it needs the red ‘A Team’ strip more or just a sticker that says “free candy”.

Dale’s rig when he is not drifting his Tuffcore purple 180SX.

Soon the afternoon was coming to an end and some of the crowd began to shrink.

So a last minute dash was in order to get as many photos before the day was done and dusted.

Aside from 50 million Toyota Supra’s and a few Skyline’s we found a heap of Honda’s made it out despite ClubITR having their end of year cruise on the same day.

Some more of that driveway carnage!!

This Chaser gets more and more track orientated every time we see it, now rocking a air intake, bucket seat and unpainted front bar… We are liking where this is going!!!

There was some of impressive R31’s parked together, these older Skylines are falling into the shadows as the years go by and newer models get cheaper and cheaper. Thankfully there is a dedicated bunch that are holding onto these older Nissan’s and for that we salute you!

I wondered if this 180SX will be at any future drift meets, we’re excited to see what it can do after it’s engine rebuild.

Even THE STU made it down for the afternoon, unfortunately after a few too many heroes the inevitable happened and the boys in blue came along.
They didn’t seem to approve of Stu’s ride height 🙁

We counted about 10 Supra’s so we were pretty happy with that!

Rolling in late in the arvo was this VIP Aristo, black and chrome is always going to work on big Japanese sedans!

This is why we can’t have nice things!!!
Up until this point, this was one of the best behaved car meets of the year but of course with huge numbers there is bound to be some idiots.
The downside is once the smoke has cleared only the real enthusiasts and business owners are left to be seen by all the law enforcement called to the scene after reports of burnouts and the dreaded word… ‘Hooning’.
With over 200 cars, only 3-4 idiots is a sign that Melbourne is heading in the right direction.
So we will endevour to host many more events just like this in the near future, so thank you to each and every one of you who made this day one to remember!!
– Team GSS
Photos by :
Grant
Gwyn
Brendan | Blacktop Images
Andrew | AN Photography
Victor | MX Photography