All Stars x Zen Garage :: Stance Off 2013

Last month the GSS crew headed north to the much sunnier Sydney to enjoy the finer things in life, cars, girls and food. Sydney based crew All Stars had put on another killer show, this time with support from Zen Garage and the giant from the US… Stance Nation!
Situated at Silverwater Park next to the picturesque river, the atmosphere on the day was great but bringing our stall up from Melbourne and getting there was another story!


Having to fit a regular working week around our hobby is difficult to say the least, so when we decided to head up to Sydney for the weekend with the GSS stall it meant the team had to split up. Grant left first thing Saturday morning with a rental car packed to the brim and I went to work until 5pm and then raced over to Melbourne Airport to fly out that night.

Grant arrived ahead of schedule and spent a few hours hunting around Sydney airport and found this abandoned Honda CRX. For those that know me well, you would know that it was hard for me to leave this CRX their ageing away.
We thought it would make the perfect track hack and hope it doesn’t end up as a pile of scrap metal one day.
After a massive meal we headed to bed to get some much needed rest in preparation for a full day of car related shenanigans at the show the next day.

Arriving 8am sharp we were greeted by the All Stars crew and they had already set up the Zen Garage stall – these boys don’t mess about!!
We got to work on setting up our own stall and spent quite some time assembling the marquee, as this was its’ maiden outing and it came with no instructions.

Soon the cars started to roll in and already we noticed the cars were somehow different than what we are used to seeing in Melbourne every week. Not better, not worse… Just different!
We couldn’t put our finger on it but it was exciting checking out every new car that rolled in.

Being a ‘stanced’ themed event it was great to see some more track orientated builds coming through the gates. There were even a few legit drift cars that have seen plenty of track action at Sydney’s motor sport park recently.

After a few hours of stuffing around, the mobile shop was up and running and it was time to go exploring!!
We started across from the stall with one very interesting ride…

This ‘Rat-Rod’ inspired Commodore wagon was a work of art and while it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, the owner had gone to a lot of trouble adding personal touches and flair to nearly every inch of the car.

Something we’ve not come across yet is a modified Mazda 323, well not like this anyway. We were really digging the USDM feel and the leather bonnet bra and hope more people dare to try something like this with cars that aren’t necessarily associated with all the whole fitment/stance craze.

Now this car stole our attention away from the rest of the show for quite some time!

Yep!! Full colour bonnet graphics of Jake and Finn from the Adventure Time cartoon series, this is so damn cool words even begin to express it!!

Another neck breaker at the show was this custom golf cart the All Stars guys had brought along.

Pretty aggressive offset for a golf buggy!!!

Once the paddocks were full it was time for the guys to bust out car limbo, yep, car limbo!
Sergio moved the All Stars S15 in for a trial run first and then the flood gates opened and everyone was trying their luck.

The aim? See how low the bar can go with cars still driving clear beneath it. It seemed smaller roadsters like the MX-5’s and S2000’s were setting the bar the lowest.

Drivers began grabbing extra passengers to weigh their cars down and drop the height an extra inch or two. Some cars were easy to fit in or on…

While others it seemed like they were getting smuggled over a tightly secured border!

This frenzy of the lowest went for nearly an hour while everyone tried to better the previous cars height.

While there weren’t any prizes up for grabs, they wanted to try to find a clear winner but in the end we think it was a toss-up between the red MX-5 and this MR2. At one point the MR2 had two girls holding onto the bonnet as the car crawled under the bar with only millimeters to spare!

After all the excitement of the limbo we got back into our tour of all the cars that had entered the show. Sydney crew Acquired Taste had this tasty white Evo we’ve seen so much of online lately.

It’s actually amazing how many cars have ‘E-fame’ these days. Nearly all the flawlessly prepared cars have had pictures shared around the net more than that nasty video of Paris Hilton.

Van’s S15 is always a pleasure to see in the flesh and we loved the placement of this Street-Cover sticker on the rim!

Everywhere we looked there were just more and more cars to look at and it actually got overwhelming with all these quality cars around.

There were even a couple of throwbacks to the show cars of yesteryear with some very big shiny rims on this Lexus and we actually didn’t mind it as it looked pretty neat in person.

Now it seems that Melbourne is the Skyline capital of Australia which must make Sydney the Silvia Capital. I have never seen so many nice S13, S14 and S15’s in one place together before that we lost count!

From this tucking S15…

To this stupidly low S14 hiding in the shadows. There were easily over 20 Silvia’s in attendance!!

Aside from a tonne of Silvia’s there were wheels as far as the eye could see!!

These guys love their wheels! Among a sea of Rays, Works and SSR’s we found a few that stopped us in our tracks. Something you hardly ever see are Lowenhart Xposition’s!
Whack ’em on a black Lexus and you have one very dangerous looking sedan!!

It also seems aside from the usual Japanese affair, there were an incredible amount of German wheels with Sydney siders showing a fondness for all things BBS!!
This particular set of BBS wheels have been completely rebuilt by wheel god Raymond from Raw Works. Check out their site for more info on building your own unique set of wheels!

Continuing on with the BBS theme, this E30 was a thing of beauty. Sitting on the dash was one uber rare BBS/Nardi steering wheel from the 90’s!!

How crazy is this?!!! Yep a decked out wheelie bin full of car audio – it was actually running and pumping some tunes throughout the day for our audio pleasure!

With the huge amount of cars that had squeezed into the show grounds, any cars that didn’t fit inside spilled out into the streets that lead into the park. We happened to spot this mean looking Evo X outside all on its’ lonesome.

One thing we noticed is that all the cars were meticulously clean bar one…

This thing was covered in mud from floor pan to roll bars. It made for an odd sight given it’s surroundings of clean street cars and pricey polished wheels.

The Street Kings S15 was a good looking combo and probably one of the best examples of after market taillights on an S15 we have seen to date.

This tidy Datsun had us studying it for some time and somehow we think that the number plates might not be telling the truth. The menacing looking inter cooler hiding behind the grill seems to tell a different story.

Lowriders!!!!! Yep hidden amongst the sea of euro and Japanese metal were two immaculate American lowriders. This Chevy Impala was absolutely stunning!!!

After walking the entire show we were flabbergasted that there were hardly any Nissan 350/370Z’s! One of the biggest cars in the US scene and there was only one amongst all the other cars there!

As things started to wrap up a flock of photographers made their way to the water to snap away like crazy at a few cars positioned by banks of the river, first up Justin Fox’s perfect R32 GT-R placed against the edge of the water.
Seriously this car is hardly driven and it really shows! It’s flawless!!!

Now when Zen girl Melanie Raimundo started posing with Justin’s GT-R it was sensory overload and I didn’t know what to focus my camera on anymore!

Once the GT-R moved on, Sydney car crew House of Stance positioned their cars and once again like throwing a chip on beach all the ‘protogs’ pounced, hurriedly snapping away before the sun faded completely.

It was easy to understand all the commotion caused with the cars by the water, this is one seriously photogenic spot! Every car looked perfect against the shimmering water. We definitely left with some backdrop envy towards our pals in Sydney.

So after 20+ hours of driving, a flight and some questionable roadside food, the GSS crew got home from one hell of weekend away in Sydney.
We would like to thank all of the All Stars crew for inviting us up, Justin and the gang from Zen Garage and of course all the people in Sydney who made us feel welcome and grabbed some merch from us at our stall. It was great to see a heap of cars already rocking the Gripshiftslide stickers too!!
Until next time Sydney.
Thanks for reading,
– Gwyn.