VW Cruise :: Melbourne's Euro's Come Out To Play

Grant — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:16:39 +0000

Recently I attended an early morning starting point for a local Volkswagen cruise through the hills, the meet point was only 10 minutes from home so I had no excuses not to rock up and take some snaps.
Except it was at 7:30 in the morning, on a Saturday… and I had a wedding to get to!! This did not deter me though.

The boys and girls from VW Golf.net.au are a dedicated bunch.
I arrived at 7:30am sharp and nearly 15 cars were there already. They were all looking very shiny, full of fuel and ready for a day of spirited driving through Melbourne’s hills and the Yarra Valley.

Being a VW Golf forum the cruise consisted of mostly, you guessed it… Golfs!!

Now I’ll admit I’m quite sheltered when it comes to Euro’s and modified cars outside of Japan, so combine that with my still sleeping mind on an early Saturday morning and I was aimlessly taking photos left, right and centre.

Shoot first, ask questions later!
I found out this is the second generation Golf, the quad headlights are a giveaway that this is the GTI model.
Another hint here is the Neuspeed badge on the front, things are not exactly standard here.

Nicely lowered on some aftermarket alloy wheels.

Aside from the VW’s there were quite a few intruders, none of which were as menacing as Todd’s Skoda wagon!

This is certainly a car I haven’t taken much notice of before, partly because I’ve never seen many on the road.

The facelift Octavia is really quite an attractive car, I would definitely consider one of these as the run about car.

While continuing around my aimless wander through the car park I kept returning to “BFLAT”.

This superb little GTI was the star of the show, sitting very low and cleaning the streets as it goes!

The car is a massive testament to keeping it simple. With the right wheels, a well placed sticker or two and of course the right ride height.
Nearly any car can be transformed into a neck breaker!

This car gets a lot of love, the inside was spotless!

The wheels are of course Ronal Turbo’s, quite a rare sight around our side of the world.

This is the latest generation Golf, the MK6 Golf R. Compared to the previous version it is little bit smaller with a much more aggressive looking set of headlights.
I absolutely love the new look, with another version due to be unveiled later this year I’m excited to see how it looks.

The second generation Audi S3, don’t let the 4 rings on the grill fool you.
At the heart of this machine is actually a Volkswagen 2.0L turbocharged engine.

Looking into the distance you could have been forgiven if you thought the sun was rising awfully quickly this early in the morning, as it got closer it was in fact a bright yellow Renault Megane RS!

As bright as the sun and nearly as hot, this little hot-hatch packs quite the punch!
With 184kw at disposal thanks to the turbocharged 4 cylinder engine, this FWD Renault would be an absolute blast to drive!!

Being unfamiliar with the euro scene, anyone care to enlighten me on these plates?

So after taking a few photos and having a quick chat, I let the boys get on with their cruise and headed home to quickly suit up and get to the wedding.
Hopefully next time there is a cruise I won’t be required to attend a wedding by another inconsiderate friend 😛
Thanks for reading,
– Gwyn.

Imports Only :: Saturday Night Cruise

Grant — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:03:14 +0000

Two weeks into the year and things are already back on track for Melbourne’s modified car community, with several meets and events coming up in 2012 it is going to be one hell of year!
Over the Christmas/New Years break it was nice to relax but I couldn’t get rid of the itch that something was missing. So whilst enjoying a meal at a friends place Saturday night, I got a message that a cruise was happening and the turn out was likely to be pretty decent.

With keys and camera in hand, I made my way down to the Monash Uni carpark where I was greeted by a handful of Skylines, a few Evo’s and even a couple VW’s.
This Civic was one of the first Honda’s at the meeting point, it had all the extras like a carbon hood, bonnet mask and even a cup holder!

Yep an external cup holder, what will they think of next?!

What started off at around 15 cars soon got to 50+ as word about the cruise had spread like wildfire among the Skyline community, with nearly 20 Skylines attending in total.

After the Skylines, the meetup was dominated by the AWD Mitsubishi’s and Subaru’s. From the clean and simple like this…

To the slightly more wild Evo’s.

And finally the very, very menacing looking Evo X.

Not many Toyota’s were out in force at the cruise, this Chaser was one of only three Toyota’s there!

It did however have spot on wheel choice, Work SP1’s work on nearly any car!

This interesting looking Evo had gone for a friendlier look than most and it did look very clean.

The wingless look while not for everyone, can work really well. I really liked this one, but I have seen some bad examples too!

Now to some euro goodness, this Golf had a wicked colour scheme with the factory red pin-striping continuing onto the bonnet around the carbon fiber.

One of the stars of the meet up was this little Mk1 Golf, sporting an engine swap and a host of other goodies.

Keep your eyes peeled as you might be seeing some more of this little guy.

Lighting conditions in the car park were pretty horrid for photos, some had pretty fancy setups using strobe flashes.

While others including my self, opted for some lower shutter speeds and a tripod.

One car that has been getting around is this GS Lexus, the ride height on it was perfect!

An old relic form the old car show days?

Not to everyone’s taste, this show RX-7 has had some serious coin spent on it and definitely has the engine work to back up the paint!

The show stopping moment for the evening was this KE70 Corolla arriving.

Making quite a noise thanks to an SR swap. Along with the engine, this car has had quite the handling upgrade thanks to some components from an S15 including new brakes!

This was the cars first outing as the owner has been very busy building it for the upcoming Drift Matsuri in Feb.

Announcing the little KE’s arrival were these awesome ‘drift’ pipes.

As the lighting didn’t help the photos, everyone moved into an adjacent multi-level car park.

It wasn’t great but anything was an improvement. Here you can see a few of the Skylines together and there really were quite a few!

It took a little bit of maneuvering to get everyone in the right spots.

How’s this for rare, a genuine Tommy Kaira R34!
Improving on what the Gt-R had as standard with tune up of the engine and suspension system…

…And some very serious aero modifications. It was very imposing sitting next to a regular GT-R!
I overheard the owner mention this was build number 79 from the Tommy Kaira workshop.

A few of the Subaru kids parked off by themselves.

This green machine had an interesting body kit along with a carbon bonnet.

This R34 has had extensive engine work and is setup for the drag strip, I believe the owner is selling it at the moment.

Hate it or love it, the quality of the airbrushing on this Mazda is superb, the graphics also bring back the nostalgia of playing Tekken on the old Playstation. And that’s never a bad thing!

In just over an hour the cars had moved on for a cruise through the mountains, I had to get back home as dessert was still waiting!
What was a originally a relativity small meet, ended up with a great turn out! There was a great range of cars and some seriously rare ones too and I hope that’s a sign that things in 2012 are going to be bigger and better.
Thanks for reading,
– Gwyn.

Golf – Gripshiftslide

VW Cruise :: Melbourne's Euro's Come Out To Play

Imports Only :: Saturday Night Cruise