As the sun went down the cars started to leave and what was left? A genuine Tommy Makinen Evo that had been hiding behind the crowd of Commodores and Fords.
This was the biggest car meet I had been to in some time. It was similar in numbers to HWY yet with less trouble. It looks like there will be plenty of large car meets and cruises this year and we look forward to checking them out.
Thanks for reading,
Grant

Just over two weeks ago we received a phone call from the Sydney All Stars crew saying they would be coming to Melbourne and we should host a big meet up!
With the excitement of co-hosting a big meet with our pals from over the border, we got busy making calls and had a location booked with just a week until the date when of course –  disaster struck!
Our first venue had double booked us so and we needed to either cancel altogether or relocate! So it was back to the phone to find an alternative, that was when we called up the ever faithful Caribbean Market in Melbourne’s east. After our last very successful event there, they were more than happy to have us back with just a weeks notice!!


The next step was to invite some friends of Gripshiftslide.com.
Our regulars on the day included Saint Side Shop, Ilovedrift.com, JDMparts.rupewrecht.com and of course we lined up our mate Luke on the decks for the four hour straight set!!
Yep, the day was set to be a hit with the only question mark being the always unpredictable Melbourne weather.

Arriving at the markets around 9:30am, we started setting up and getting everything ready before the big 12pm start. For once it looked as though the weather would be on our side too!
Saint Side Shop and Ilovedrift.com arrived soon after bringing a bunch of cool gear to display, like Cats’ Sileighty drift car and one of Saint Side’s cutom BMX’s.

Dan from JDMparts.rupewrecht.com was all smiles after he had all his amazing wheels on display. This is a dangerous guy to invite to an event because every time we spend way too much time contemplating buying wheels from him! Go away Dan!!!

Our interstate guests arrived a little later after having a big night on the town. They brought along the All Stars Maloo Ute for the journey down from Sydney and had many of the local guys and girls drooling over it all day!

The first car to arrive was this clean black R34 with a twin brother in Bayside blue and so of course by now the excitement was kicking in already… This was going to be a very good day!!

Within minutes little groups started pouring in. This MX-5 was quick to steal our attention from the rest of the group. The bright red roadster looked so good against the green grass!

By now things were really up and running with a constant stream of cars crawling in and we do mean crawling, unfortunately we weren’t advised we were going to need our own volunteers to direct the traffic so we had to improvise a little.
Our friend Paul took charge and was the main man telling everyone where to park and did a killer job –  so a massive thank you goes out to Paul for doing way more than he should have!

Thanks to the teams efforts the main area was looking great, it was jam packed with all sorts of rad cars… from this super aggressive looking Golf

To the loudest car on the day by far, this immaculate black SS Camaro!

Not far from the Camaro was this crazy XY drift car, yep drift car! We’ve been hearing a bit about this build and we’re very excited to get to see the finished result at a drift day really soon.

Even with the main area full, more and more cars kept arriving and the cars began spilling out into another grassy area and soon there were practically two shows running simultaneously.
We loved the sight of this crisp white Hachi Roku rolling in.

Speaking of AE86’s, we couldn’t stay away from this tidy red example on Impul Hoshino’s. As the sun started fading behind the clouds the paintwork really came alive!

Justin’s S2000 was looking good with it’s new shoes, white on white is always a good idea!

We don’t know if the owner of this actually came over from SA but this S12 was so straight and looked great with some slightly aggressive fitting wheels.

It seems our fan base has been infiltrated by Toyota Chaser owners as there was at least 10 at the meet. With examples this good, we weren’t complaining!!

Another big group at the meet had to be the E30 Squad. These boys live and breath everything Bavarian Motor Works, but more specifically the now legendary E30 model.

From the clean and straight.

To those sporting a host of accessories from the M series catalog.

If we had to pick one that captured our hearts it would probably be this one with a great wheel choice and a race inspired interior with a single Sparco seat and an after market steering wheel.

While directing traffic I broke my neck checking out this FC Rx7.

After it had parked I was pulled in by the little details the owner had added around the headlights.

Yep, that’s a black and white manga comic wrapped around the plastics!

It seemed we were treated to a heap of cool older Evo’s.

We counted four Evo 6’s hiding around the place!

Is Melbourne the home of modified Toyota Camry’s?? This very new model Camry was stealing a few looks from passers by and maybe at first people were wondering what type of car it in fact was. The new model is sporting some pretty mean looking headlights!

Another car still in it’s infancy as a modifiers choice of blank canvas, the Honda Jazz. This is something we could get used to seeing a lot more of!!

Jono from Zeroclearance.net’s S13 was looking very dope with a brand new wing and some super wide steelies, sitting beneath the rear guards are wheels measuring a staggering 15×10 with 0 offset!!

Local female drifter and GSS favourite is Esther and her sparkly Sileighty. The obscenely bright pink gram lights always grab peoples attention whether it’s sliding at the track or parking hard at one of our meets, it is clear to see that people love this car.

Or maybe it’s just the numberplate’s?

With cars coming and going all day it was hard to keep track but we think this was the only R35 GT-R in Melbourne that wasn’t on display at the PSRA- Performance Motorshow. (More on that show later!)

We were also very lucky to be graced with two Honda NSX’s!! This is the pinnacle for Honda fan boys. The faces of onlookers as this drove in to find a parking spot was priceless!

We always like to help out a good cause so we let our friends Matt and Simon come along and run a raffle next to our stand, the boys have entered a Mystery Box Rally to help raise funds for cancer research.
We will be keeping you guys up to date  with ways you can help out and even bring you some of the action while the boys are driving the pants of their mystery rally car.

At the end of the day the raffle was drawn by yours truly and a lucky winner walked away with a mystery box of their own full to the brim with $$$ worth of Martini Racing products and Redline gearbox oil and heap of other cool stuff like some GSS merch!!
To stay up to date with the boys and their journey follow them on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/choongaandsimmomysterybox

Niel from Primal Garage brought out his poster worthy 180SX and a very clean customers car…

This is one of the latest cars to roll out of the Primal Garage workshop and the wheel choice was spot on for the new Toyota 86. We think this car needs to have a few more photos taken at a later date.

This old school ghetto blaster was actually tuned in and pumping tunes at a whopping 4watts RMS off the roof of the car… What car??

A rat-rod commodore of course!! This car was actually a big hit and it’s charm seemed to win over a few people.

We also got a visit from a monster truck! Not really but when you park a massive Chevrolet Z71 next to the kind of cars we normally see at a meet like this, there is quite a staggering difference in size!

The Corolla wagon we fell in love with at 100MM was kind enough to show up for the afternoon and park in front of our stalls for us to enjoy looking at it as the event started to wind down.

The 612 Autoworks boys managed to convince Charlie to bring down his brand new toy, a Datsun C210 Skyline. This thing is bad ass and until that afternoon I didn’t even know I wanted one and now it’s all I can think about!

Also this happened… Two DMC Delorean’s!! The two parked up side-by-side and enjoyed a mini photo shoot at the end of the day with a dozen cameras on them at one time. It was a very unique sight and sadly something I might not get to see again.

As 4 o’clock struck we waved off our interstate guests and began packing up the stalls and cleaning up some of the litter left behind.
Given the amount of people that attended the place was looking great and thankfully the markets didn’t mind the disturbance of one of Melbourne’s biggest meets happening right next door to them.
We really can’t thank all those that attended and more importantly helped out with the massive task of setting up and keeping on top of the traffic and then packing it all up at the end of the day again, but you know who you are.
We have some big plans and a west side meet coming very soon! Stay tuned Melbourne and thanks for reading,
– Gwyn.