You know something serious is happening when they shut down an entire street! Why? Because Saint Side that’s why! John street in St Albans is the location and with help from vendors, volunteers and Brimbank Council the party was on.
Along with the lowriders, cruisers, and vintage bikes were a special selection of cars handpicked especially for the show. Karl’s KE10 Corolla from the infamous JVN Garage was in attendance and looking sharp.


There were plenty of American low riders and Yank tanks on show including Lincolns, Mercurys and Chevys with something for everyone’s taste.

The show is not only about cars and bikes but also street culture. Showing off your new kicks with your favorite four legged friend was another strong theme of the day.

I have never seen so many custom bikes in one place with a massive collection of bikes that are not just your every day pushie.

The personal touches on some of the bikes are interesting and could indicate the owners origins or just be a representation of their favorite things.

Trikes aren’t just for kids! White walls, candy paint and lots of chrome!

So gangsta while being so cute! This is something an evil clown would ride in a serial killer movie.

One of Australia’s most E-famous S13’s. Yes it’s Oliver’s crazy low drift beast looking the part as always.

With so much to see in a street full of action it was hard to focus! Every year this show just grows and grows! It’s great to see what Mark from Saint Side has created over the last seven years.

The Saint Side crew is strong and loyal with many of their own cars on display plus performances from K-Star, Ali Belmont and resident DJ Rod G.

The Chevy Imapala steering wheel is almost bus sized but its size is relative to the size of the Impala; its one huge car! So many cool lowriders in one street.

John Street was absolutely packed with people! The atmosphere was electric and with this amount of people it felt like a live music festival.

With 120 bikes, 40 plus cars and 10 plus motorcycles there wasn’t much room for vendors in the street but Mark managed to fit everyone in.

This is truly an original Beetle with original paint job and rust but damn it was tuff!

The winner of Saint Side Excel Award goes to this crazy air bagged ride. There was a constant crowd around this bike all day along with the owner demonstrating how to lower and raise the bike with its crazy air bag system.

This is one hell of a custom trike with its widebody fiberglass shell, custom gear shift and a whole heap of chrome.

This crew took over the road and cruised down to the local milk bar and back rolling in style the whole way.

The show was a massive success! The bicycle raffle raised over five hundred dollars and all the money was donated to the charity Beyond Blue. Saint Side know how to put on a real show with lots of variety and a fun atmosphere. Not to mention they sell some of the best street wear around plus a massive host of custom bike parts. We can’t wait to see what plan for next year. We don’t know what it will be but we know it will be big!
Thanks for reading,
Grant
Saint Side

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.

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