Poking out through the rear diffuser are the burnt tips of the exhaust, hinting that this car has a bit more going on than just clean paint. All the pipes that help the hefty GTR exhale are 90 spec titanium from Amuse with an AMS de-catted dump pipe to keep everything flowing when push comes to shove, or just when the lights go green.

Inside the car things are as you would find them fresh out of the dealership, minus the Cobb V3 access port hand controller and Mines leather steering wheel, there really isn’t much that can be improved on here.  Nissan have done an outstanding job creating this space. It is comfortable without putting you to sleep, and is a perfect blend between form and function that would suit almost anyone looking for a sports car you can live with everyday. Just don’t have more than one friend. The back ‘seat’ is best reserved for those of us who are vertically challenged or missing a few limbs. 

The premium red/black seats are surprisingly comfy and even have a heater element inside for those cold mornings. It is a bit like strapping a back massager to the end of a bungee cord! How warm someones buttocks are surely is not exactly very high on their list of priorities in a car like this.

The illusive little red ‘start’ button, it’s almost a shame it only turns the car on… It looks like fun to press!!

Like any premium performance car out of Japan in the last decade, you’ll find electronic controls that can change exactly how the car behaves at the flick of a switch. The three centre switches change the 4WD system, suspension and traction control. Now the GTR isn’t just any old premium performance car is it?..

Atop the centre console, you’ll find Nissan’s latest incarnation of the multifunction display that was first found in the R34 GTR Skyline. Here you’ll find a multitude of live stats ranging from various temps, to steering angle and g-force! If you think that all seems like something from a Playstation game, you’d be right! Kazunori Yamachi of Polyphony Digital fame (Gran Tourismo game series) was enlisted to help Nissan design the GUI as they wanted it to be as easy as possible to access.

Having done the bold look with his previous car, Charles concentrated only on enhancing what was already there. Some of the first things added to the car were from the Revosport catalogue.
First in was the carbon fibre boot lid and dry carbon front lip and diffuser.


The Revosport boot lid really changes up the rear end dramatically, the hard lines of the factory spoiler are all but gone and instead this smooth flowing replacement looks like the air just slides away like water off a ducks back.

To tie in the rear of the car, Charles picked up a Top racing dry carbon rear diffuser with mesh delete, this was only fitted a few weeks before the shoot.

Take a step back and admire the simple little touches that all come together to make this such an exciting looking car.

The GTR wears its’ badge of honor everywhere you look.

Brakes to match the brawn.

Another hidden gem thanks to Revosport, these little carbon air ducts direct cold air directly into the vented brake discs… Now that’s cool! (sorry).

After his time with the car Charles says he cannot go back to a naturally aspirated car again, turbo for life he says with a grin.

We’re not really sure what Charles could ‘upgrade’ to after he’s done with the GTR… Nothing else comes close to matching the GTR’s performance in the sub $200k price bracket.

The sign of a spotlessly maintained car that is actually driven? A worn out keyring of course!!

If you aren’t green with envy already, wait until you find out how Charles affords to put petrol in every week… He owns and runs his own Mexican restaurant!! Now throw in a house on an island and that’s pretty much the best life we could hope for.
Charles’ next project on the GTR will be an e85 fuel conversion, the parts are starting to pile up and we cannot wait to see the results.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this feature and we would like to thank Charles for sharing both his car and time with us.
Thanks for reading,
– Gwyn.

Jason Ferron – The art of persistence from grip shift slide on Vimeo.

This is the first episode in our MINI_DOCO series featuring our good friend Jason Ferron. He has been in the drift scene for the last four years but has only been seriously competing for the last 2 years. This video is just a small incite into Jason’s world and chronicles some of his experiences up until now.

Australian Drift Grand Prix Round 4 -2014 from grip shift slide on Vimeo
Australians best drivers battle it out at round four, the last round of the current series.
With a formula d style layout the drivers found the course to be rather challenging.

True JDM meets are few and far between these days. With a massive JDM meet planned for the end of the year, Street-Vision has decided to test their fan base and organised an unofficial meet.
Held near the end of Lorimer street Port Melbourne, this popular spot offers great parking and little attention from the law, so its win win!

The first car to attract my attention was this Liberty wagon. The great thing about these wagons is that you can use many of the early WRX parts and trick them out! Wagons are not so common in the scene but I really like that there are a couple of people who are not afraid to represent.

i’m a big fan of the old school dump exhaust and even though this little Civic is a work in progress, you can really see where it is heading.

Plasti-dip is all the rage at the moment and lots of people are rushing out and doing it to bring life to their old wheels.

This is one fancy looking miniature explosion making machine! The S3 is one seriously underrated car and with a few mods these things boogie.  They are one of the fastest hatchbacks available.

The S2000 is one of those cars that just screams quality! The cabin is tight and fitted with everything just at arms reach. It was such a pleasure to see so many of them attending this event.

One of the standout cars was this DC5. Steve has worked hard to get this car looking so good and all his work has definitely paid off.

This is one car I haven’t seen for a while. It was often spotted at many of the big JDMST meets under the bridge last year. Such meets aren’t as regular these days and it is fantastic to see someone trying to bring these JDM meets back.

Soon it was getting hard to find a park and many cars were playing musical chairs trying to get better spots and to mix it up for some cool photo opportunities.

Here we see one of the awesome line ups from the day. The grandad of the Honda world and his loud little brothers.

The legendary Honda NSX – it doesn’t get much better than this! Street-Vision really did bring together some of Melbourne’s best JDM cars in one place.

Its the little things that make some cars stand out. Simple little eyelids and a very nice custom bonnet with mesh cutouts and a nice set of shoes set this car apart.

Then this happened! Yep, that’s right… a Clubman turned up! This is one of the most fun cars to drive and is known as a real track monster.
A lot of these cars are armed with a 4-AGE 20 valve black top, making them such a tough revy little engine.

Even though everyone was behaving themselves, the boys in blue still took down a few number plates and completed a few laps of the area.

With so many cars attending the meet it was hard to focus on just one. This R34 did catch my eye though because with all the Skylines in the Melbourne car scene currently, a standard front bar on an R34 stands out like a sore thumb

It was good to see a modern JDM car among all the great JDM classics from the 90’s.

These boys decided that standing wasn’t for them and enjoyed a bit of down time between cars rolling in. It was a perfect day to take some time to enjoy the sunshine that Melbourne brought out for us.

This photo created quite a stir on our facebook page and many people jumped in on the conversation. We think it is fantastic that a girl is driving a modified car and there should be more of them! It doesn’t matter what type of car you modify, as long as it puts a smile on your face then it is ok with us.

That mighty badge signifies decades of RND and the GTR continues to be a car that not only makes V8 lovers upset but continues to slay giants.

Its mad to see our sticker on quite a few cars at this event and we appreciate everyone who helps us out! Every dollar goes into getting us to events all around Oz.

After a few hours it was time to leave and many people left in a spirited fashion. It only takes one to start everyone off and then it is hard to break the habit. But of course what is a car meet without a little noise and a puff or two of smoke.

This is one of the first events of many for Street-Vision. Heaps of cars turned up and there wasn’t any trouble to be seen. We are all looking forward to more events and especially if they are JDM based. Even though it is winter there are still plenty of cars out and about at great events like this and the scene continues to grow because of the efforts of new groups like Street-Vision.
Thanks for looking,
Grant
More on Street-Vision: https://www.facebook.com/streetvisionteam

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.