My Corolla as I inherited it

So what’s going on with me? Well I finally got myself the AE86 I’d been after for years, a late 2 door Levin! She ain’t exactly a peach, but with a little TLC she won’t be lemon much longer… I’ll miss the E36 328i sport touring that I traded for it, but I needed to tick Corolla ownership off my bucket list. I’m still Sales Manager at Driftworks, albeit with a little more responsibilty these days and I still have a shopping list that’s far bigger than my salary.

My E36 328i sport touring on BBS RK003 wheels

So what have I done to the new Corolla? Well I had to replace the nasty worn Nardi Classic that was in there. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the style of the wheel but it was more blistered and worn from the sun than I have ever seen! I replaced the worn Nardi Classic with a brand new Nardi Classic which I loved. It was Nardi Classic 360mm with black leather and grey stitching and it looked amazing but with the positioning with the particular boss that is in my car meant that it just didn’t fit me right. So I replaced it with another new Nardi – this time a 350mm Nardi Deep Corn with black perforated leather and grey stitching and silver spokes, and to tell you the truth I couldn’t be happier with the driving position now!

Nardi Deep Corn 350mm in my Corolla

After sorting the interior out and getting rid of the horrid “JDM” tat that came with my car (such as bubble gear knob and “genuine JDM noodle cup”, really) I did what I always do with new cars and gave it a good service and then like always I started looking at new wheels and tyres. After being the number 1 place in Europe for Rota wheels for god knows how long I’d gotten sick of looking at the gorgeous Rota Grid V wheels and not having anything to put them on so I had to get some fitted! I went for the 15×8 ET0 version in bronze and am chuffed with how the car looks now, and it seems to get praise from everyone who sets eyes on it these days so I must have got something right!

15x8" ET0 Rota Grid V on bronze on my 2 door Levin

Naturally at this time of year my car is as filthy as ever, but I’ll blame that on living along a busy main road when the roads are wet. Luckily Dan cleaned the beast for me today and she looks sweet. Speaking of sweet, Brother Bamber of The Corolla Brotherhood and Driftworks fame snapped this sweet shot of my car the other morning… so I poached it for this post!

Rota Grid V 15 x 8 on AE86

So that brings you pretty much up to date with car-related stuff, but as for photography… well at the moment my iPhone will have to do – alongside some of the excellent photographers I call friends.

One thing that has changed whilst we have been gone is the global explosion of support for Nakai-san and his Rauh-Welt brand of tuning and styling. Just 18 months or so there were very few people who had come across these creations outside of the Japanese tuning scene and now photos and videos are all over the internet and the RWB brand has spread across Asia, to the UK and now thanks to Mark Arcenal at Fatlace the USA.

Mark’s own “Pandora One” 964 has been transformed from the car he bought over 4 years ago, but rather than ripping off the excellent Speedhunters feature I’ll just post this link here for you to enjoy!

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Ballad of Bons S14 – Part 1 from Trackday Films on Vimeo.

I’ll be getting back into the swing of regular blog updates as time allows but I’m currently doing a lot of freelance web optimisation work as well so havent been to as many shows or events as I’d like!

Thanks to all those who have continued to read this blog on a regular basis over the years – this is far from the end for TweakCulture!

PS: I got rid of the .com domain so ignore the links in posts – I’ll remove those as soon as I get a chance!

Cheers

James

This week, we have 2 shots from last weekends DWYB day at Santa Pod. As always if you want to see any specific photo in full resultion to allow you to fulfil your wallpaper desires, please leave us a comment or contact us via the forums…

Click the photos above for the full size image, and then right click and select “Set as desktop background”.

The end of 2009 has seen two milestones in the UK car scene, this being the 1^st anniversary of Honda Culture and one of its sponsors TweakCulture. It has been a hectic year for both parties but I am sure that everyone would agree that all the hard work has paid off. However that said that does not mean 2010 will be a quiet year!

Honda Culture was started by a group of friends who all share the same interests in the marque, Honda. We organised the Honda meets in Milton Keynes which became very popular despite the shocking weather we had at times! January 2009 saw the passing of a fellow member Nelan Reddy who was very close to us. Nelan had a blue EG dx which he had lots of plans for however did not get to see them through due to complications with leukaemia. It is his family’s decision to finish the car the way he wanted. In May 2009 a number of HC members went on a charity drive organised by Wes at TokyoDrive to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Research and we will continue supporting (or maybe organising some) events like this in the future.

You will also find a number of cars wearing the decal shown below in remembrance of Nelan. Honda Culture was created in memory of Nelan.

In our 1^st year as a club, HC has grown with the number of official members now creeping over the 30 mark however with the huge amount of supporters there has also been a number of haters. To set things straight we have no problems with any other club/forum! We build our cars for ourselves and have a laugh doing so. We just want to enjoy the shows/meets etc just like everyone else and have no problems supporting other clubs and their events as we did with TeamScorpio.

I am truly amazed at the quality of cars that our members bring out and this is only the beginning. With lots of projects in the pipeline and current cars having makeovers, all I can say is that 2010 is going to be an exciting year!

Honda Culture has already had 2 feature cars in its first year, James (or tegboy as most know him) with his awesome EK9 (see James’ previous feature here) which was in Banzai and myself (darkside) with my VSM EK4 that is in the current issue of Fast Car. There will be lots more cars breaking through next and expect to see some of these in magazines.

As many people already know HC is an exclusive club in which you would have to be invited to join. This is not for any elitist reason, but simply to ensure only like minded people become members in order to keep the friendly and laid back feel to the club. The main boxes a person needs to tick before being invited to join Honda Culture is to have or be building an awesome car but most importantly have a good and very friendly attitude as well as building their cars for themselves not to just be part of a club or scene (ironically!), its all about having fun. Official member’s cars can be recognised by having a gold HC Cartel decal and members will have the HC shirt (the haters know this as the bowling team shirt).

With the help of our 3 sponsors TweakCulture, AceImageUK and Endless Horizon Motorsport (who we think are the best of best at what they do) I am sure that Honda Culture will be making an even bigger impact next year.

The new Honda Culture website (along with its new forum) is currently being developed and is expected to go live very soon, so be sure to keep an eye on this blog for more news of the launch.

Be sure to catch us at a few shows and meets next year.

Big thanks to James for giving us the honour of being the first to contribute to the TweakCulture blog.

Dean Reddy (darkside)

Yesterday was a wet one! After arriving at Santa Pod for the (always) popular DWYB day yesterday, I realised that getting good shots was going to be tricky… It was wet, it was overcast, it was windy – which meant that I didn’t hold out too much hope! Here is the 1st batch of photos that I have edited already, and I have more to come that will be added later in the week. Click any of the photos or here to see the rest of batch one.

Feel free to leave a comment below, or contact me via Driftworks.

Slow motion motorsport videos are just awesome, there is no denying it. Instead of a car or bike flying passed you are 100mph+ you can actually see them in detail and appreciate the god like control being displayed…. Check out this belter of a vid now…. in HD! Video courtesy of FONE Supports

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b96hBQV1GKU]

Ok… so I am posting this on Thursday morning – my mistake! This weeks wallpaper offerings come from JTS earlier this summer, which saw round 3 of this years EDC running along with Time Attack.

After looking back over the photos I have taken this year, Ross (Site on CL) requested this as wallpaper earlier this week so I figured I should offer it to everyone else. This car makes me want an FC RX7 badly!

If you would like to request any photos as full res wallpaper please leave a comment. To get the full size versions of the photos above just click on them….