Sum of Parts

With a new generation of car enthusiasts coming through, and the rise of stifling ‘anti-hoon’ laws across Australia, it seems young people are less interested in performance and more interested in wheel fitment. It’s time for a revolution, to take back the horsepower, and the freedom and adrenaline that comes with it.

(Full disclosure: Brisbane Motor Imports thought Track Shun was so cool and knowledgeable, they asked us to write an advertorial on the benefits of engine swapping. Consider supporting a company that supports a grass-roots automotive blog.)

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good stance. But there’s a line between form and function, where choosing straight looks over how your automobile accelerates and handles makes you nothing but a poseur. It’s just a progression of the ‘VIP’ fad where kids would buy automatic E46 318i’s and stuff 21” chrome wheels under the car and two fifteen inch subwoofers into the boot.

When I was a teenager we used to laugh at them. They would call themselves car guys, but wouldn’t really have any idea about what it means to be a car guy. Cruising Chapel St or Brighton Le Sands or Cannon Hill Macca’s does not maketh a car enthusiast. There’s something about feeling the rush from a big turbo kicking in and propelling you down the road that you can’t get out of your bones. It’s twice as much fun if you’re in a car that wasn’t built to do such things. Three times as much if you happen to catch the look on the faces of the people in the other car.

This was how we spent our youth. There were countless days and nights preparing small cars for big turbo motors from defected donor cars that we would drive over from interstate. Or in friends’ driveways with gravel in our back, dropping high-compression Nissan engines into old Toyotas, Supra turbo motors into Bunderas, and Holden V8s into whatever we could find. Fitment was cool, but going fast was cooler. Come to think of it, it’s still how I choose to spend my weekends.

After years of experience, you quickly discover that Japanese half-cuts are the best way to do conversions. They come with the wiring loom, auxiliaries, mounts, and just about everything you would need to do a clean, quick swap. They’re also cheap. Buying a performance half-cut and stuffing it into your daily driver is significantly more fun and cost-effective than buying a pre-packaged performance car. Less unwanted attention from the boys in blue, too.

Waiting until you’re off your Ps before getting a loan and buying a fast car is fine. You know what’s better? Celebrating getting your full licence by dropping in a turbocharged Celica GT4 engine from a Toyota half-cut into the Corolla that your grandmother gave you when you got your Ps. Invite your mates around for the weekend and pay them in beer and barbeque. It beats the disappointment Nanna will have when you finally sell the car after having it on Gumtree for six months, and it’s cheaper than dropping $9,000 on a Celica GT4. You’ll have something unique, a package that you’re already familiar with, and a huge sense of accomplishment. Also, a very quick car.

I don’t even know why you would wait until you’re off your P-plates. Don’t tell me that you can’t have a fast car these days because of the restrictions placed on young drivers. You really need to drive pretty much any performance Honda to discover that an engine doesn’t have to have forced induction or eight cylinders or even much capacity in order to produce buckets of adrenaline. Buy an early-90s Civic, grab yourself a Honda half-cut from any Integra Type R or VTi-R, and watch the hilarity ensue. A revvy naturally aspirated motor in a light body will blow the doors off pretty much anything out there. Don’t like Hondas? Buy a classic 280ZX and a Nissan half-cut from a 370Z and get to work. Retro looks with kick-ass performance.

Maybe you’re already on your full licence and all your mates are driving V8 Commodores. You’re probably a bogan, but that’s fine. You don’t have to stray too far from the pack to have something decent. Find yourself the cleanest VL Commodore you can and pick-up a Nissan Skyline R33 GTR half-cut. For less than the price of a stock VL Turbo, you can have a VL Twin-Turbo that will destroy all those V8s that your friends spent way too much money on.

If the current trend is buying a slow automatic car and lowering it on some dished wheels with tyre stretch, then maybe drop an STi motor into a Subaru Brumby and put a set of semi-slicks on some ugly steel wheels. Stick a 20B into a 929 coupe and go to the Jamboree. Buy your uncle’s Cressida and install an Aristo engine. Go out to your garage and be a real car enthusiast. Be a trend-setter.


Brisbane Motor Imports have a bunch of really cool half-cuts available, as well as engines, transmissions, and new and used parts. Check out their website and get inspired.

American Road Test

What better way to zig-zag across the American West than in a Chevrolet Tahoe? We put the American SUV through its paces over four packed days.

(Full disclosure: Victorian American Imports thought Track Shun was so cool and knowledgeable, they asked us to write an advertorial on the Chevy Tahoe, one of the many American cars they import to Australia. Consider supporting a company that supports a grass-roots automotive blog.)

I was in Flagstaff, Arizona. From the town centre, perched on the side of a mountain and surrounded by tall pine trees, the cabbie told me about his career playing bluegrass guitar. He drove me to a man in a suit with thick-rimmed glasses and silver hair that had a touch of class from a different era, and I was handed the keys to my champagne-coloured Chevrolet Tahoe LT that I would use to cover thousands of miles in only four days.

The LT is a step-up from the basic LS, with heated leather seats and a Bose stereo (amongst many features), but is below the range-topping LTZ that boasts standard features you would expect to find in a Porsche Cayenne. The handsome exterior was matched with a 5.3 litre Vortec V8 motor that produced a surprising 240kw of power and 450nm of torque, but you can option it with the 6.2 litre V8 when ordering through VAI.

I shot off down the freeway with a big smile on my face, setting the cruise control to a comfortable 120kph as I familiarised myself with the car. My iPhone cable plugged into the USB port and streamed some roadtrip playlists as I pointed the car north towards the Grand Canyon. I was happy to be sitting there. I arrived at the Canyon just as the sun was on the horizon. That golden light cast shadows across that amazing place. I soaked it in before jumping back in the Tahoe setting off again.

The drive from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas was spectacular. The light at dusk was some of the prettiest I've ever seen and kept going for hours as I chased the sun. I kept my eye on the fuel gauge of the Tahoe, thinking that this American SUV would be sucking down the petrol like Coca-Cola, but the needle barely moved during the many hours of driving. Late into the night and without much left in me, the car drove over a peak and revealed a carpet of lights in the valley of Las Vegas.

In the context of the Australian market, the Tahoe makes a lot of sense. The car can be optioned with the 6.2 litre V8, which not only has a lot more power, it also makes servicing the car at your local Holden dealership a lot more convenient. They come in 2WD or 4WD, depending on what you need. They can be optioned with up-to eight seats and with a towing capacity of 5.5 tonnes. But the thing that makes the most sense is that the Tahoe is significantly easier to drive and (I suspect) live with than most Japanese seven-seater SUVs.

Like most Aussies, I expected the Chev to be an oversized, uncouth Yank Tank. But I couldn't have been more wrong. As the smaller sister to the celebrated Chevrolet Suburban, the Tahoe still boasts more than enough space for most people. But because it’s smaller, it’s easier to park and has better visibility. It has more useable space than a Toyota Kluger, but doesn’t feel too big for the road like a Toyota Prado can. The cabin is comfortable and has excellent build quality. There's a reason it has a consumer rating of 8.6/10.

I spent the next day driving everywhere. I’ll admit that I felt pretty good handing a Greenback to the valet and jumping into the captain’s chair of the Tahoe with my sunnies on. Around downtown Vegas the Tahoe was just as well-mannered and as easy to maneuver as ever, and looked spot-on in her metallic paint shimmering under the bright sun.

The following day I drove from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City, cruising through the enourmous cuttings that are a marvel to modern engineering. Normally after a few hours of driving, my years of bad posture tend to bite me in the lower back, but I was perfectly comfortable in the Chevy. The seats were big, not too soft (or firm), and had beautiful black piping trimmed throughout the leatherwork. Just over the border I had to fill-up for the first time since I’d started. Impressive considering I’d been driving for three days through a combination of city and freeway traffic. After swapping stories with a local uniform, I rolled into Salt Lake City to find my hotel.

The reason for my trip was Speed Week. Each year, the Bonneville Salt Flats hosts mad people from across the globe, trying to go faster than they ever have before. I arrived the following afternoon. With the summer heat radiating off the brilliant white salt flat, I was thankful for the powerful climate control in the Tahoe. I marvelled at the incredible machines that lined the pits as the roaring engines echoed in the distance.

My ambitious plan was to leave Bonneville that afternoon and make my way to San Diego, at the very bottom of the Californian coast. About 700 miles. I dialled in Pahrump, Nevada into my GPS and set off. It told me to head south on a back country road that followed the original Pony Express, right down the guts of the state. Two hours in I found my first town. Then nothing for another couple of hours. The scenery was absolutely spectacular. Rolls of hills, crumpled up like a rug that's been pushed, and a road that cut straight through them.

Once again, the car performed flawlessly. It ate up the miles as I passed through Pahrump and charged towards San Diego through the warm night air. I hit my destination and visited a friend the following morning before heading to Los Angeles Airport, reluctantly handing back the keys to the Chevrolet. I’d absolutely loved the versatility of the car, being just as comfortable on the highway as it was around town. It would be a perfect family car or dedicated tow rig for touring. Throughout the roadtrip it exceeded my expectations.

VAI imports the Chevrolet Tahoe to Australia and performs right-hand-drive conversions that are as high quality as the factory fit and finish. They can order the Tahoe (or any other type of Chev, GMC, or Dodge truck) to meet your requirements.

Dirty Dreams

When I was a kid I used to ride a little metal trike around the house. I wasn’t even all that young. I must have been around seven or eight years old, and the trike had clearly been designed for toddlers. It was made in a time when colour television was revolutionary and Bruce Jenner was still respected. The trike was blue and had hard white plastics grips and I used to ride it as quickly as I could around on the newly exposed floorboards. I loved the way the front wheel lost traction during acceleration and how the rear-end would oversteer around corners.

Around the same time, Dad would let me change gears as we drove our old Chrysler Galant. Any possible excuse to be involved in the driving. We got so used to it that it became the norm and we would carry a conversation as we came home together from school. It even got to the point where Dad would forget to change gears himself when he was alone in the car.

A few years later, after Mum had banned the trike from the indoors (and my being far too big for it by that stage anyway), I used to pretend the house was a rally stage. Every door was a ‘caution!’ corner between two trees, and each corner was loose with gravel or snow or mud. Even if I was walking normally I would be grabbing handfuls of opposite-lock in my head. But most of the time my hands were out in front of me, scrambling at the imaginary steering wheel and smashing the gearknob into second gear as the rear quarter-panel kissed one of the trees mid-corner. Often I would sneak off to go and sit in the car and practice driving, visualising myself cruising to school to pick up the girl I had a crush on that week.

When I was eleven I drove for the first time in a Holden SB Barina City on a fire-track half the size of the car. It was just before midnight and my father and I were setting up camp to get a few hours sleep before the Leonid meteor shower rained down above us. The experience lived up to all of my expectations. It was a world of freedom and responsibility that I craved.

From that point on, cars were it for me. Not even cars -- driving. I didn’t care what I was driving, as long as I was. I still have very same feeling today. For me, the sensation of driving provides me with one of the greatest feelings of freedom that I’ve experienced to date.

Choosing The Best Car Loan

There are a lot of options out there when it comes to car loans -- often too many. As someone who has worked in the vehicle finance industry, here are some tips on how to find the best car loan for you.

(Full disclosure: RedStar Finance thought Track Shun was so cool and knowledgeable, they asked us to write an advertorial on the subject. Consider supporting a company that supports a grass-roots automotive blog.)

You can’t help who you fall in love with. For car enthusiasts, you can’t help what type of car you fall in love with. I know this because I have a particular soft-spot for the Jeep XJ Cherokee, despite it being not at all good for anything other than low-speed drifting in the wet. In most cases, the car you fall for will require car loan in order to make it a reality.

Deciding on which car will take residence in your driveway is one of the best parts of the process. Deciding on how to finance it can bring on trichotillomania, unless you know where to look and what to look for in a finance company. There are really two things that you want in a car loan: the best rate, and an easy application process. Our friends at RedStar Finance are one such financier that offers both same-day approval and cheap finance.

It’s easy to make claims like that without backing it up. But RedStar Finance is able to do both because they have a wider range of finance options. You see, most car finance companies will generally use a single bank to finance their loans. RedStar Finance gets to cherry-pick from seven of the best vehicle finance providers in the country, meaning their customers are always getting the option that suits their situation the best.

If your face turns into a spatula when you start trying to figure out what all the numbers mean, then I would suggest looking at the comparison rate. A few years ago the government introduced a mandatory comparison rate for all lenders. The point of the comparison rate is to incorporate all costs involved in the car loan (except for government fees, taxes, and insurance products), meaning you can compare it against another car loan to see which one will be cheaper for you in the long-term. It’s a great way to see how much you can expect to pay.

As someone who has worked for a number of car finance companies over the years, I’ve learned that the absolute cheapest finance isn’t necessarily the best. Some car loan offer greater flexibility and could be a better option for what you want to achieve. Which is why talking to a car loan expert at RedStar Finance is a good idea as they can recommend the best deal, potentially saving you thousands over the course of the car loan.

You can’t always choose which model of car you fall in love with. But you can choose which car loan provider will finance the purchase. Pick a company that offers same-day approval from a variety of banks, and has experts with proper experience.

Driving Without Borders

In July of 2013 I purchased a 1993 Ford F150 Flare-Side V8 and drove from one side of North America to the other. I wrote about my adventures on the blog Driving Without Borders. Here is a small video I made of the roadtrip.

Driving Without Borders from Ben Zachariah on Vimeo.