Ready to Rumble!

Hagane was now the color I wanted, with a more charismatic exhaust tone and all I had to do was fill up the details.

I've always liked stripes on a car, yet racing stripes can be a real make or break in terms of looks. The line is fine between looking like a doofus in a racer-wanabee car and achieving a proper style. As you might guess, looking like a dodo was never my thing, so I went to find the guys at Project De Creation to make my ideas come true.

My idea was simple: two black stripes, off centre, the inside one thicker and the outer one thinner, which turn to white on the black roof. I also added the 9tro brand in cutout, since I was going to represent the magazine with Hagane. The sticker guys delivered flawlessly, and seeing the result made me realise that the sides looked plain, so I added the same stripe pattern to them, and totally loved the result!

With this and the cold air intake resprayed black, I considered the exterior looks to be done, and moved on to the interior.


Mid may, Spark Motorsports organised a Gymkhana Course, which I eagerly signed up for. In order to get the most out of it and have a bit of fun, I removed as much as I could from my car to save some weight. It was a quite straightforward affair, which I started by removing the spare wheel, jack and the heavy foam and wood floor of the boot. I then finished the diet by removing the back seats (just three bolts and two clips).

As I did not want to kill my everyday tyres pulling handbrakes and potentially creating bald patches on them, I decided to get a set of 15" TE 37 SL replicas for my gymkhana needs, a set I shod with the cheapest tyres I could find, the perfect thing for my tyre-unfriendly passion!

With this done, it was time to get down to business!