Yesterday the first issue of my S3 magazine subscription arrived. That’s not interesting in itself, but it’s part of a bigger story. So bear with me and read on.

I haven’t been a magazine reader for the last few years. In the space of about 5 years, the Australian import staple – HPI – went from being an inspirational must-read to demotivational and dispensable. The focus of the magazine has shifted, seemingly irreversibly, from interesting and individual cars to identikit big-power GTRs and Supras with shopping lists as long as your arm and a complete lack of anything interesting about them. The mentality is that bigger, more powerful and more expensive is better. Perfection is the ideal, and nothing less is acceptable. Everything reads like an ad for the workshop that built the car. Put simply, the magazine lost touch with the real import culture long ago.

I remember when HPI inspired me though. Everything seemed exotic, interesting and, most importantly, achievable. There is still, and will always be, a desperate need for that sort of publication in our scene.

Enter S3 magazine.

It’s a smallish publication run out of Atlanta, Georgia. You’ve probably seen me post about Still Hood brand before, and that’s run by the same people. They’re just guys like us, in it for the right reasons. So I knew the magazine would be good. I was completely unprepared for exactly how good though.

Car magazine features follow a tired old blueprint. List the parts in the car, starting with the engine build and working outwards. Throw in a few tired, try-hard analogies (“the car hangs on to the road like a snail on a lettuce leaf”), a token mention of the “struggles” of the owner to get the car built, mention the sponsors, then on to the next. S3 is completely different. The cover-car feature in this issue never mentions a single part on the car. It is a discussion about why it it’s important to feature cars like that one – cars that aren’t perfect, but have style and attitude and a purpose and are achievable and accessible –  so that we remember our roots and have something achievable to strive for. It’s an intelligent perspective on our culture that is rarely, if ever, discussed. Put simply, it’s brilliant magazine writing. There’s a preview of it here.

You should really grab yourself a subscription. They’re ludicrously cheap (even with international shipping included). Check it out at their store.

But this isn’t an ad.

The writing in the magazine articulates something that I have been trying to express for a while now. It’s all about being involved in the culture for the right reasons, reasons that have nothing to do with petty infighting or one-upmanship and everything about why we all got into it in the first place. The cars and the community. What the magazine does is what I have been trying to do in my own small way here – to feature things that are otherwise overlooked – the budget builds, the grassroots events, the heart and soul of the scene. But now that I’ve seen what is in my head articulated so well I’m inspired anew. Knowing that there are people out there that really get it gives me the energy I’ve been looking for. So here’s where that inspiration is taking us at Garage Dusty in the near future:

• I’m going to make some new clothing designs and see if y’all would like to buy some. Not Garage Dusty specific – general import stuff. I hope you dig it. I’m looking into illustration courses to try and make it the best I possibly can. No promises, but I hope we get some cool stuff out if it.
• I’m fixing the 86, bigger and better, and competing my ass off in it. Feelers are already out for a new bottom end, but if you see something in your travels please let me know. The cheaper the better. Hillclimb with the Primal Garage boys in October is the ultimate goal, but hopefully it’ll be done even sooner.
• I’ll be looking into buying some new camera gear
• I’ll be actively looking for some more cars to feature
• Both the Silvia and the Galant will be finished sooner rather than later. Galant is getting some mechanical work done tomorrow, in fact.

So yeah! All that from reading a magazine and getting inspired. When you see my cars repping Still Hood stickers, you know it isn’t for looks. I back those guys as hard as I possibly can.

I finally have a seat worth sitting in! A couple of weeks ago a genuine Bride Brix with an EC5x rail came up on ozvr4.com at a price I couldn’t turn down. It now calls my car home. The Holding Monster sure knows how to make ‘em…

And because I never seem to do things by halves, the seat’s arrival meant the interior was going to get yet another look.

Gone is the 3M carbon vinyl which itself replaced the stock woodgrain. The vinyl never really worked, and after 12 months was seriously showing its age. I have now Plasti-Dipped everything, including the wooden parts of the steering wheel, in a semi-gloss black finish. It’s interesting stuff, Plasti-Dip, and I’m pretty happy with the result. I also re-fitted my Ralliart gearknob and fixed the wiring for my boost gauge. So everything’s happy.

I’ve always said that changing the seat is the biggest modification you can do to a car and I’ve been proven right again here. The car feels completely different to drive. I’m sitting 2-3 INCHES lower in it, and feel like part of the car when I’m driving now. Teamed with the updated finish on the plastics the car now drives and feels 100% better.

Now to make everything else work as well and look as good as the inside!

At this stage I don’t know what I will be doing. I have 2 other cars to finish and I’m weighing up whether it is worth continuing in motorsport. You’ll know when I know.

Facelift bumper and a pair of doors… Will have to get the driver’s window tinted to match the front door I got, and the passenger rear door window tinted to match the existing rear windows. A little extra cash but meh. All to a good cause.

The bumper is a little damaged – I’ll be taking it off to a bumper repair joint to get plastic welded and smoothed off ASAP, ready for paint.

I’ve also ordered a pair of these:

Facelift model tail lights. That’s the full facelift sorted now – inside and out. Well, once it is all fitted up and stuff anyway.

I also picked up the Bride seat I showed you last week. I love it. I already modded the rail to make it sit lower. I’m not going to fit it until I can update some interior pieces though – more coming soon on that!!

By the way, for my VR-4 friends, I will have a lot of parts for sale soon. PFL tail lights, skirts, grille, bumper (slightly damaged), bonnet (slightly damaged) etc. Also some un-needed FL parts – Legnum rear pods and front bumper flare extensions. A Legnum rear strut brace is up for grabs too.  If there is anything you want please let me know. Prices will be super reasonable. Promise.

I have sourced doors, a facelift front bumper and facelift tail lights. I am picking them all up this weekend. Also picking up some aerosol Plasti-Dip paint for the wheels, badges and interior trim.

I am considering a pair of D-Technik fog light covers like on this car below:

Image found at thegalantcenter.org

Highly likely that I will do these, as they will only cost slightly more than factory fogs and look way more aggressive. Especially with a couple of GD tricks…

I’m also looking to run a rubber lip on the bumper to continue the red/black theme and change things up a little over the factory setup.

And coolest of cool, on Saturday I’m picking up this:

A genuine Bride Brix driver’s seat! With some updating and fixing of trim and some swapping of parts this will finish my interior. And it’ll mean that all three GD cars will have Bride seats! Brand-whore…

Next week I will start on getting the mechanical issues sorted. Soon enough the car will look, go, stop and turn better than it ever has.

Both doors were destroyed in the accident and the front and rear quarters were damaged. It sucked, but as the car is comprehensively insured I wasn’t too down about it. I knew we would get it sorted.

Today I was advised by the company that as they were unable to find doors they were sending me a cheque for the repair quote plus the cost of new doors from Mitsubishi. I am now going to chase up some new doors – I thought I had found some but it looks like they may have fallen through. No problem though, we’ll sort it out.

Anyway, through throwing in a bit of my own cash on top of my payout, I am now going to be able to completely overhaul the look of the car.

In a little under a month the car goes to 3P Auto. We will be fitting the facelift skirts, grille and bonnet I bought ages ago along with the new doors. I am hoping to also track down a facelift bumper as my pre-facelift one is getting to the point where it is irreparably damaged. If I can secure a facelift bumper I’ll also get some facelift tail lights and the car will be completely facelifted inside and out.

Then the cool part.

I’ll be repainting the car in Mazda copper-red to match the Silvia. The centre roof panel, roof wing and mirrors will go black, along with the Grenade GX-01s. Put simply, the car is going to come out looking amazing.

Leading up to this I will be working hard on getting all the mechanical bugs ironed out. Hopefully once this is done I’ll have the Galant I always wanted.

A silver lining indeed.

As of today Garage Dusty has a store. I’ll upload a couple of products over the next week or so, so if you’re keen on anything keep checking it out. The shirt above is up and available right now, and the plan is to have another 2 shirts up soon. Hopefully a hoodie and a crew neck too. Just a heads up – as I’m never going to sell much of anything I can’t really keep stock on hand so this stuff is made as you order and is shipped from the manufacturer. I’m totally in their hands in terms of shipping times, costs, etc. Everything is as cheap as they’ll let me sell it. More expensive than I’d like but you know, economies of scale and all that.

If you do make an order, send me confirmation to ygoslo7 @ gmail.com (no spaces of course) and I’ll ship you a sticker free of charge. Because I feel bad about how much stuff costs.

The store is at http://www.zazzle.com.au/garagedusty

Also, in much less expensive news, I won my class at the motorkhana the other weekend! First class win after only 3 events is great IMO, and a real motivator to keep going and keep getting better. I;m obviously on the right path, so  let’s see how far I can go with this!

Click through for a few photos of me and the 86 in action.

Click through for the feature post on the reborn Garage Dusty AE86.