Iron Chef

I paid $28K on-road for a Holden Barina GSi back in 1994 (with aftermarket 15s lol)...

lol, like I said elsewhere, if they were decent, I wouldn't have been selling them lol They are, however, fairly rare, which will make it fairly easy to track down the culprit. We shall see what happens in the next few days.

While I was away in Japan, some little ar$eholes took it upon themselves to break into the wrecker where my R33 is and flog the wheels off it, leaving it on blocks. The thing is, the guys at the wrecker have only let a few people back there, so very few people even knew it was there, and I have a list of the contact details of all the people who came looking for parts from it, so it should be fairly straightforward to find out who did it. If the person who nicked them is reading this, get in contact with me in the next couple of days, drop them off to me, and I won't follow it up any further, although you may get a kick in the nads for your troubles if I get close enough. If you choose not to return them, I will hunt you down and then I'll forward you on to the police or some other friends in low places lol

lol I was talking to Yuichi about that car on Sunday at Osaka Auto Messe. I have some happy snaps of it buried in my hard drive somewhere. TRIAL wants about 1.8 million yen or something for it.

As a result of my latest trip over, I have access to up to 5 Spec Vs for those who want to queue-jump, but they certainly aren't gonna be cheap. If you really want one badly enough, let me know, but I won't be holding my breath lol

They are eligible under SEVS (I did the application for it), but no-one has brought in a test car yet. If you want to be the first, let me know.

Forgot to mention, in Japan the age of the car is based on the year it's registered, not the year it's built, so your car would've been a 1995 in Japan, and a 1994 here. Interestingly enough I plugged your car into another online chassis check I use, and it came up blank - so then I upped the chassis number to BCNR33001350 and it came out as January 1995.

I haven't got FAST on me (I'm in Japan till next week) but I can almost bet that what I said earlier is correct. Your car would've been amongst the first 100 to hit the streets

What would be a cheaper option is to approach a workshop who complies R34s, and offer to exchange headlights for the next one that comes in. They don't have to worry about stuffing around hacking up lenses, and you score a set of factory HIDs...

Give me your chassis number and I'll plug it into FAST. The only thing I can guess is that they were built very late in '94 in preparation for the '95 release.

Just for the record, I saw it at the Tokyo Motor Show, 1999 - yes I'm really that old...

It's the original Veyron show car - it was modified to the road version to meet various road regs around the world. The car behind it is a Pinninfarina concept from memory too. Is that photo from Goodwood?

My apologies if this has already been posted (please delete if it has), but I thought you guys would want to know. Luke Fink informed us on nissansilvia.com that Drift Australia competitor, Luke Jacobs, both his parents, local drifter Nathan Charlsworth and another mate were killed in the bushfires in Traralgon. From what I can gather they were all trapped in a car when the fires went through. Luke was one of the nicest blokes you'd ever meet, and his parents were so supportive of him and his dreams of competing at a national level. My heart goes out to all those affected by this tragedy, and the many others that have occurred over the last couple of days.

For those of you into drifting, DA competitor Luke Jacobs, both his parents, and two other mates were in the car that was engulfed by the flames. Gut wrenching.

lol crawler... The house isn't nearly as impressive as the car...

Done Steve, love your work! I lost a few emails a little while back - it may pay to re-send it if you haven't received anything back from me, sorry.

I'm a massive fan of the FX45, they'd probably be ok for SEVS, but they'd have to be converted to RHD, which would make them fairly pricey.

WA guys would surely know this one - has a GT40 strapped to it...

lol love it. Is size ok?

If you want them to be street legal, then no, you can't.

5 second update

lol, I think you're pretty safe on the VIN being unique Ian, although it's worthy of note because it's such an early build, probably one of the first couple to be sold (assuming there would've been a few pilot build cars before it). I had the same idea when I bought my R34 N1, and have teamed up with a friend to build the exact register you're thinking of, and it should be up and running fairly soon. It'll be mostly for the rarer Skylines (1000 built or less), but it may include some other models, like the Autech 260RS and Pulsar VZ-R N1 too, we'll see how it progresses. All cars on the register will be verified via FAST.

+1 on aircon...

Sorry if you've already covered this, but check if the banks mean they won't fund an import or that they won't fund you importing one yourself. You may find that if you can buy an M35 from a dealer locally, they won't be so hung up about it. Take in a picture of an M35 AR-X and show them that it's a family car, not a sports car... (as far as the bank is concerned, at least...)

I've got it now! Pic attached. if the exchange rate continues to worsen, it'll be getting sold back to Japan....