On the 26th of February the 2012 All Japan Day car show was held at Wigley Reserve, Glenelg. There was a great turnout, with row after row of cool Japanese cars of all ages, shapes and sizes filling up the oval.
I parked next to this tidy white M35 Nissan Stagea.
You can see AJD organiser Kristian Appelt of Iron Chef Imports in front of my Ceffy here.
On the other side was this slammed Toyota Celsior.
A few spaces further down was this very clean and tastefully modified Cefiro, the dished meshies really work well on it.
There were several immaculate Datsun 1600s/510s on display.
Quite a few cars came in on trailers, and also a couple of tilt trays, including this awesome Toyota JZX100 Chaser, which needed a couple of pieces of wood to drive onto the grass without ripping the front bar off.
Next to it was Kelly Wong's distinctive pink and black Cefiro drifter.
At first I was wondering if this Nissan 180SX had some sort of sticker-bomb wrap on the exterior panels, but on closer inspection and talking to the owner, I learned that they're all individual stickers. That's dedication for you, although this sticker-bomb method was probably a lot cheaper than nice paint.
Nissan Cedrics of any vintage are quite a rare sight, and this late model Y34 example in black looked really nice.
There was a slight difference in ride height for these two Nissans; a very early model Patrol 4WD parked next to a lawnmower spec S14.5 200SX.
The owner of this Toyota Cressida wagon shied away from using the original engine, giving it a 1JZ-GTE heart transplant.
There were only a couple of C33 Nissan Laurels in attendance, including Daniel's black one.
I don't know how this tough looking Toyota JZX100 Chaser Mark II drives anywhere without getting beached.
A few different siblings lined up; R34, R33 and R32 Nissan Skylines respectively.
Stageas are pretty popular now, the black/white combo on this wagon worked well.
Nissan R34 Skyline GT-R in Bayside Blue...one of my dream cars.
There were loads of JZX100s at the show, with various body styling and rim choices.
Some photos from a cruise last weekend, held every year as tribute to the organiser's son Ben, who tragically took his own life in February 2005 at just 19 years of age.
His parents, Mark and Julie, have a website offering help for anyone struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, and work hard to raise
awareness about depression, mental illness and youth suicide. http://youthsuicideawareness.com/index.html.
Benjamin Marcus Ross Simpson (Ben, Benny, Simo, Bruce)
Born: 6th April 1985 Died: 1st February 2005
RIP dr1ft_pig13 (Ben) - Always Remembered
On the 1st February 2005 Ben aka (dr1ft_pig13) decided to leave this world forever. He was a healthy, happy, fit 19yr old. In any Australian state, you may see his memorial stickers on the back of imported/drift cars, they say:
(RIP dr1ft_pig13 always remembered)
More than 2900 of these free RIP stickers have been distributed.
Ben had a passion for imported cars (esp Nissan) and drifting.
This was the love of Ben's life; his Nissan Silvia S13 modified, kitted and "of course" Black
Depression can be a largely 'invisible illness', with no obvious symptoms in many cases. At the same time, people who have something obvious like the flu get a lot more attention and sympathy, because the effects are clear for all to see, despite being a very brief and minor ailment, in comparison to crippling depression and anxiety disorders. Every case is different, but males tend to show less, or even no signs of being suicidal and chronically depressed.
For more information, the Beyond Blue website has an excellent range of materials covering all aspects of the disease: http://www.beyondblue.org.au/index.aspx? Reading some of the helpful suggestions, as well as stories from people of all ages, could be helpful in knowing what some of the warning signs are, or understanding how a severely depressed mind works.
There are plenty of other chronic illnesses and diseases which do not manifest in a physically obvious manner as well. For instance, due to my gastroparesis, I've been unable to eat any food whatsoever since early October 2010. But apart from looking rather thin, it's unlikely that strangers would pick up that I have a pretty catastrophic medical condition. One which would put me in hospital within a day if I stopped receiving water and liquid nutrient feed through my jejunostomy tube, which I get pumped through my intestinal tract for 20 hours a day, every day.
However, I have a relatively mild version of gastroparesis compared to other sufferers; some of whom need multiple organ transplants, and can only be fed via TPN, which puts nutrients directly into the bloodstream. This video, made by a young American gastroparesis patient Megan, shows the variety of people affected, some in much more obvious ways than others.
Moving on to the car photos...
With the front suspension in Daniel's Pintara on the way out, we spent a bit of time swapping the coilovers in preparation for the cruise that afternoon.
Our cars mid-afternoon, before the cruise.
With the cruise leaving West Lakes Mall at 7:30, we headed out around 7:15, underneath some rather ominous looking dark clouds.
I was pretty excited about going on this cruise, as it's always a big one. Since buying my Ceffy in April 2010, I'd never been well enough at the right time to go on a proper cruise in it, so I was very much looking forward to partaking in the event.
Rolling up into the car park was an awesome sight, with tons of cool cars lined up row after row. The majority were Japanese imports, with everything from old Datsuns to new RX8s turning up, and even a Lamborghini Gallardo and old Volvo with airbag suspension for something a little different.
This is one of the nicer R31s I've seen, looks very tough with the dished meshies and sizable front mount.
I think I need to work on my reverse parking skills.
Clean JZX100s are always nice. Prach has one, but it was at a workshop being partially resprayed.
Since there were so many awesome cars and we arrived late, I passed off my D90 to Prach to take some photos from the upper level car park, while I hurriedly rattled off shots of the other cars.
This scene would usually make any import driver soil themselves, but there was some great co-operation with the police for this cruise; basically going on the premise that if people drove sensibly and didn't have mods too ridiculous, they would refrain from handing out defect stickers.
Cefiros are pretty thin on the ground these days as street cars, so it was cool to see a couple of other ones besides mine.
I've always had a thing for R34 sedans, and this was a very tidy example.
This Ceffy looked good with a nice kit and rims.
Not long after we arrived, organiser Mark Simpson called all the participants around to give a brief rundown of where the cruise was going, how long it would be, and how the horde of police bikes would be escorting us the whole way.
It was time to head off, and everyone headed back to their cars. It was pretty cool hearing so many different engines cranking and firing, as everyone slowly filed out of West Lakes.
While the clouds had been threatening for a while, as soon as I started up my car, it began to rain.
One of the motorbike cops had the road blocked to allow everyone to drive out as quickly as possible. I was driving so Prach took some photos as we made our way onto Tapleys Hill Road and headed south.
This clean blue S15 was sitting just right.
This particular R31 sees a lot of track time, with numerous battle scars to show for it.
Fortunately the rain didn't last too long, and dried up as we headed further south towards Meadows. We were probably driving in the middle of the pack, and by the time we got to the main street of the town, there were already parked cars lining both sides of the road for hundreds of metres, which was a cool sight.
I managed to squeeze in behind Daniel's Pintara, which was parked behind a white S15 and Stagea.
With a planned 20 minute stopover, there was a bit of time to walk down the street, enjoying the sights and sounds as loads of cars burbled past.
Stageas are getting pretty popular these days, and this late model example looked nice and tough.
Jumping back into the car, we continued on a big loop of the Adelaide Hills, passing through various townships including Macclesfield and Mount Barker before making another short stop in Birdwood. With such a huge number of cars attending, winding through the hills roads was pretty spectacular, with headlights and tail-lights stretching out as far as the eye could see in both directions.
After burning through a substantial portion of my petrol over the 3 hour cruise, we pulled up in the St. Agnes shopping centre car park. Although some cars didn't stop at the end point, there were still heaps of cool rides to look at.
After hanging around for a while taking photos and chatting to people, I headed home, worn out but happy with how the night went.
The cruise ended up raising $1292.70 for the Compassionate Friends. A big thank you to Mark for organising a great cruise for such an important cause.
