Hello World ... And welcome to what I hope will be a weekly blog... what will it be about? All things motoring and my search for automotive perfection!
I’m sure a lot of you know that strange guy who does not to follow any football team, enjoys taking things apart and seems to love anything that has wheels and engine, I am that guy but I would admit that I’m a little worse than your normal car junkie!
In this blog I hope to keep you (The World) in touch with my own personal project, update you on the newest news and greatest bits from the world of motoring.
Where to start? With me I think!
I’m Chris Driver, I studied Automotive Engineering at DIT in Dublin and a few years later I find myself here at MicksGarage.com.
So a little about my personal project might wet the appetite. About 7 years ago when times were good and performance Japanese cars were rife, I remember if you went to Dublin port on the right day you would see boat loads of vehicles arriving to our shores from the land of the rising sun. Some people would refer to this influx of oriental metal as “Jap-Scrap”! A term that might have come from the 1980’s as Japanese vehicles of this generation had a habit of self recycle themselves into the ground in the form of rust. To be fair a lot of vehicles of this generation would have done the same but the Japanese cars seemed to be made with thinner material and you would commonly find cars driving around with holes in quarter panels (long before the days of NCT’s)
That said, all you had to do to convince yourself into one of these Japanese vehicles, was place a run of the mill European manufactured vehicle next to a run of the mill Japanese manufactured car and it was like you had found a vehicle from the future.
Japanese cars for the most, were Fuel Injected, fitted with catalytic converters , power-steering , air-conditioned, electric windows the list would go on and on, granted you might need someone to tell you what the buttons with the funny symbols did but other than that you would find yourself in a car with more comfort, more gadgets and most importantly more performance than your run of the mill Euro Box!
So, temped with the chance of owning something a little different the search began and with boat loads of vehicles arriving to our shores, I felt I wouldn't have a hard time finding something that would suit my needs. How wrong I was, quantity over quality was what came to mind, true there now were a lot of vehicles in Ireland, but not a lot of clean good examples, and if they were clean, the price was eye watering, so disheartened I went back to the drawing board!
I did the maths and came to the conclusion that I could actually find a vehicle in a Japanese auction house and import it myself, and still save money on the equivalent vehicle being sold at the time in Ireland. I could actually buy and know the condition of the vehicle without actually walking around it in person as the Japanese auction system works so well each vehicle would be appraised by the auction company and a full statement would be given on the condition of the exterior and interior along with any accident damage history pointed out. (see picture ) and even better it was all in the comfort of my own home on my computer.
Auction Sheet translated
So with 1000’s of vehicle at my finger tips, I needed a vehicle exporter in Japan who would sort out getting the vehicles documents in order for export and ready for the boat tip home. A name that kept coming up was Andy at www.PowerVehicles.com , Andy was a guy who was writing for a UK Magazine at the time and I had seen the vehicle’s he had imported and asked on car forums to assure me of my decision.
So a few emails later and a deposit sent via wire to Japan, the hunt was almost over for my childhood dream of actually owning a Nissan Skyline! Admittedly it would not be the GTR I had often dreamed of, but its little brother a GTS-t, but at the age of 20 I felt I wasn't doing to bad!
So every day I would get a list of vehicles to choose from and I would set how much I wanted to pay and then wait! Often I would get a call at 03:00am from Andy telling me of a vehicle that had just come up and would I be interested, so with long nights and days of clicking through auction sheets, I finally found this, 62,000 miles reading on the dash, Grade 4 with a B interior only because of the aftermarket bucket seat.
Auction Pictures
A price was set and I went to bed. This was becoming second nature at this stage and didn't hold any hope as it was by far the best I had seen and still had ”sharken” hence the number plate, the Japanese equivalent to the NCT here in Ireland but somewhat more extensive in practice.
I woke (I am sure you know what I am about to type) the car was mine and would be put on a trailer from the Nagoya auction house to north Tokyo which is about 350miles as the crow fly’s!
When it actually got there, my inbox was flooded with photos of the car and any of the tiny marks that were on the vehicle, but overall is was in top condition and given a clean bill of health,
My Skyline at PowerVehicle’s (North Tokyo)
Andy also mentioned that if I wanted any work doing or up-grading anything he could do that too! He did tell me that the rear shock did seem to be leaking so a new of set coil-over’s (shocks absorbers) were fitted along with a Tomei two way LSD,
So the vehicle was ready for shipping to the land of the ever green ( IRELAND ) ETA 1 month!
More on this next week.....
