Sonny, a mate of mine, came over about a month ago with a Kona mountain bike. He bought it about 5 years ago for $500. It was red, aluminium frame, Suntour fork, Shimano Acera 8speed gear and in as new condition.
At the time he had ideas to turn it into a Transformers bike. Grey with a decepticon headbadge. Last night he came over with this:
I’ve posted the rest up here.
New owner…
… driving my ED away 
Since launching VWgolf.net.au with Suga last weekend I’ve been thinking about buying a Golf (obviously!) but there was no way I was ever going to even begin to justify buying one whilst still owning the ED Civic and the 2 Skylines.
As of today the ED Civic is no longer.
Shame as the ED cost me nothing to buy, nothing to run, it’s cheap to insure, great on fuel and it’s the only car we’ve got that can comfortably carry my bikes too. There really wasn’t any need at all for me to sell it except I couldn’t justify owning 4 cars to myself (not right now anyways, still dreaming of my 7 car garage though!).
So I put up an EOI on JDMST yesterday and my inbox was 100% full this morning. I had one kid that was offering a deposit on the car unseen as he’s been following my build thread and planning to buy it all along. A few people have PM’ed me along the way about the car too. Charlie test drove it last night and was convinced he was coming back today to hand over the cash but I got a call from a guy who came over earlier today and he took it, the car is now sold!
So I’ve been thinking about the Golf Project.
I am considering:
– MKV
– MKV GTI
– MK6
Direction 1
Concept: A track car for the road.
Loud when I want it to be (Varex?) a handling machine, responsive due to being light weight, dead clean stock car look outside, race inspired emotion inside.
– Manual or DSG: I’ve always been impressed with Hollinger gearboxes in real race cars. I look at DSG as a poor man’s version of it! (yes I have a vivid imagination!).
– Strip it. Aim to get rid of 150kg. Rear seats, front race seats, carpet, trims, spare wheel, tools, sound deadening tar removal, roof lining, lighter exhaust and wheels.
– Race suspension (also lighter) and semi slicks.
Direction 2
Concept: Slamburglar.
Less is more and it’s all about the stance.
– Airbag suspension so I can drop the car to the ground at car meets and for photo shoots.
– Debadge, desticker, remove rear wiper, colour code everything, super clean, less is more.
– Re-upholster all trims with custom fabric including roof liner.
Pong on Kay and Charlie!
Pong on Jon and myself!
1AM, over the pong, let’s get the Deathtrap going!!!!!
1AM Terror. The smell and sound of the 2-stroke that could was heard in the hood.
I only just got around to counting my red pockets today. Not sure how or why but far out I got heaps this year! Free Money!!!
Just made this flyer for the Inaugural VWgolf Get Together. It’s all happenin’!
Here’s a sneaky shot I took of Suga, 6am, headphones on, in the zone, working on her new VW Golf Forum before having to go to work. When she comes home from work she’s straight on the computer working on VWgolf.net.au ’till late too! Obsessive! I approve!
Yeah it looks like I’ve got Whooping Cough, crap aye? I’m a huge whinger too and being a grumpy bum and whinging heaps doesn’t make it any better but my lovely fiancé (She’s the bestest!) bought me this little fella:
Haha so cute huh?!
Cough even comes with coughing facts.
I really really really really want this.
A few nights ago Christina and I had a discussion about starting an Australian specific Volkswagen Golf forum. A few glasses of wine later (!) the snowball effect kicked in and we were on the laptop looking for domain names. The very next day we were at the department of fair trading office registering a business name.
A quick Wikipedia search on the VW Golf concreted our excitement: The Golf has been manufactured by Volkswagen since 1974 and marketed worldwide across six generations. It was Volkswagen’s first successful replacement for the Volkswagen Beetle and historically, it’s Volkswagen’s best-selling model and the world’s third best-selling model. The GTi is also the world’s first “hot hatch”.
Founding a community might be a hard thing for many but I’ve so far successfully founded three of them (Australian INfront, JDM Style Tuning and Bikes Move Us). Graphic design and web design is what we do, and to us it comes naturally. It’s also “free” for us as we don’t have to pay designers and coders to do the work for us.
Yes, the business name registration, domain name registration web hosting and VBulletin forum software cost us a few hundred dollars, but it’s nowhere near as much as setting up a physical business and it’s money we’re willing to lose so long as we have fun along the way and so long as we give it a mighty good shot at succeeding.
The concept behind VWgolf.net.au is simple. An Australian based Volkswagen Golf forum which embraces all models of Golfs VW has ever made. Hopefully the organisation of offline meets will be made easy through the forum, as well as sharing experiences and information relating to VW Golfs.
One thing I’ve learnt with communities is that you can’t get very far without people. Apart from investing a lot of time into design and the creation of content a call to action has to be made. Specifically inviting respected VW Golf owners from other internet forums is a good start and inspiring new members to spread the news and invite fellow Golf owners to sign on is a must.
So yesterday was our first day. We redelegated our new domain name to my web server, bought the latest version of VBulletin, uploaded and installed it and we’ve been working on it all night and will most likely continue to put a lot of obsessive compulsive energy into it for the next few months. We’ve launched the site without an identity, we’ll be designing the identity as we go along as it’s the internet afterall, liquid as you can change anything and everything as you go.
Please visit and check the progress of: www.vwgolf.net.au
Last night I had an impromptu Chinese New Years dinner with the Locks. Kenny sold his restaurant in Epping but he’s still running his takeaway shop which has been around for over 20 years.
Communal table.
Soup, which was all I felt ilke eating (partly because of my teeth!). I’m also still coughing. Mum’s cough has developed into whooping cough so I’m hoping that’s not what I’ve got?! If I’m still coughing next week I’ll book myself in to the doctors.