Category Archives: Zen Garage

Viral marketing


45,804 people have shared the post with their friends. 19,447 people liked the post and a staggering 5,711,872 people saw the post!


311,031 visitors in one day. Our biggest hit of unique visitors/day since we launched, makes every other day before look insignificant!

I often wonder just how people hit the jackpot with viral marketing. Every now and then you see a picture, or video which everyone you know has seen as well. It’s like it hits everyone, everywhere, all at the same time.

Last week I posted a video I stumbled across. I edited an existing bit of text, and made it ounchier to read (as people just don’t read on the internet these days) and I posted it up, not knowing or not if people were going to dig the video or not (personally it brings a tear to my eye). The next day I see our facebook go wild with people liking and sharing our posts, a LOT of people, mostly women, are commenting on both facebook as well as the feature on the Zen Garage web site. It’s gotten so out of control that our site has gone down, intermittently for the past 3 days due to the sheer amount of traffic.

45,804 people have shared the post with their friends.
19,447 people liked the post.
5,711,872 people saw the post.
311,031 visitors to our web site in one day.

Hopefully I’ll reach as many, of not more people again in future but for now it’s a record!

Check the feature everyone’s talking about (294 comments so far on our web site) here: http://zengarage.com.au/2013/03/marina-abramovic-and-ulay

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Ferrari 458 Spider


Momentary sad face. Thinking to myself “I’ll never make enough to own one of these”.

So I got to sit in a Ferrari 458 Spider the other night at the VWGolf.net.au 3rd B’day Party. What a lovely place to be. It’s other worldly. The display is so high tech, even the air vents are interesting but what really stole the show was the steering wheel. It had a crazy selector for sport and race modes which felt so solid. Metal, no plastics here. No indicator stalks, instead their on the wheel as buttons and the paddle shifters, those massive paddle shifters, fwoar. Amazing. Then I get the OK to turn the key and hit the big red ENGINE START button. Yeaha! I then get the OK to give it a little rev (inside Zen too!). So good!

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Breanna Espina by Matthew Mead for Zen Garage

Matt’s shots of Bree which were shot at my place a while back are finally live! Check out the full feature here: http://zengarage.com.au/2013/03/breanna-espina-by-matthew-mead-for-zen-garage/

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Business… it’s WAR!

Was a cold wet day and we all happened to be wearing our illest stay dry hoodies! Our weekly business meetings with Narada have really been helping us progress over the past few weeks.

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Zen Cavas Bags

New Zen bags. My inspiration? High school! Yup I rocked one back in the day. I graffitied all over my one with textas, had some button badges on it too :) Find them in the shop: http://zengarage.com.au/shop

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ALL STARS Australia Day Show n’ Shine


Our ALL STARS Australia Day Show n’ Shine Bikini Car Wash was a massive hit! We had Scott Mitchell put together this amazing video. Be sure to check out the photos from the day too at ALL STARS.

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Popped my 911 cherry


Grinning from ear to ear!

I jumped up and down when I saw Sam’s 911 in our driveway today @ Zen. He’d driven straight from QLD for tomorrows ALL STARS Australia Day show. After perving on it for a good bit he let me sit in it (whoo hoo!). The steering wheel is so close to the dash, which was loaded with cool analog gauges, all in German! I clutched in and surprisingly the gear throw wasn’t anywhere as vague as I thought it would be. Next I had to check out the pedal placement, and yup, it was super strange with the brake pedal being to your left, a big gap where the accelerator would be, and no deal pedal so you rest your left foot at the base of the centre console. I couldn’t figure out how to get out of the car, turns out he’d modified the door pulls so that when you pull it, the door opens. Very nice touch.

I appreciated the lines from the outside some more, all the while letting Sam know my intentions to buy one. He then asked if I’d like to take it for a spin!!! Seriously. Zi told me that one must never drive another mans 911 but how could I refuse? The driving position was spot on, the non-power steering wasn’t at all heavy and the clutch was friendly too (yet still had plenty of feel). A few corners in I’d realised how pathetically light the steering in my EVO was. Just going through a small s-bend I could feel how the would just urge you to go through corners faster and faster. I stop at the lights and look at the commodore next to me, it’s way up high in the sky which reminded me of being in my tiny, and low MX-5 a lot, expect that this car had a massive lumpy rumble coming from the rear. The girls crossing the lights gave us a nice smile too. :)

1st gear has heaps of punch. It’s actually quite violent. 2nd is much more linear though. The car feels small. You can use the drivers side frog headlamp as a gauge of where the front of the car is, vision out the rear was pretty bad though (lots of glare).

By the end of the drive I still hadn’t gotten used to the pedal placement but I’m sure it’s something I could get used to very quickly. So… I’m sold. 100% sold. Funny thing is that there’s a couple of people after my EVO, one of which just messaged an hour ago. I had all intentions to get one when I turn 40, but it might come a couple of years earlier! We’ll see.

PS: I’d totally forgotten that I had driven Howie’s 997 911 a few years back. Amazing car, so much power and response but completely disconnected in comparison to this car I drove today. I now understand why there’s so much love and respect for the classic aircooled 911’s.

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ADGP Media Day


Loving the new branding of Eastern Creek (now Sydney Motorsport Park). Today Sergio and I were invited to the ADGP Media Day where we got to meet some of the drifters, check out their rides and better yet get some passenger rides on the new south circuit!


Courtney doing her thing (in this shot interviewing American driver Matt Powers).


Andrew Hawkins’ car always has new bits on it every time I see it.


Branding on the wing? Love it!


Drivers introduction. The 3 Fingers Neat guys – Scott and Jabbit, Beau Yates and Matt Powers.


Yates’ car with all new livery.


Jabbit’s car.


It had cameras all over it.


Scotts car.


Once we were done with greetings we were out on the new south circuit.


Bump! A little impatient to get out there and drift.


Scotty Mitchell was the first out.


I got in soon after.


Off we go!


Post lap – so giddy. Jabbit was awesome.


Scott, working up a sweat.


Courtney does a great job of avoiding snaps!


This truck loaded with drift cars rolled in straight from WA. Driver was such a character.


McLaren rolled up to from the track day happening on the main circuit (pretty sure it was a burrows day).


We then got to scope out our ALL STARS Show n’ Shine space for our event on Australia Day this weekend. It’s awesome. Basically that entire hill leading up to the toilet block at the top.


From the top looking down.


DB9, so long.


458, so nice.


What a spot! The new Ferrari FF.


I love it.


So nice.


Andy’s Nur Spec. We then dropped in to Meguiars to pick up car wash stuff for the Bikini Car Wash we’re hosting on the weekend. Love Meguiars products, have been using their stuff on my cars for years now. Addicted to how nice it all smells!


Spotted this at Meguiars HQ. Microfibre Cloth washing, so cute haha.


Goodies ready! Now we need to go out and buy a long hose!

Had a big day out today at Eastern Creek. Got a passenger ride in a drift car, man if you’ve not experienced it you’re missing out! Reminds me of the very first time I felt what a rollercoaster ride felt like… nuts!

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Video interview with Sergio


I hate being in front of the camera, great thing then that I have Sergio, who’s laps up e-fame. :)

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My interview with Carey Ciuro

carey
Photo by Carey Ciuro.

I’ve just interviewed Carey Ciuro (A.K.A Shiri) for Zen Garage. Been a fan of his photography for a while now. We talk about his falling out of the car scene, his new focus on photography and his curious love for Japan. Check it out: http://zengarage.com.au/2013/01/carey-ciuro/

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