Category Archives: Zen Garage

In ELMO we trust


Clifton & Timmy helping out.


All 3 of us on it at the same time.


Finishing touches.


All done!


Tunes @ Zen! I’ve donated my Bose iPod stereo from home.

Beer’O’Clock came early at Zen Garage today as ELMO, our handy Japanese overhead projector came out to play. Luckily for us Clifton and Timmy dropped in to hang out, unfortunately for them they were instantly put to work! It took us way longer than we thought it would but the results are awesome. We’ve now built a change room too! More progress and photos over the weekend.

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Illest


Ill right?

Super excited today as our Illest Stock arrived at Port Botany! That’s early as we were expecting stock mid December. In anticipation I’ve uploaded some of our stock onto the Zen Garage online shop. I’ve been a bit of a data entry monkey all day, feeling like a robot… but hey I’m charged and I want one of everything for myself (I need a new wardrobe anyways!).

Visit: http://zengarage.com.au/shop – Would really appreciate it if you spread the word, even better,, buy stuff!!! :)

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Zen Garage Working Bee


Sean and Rob worked on installing some wooden flooring for the shop which was very kindly donated to us by VWGolf.net.au member Stephen Lee.


Flooring installed.


We’re getting there!


Rob also got busy installing carpet tiles in the office.


It’s a dramatic change and acoustics are now much improved (less echo!).


My new ergo chair has a billion and one adjustments!


I was sweating it out in the gallery installing a picture hanging rail system.


The gallery is now all ready to go! Keep an eye out on our first gallery opening soon.


The Capozzi Brothers came in to drop off some awesome JDM FD literature for our library, they ended up helping us paint the front of the space too.


Sergio and Claudio are huge car guys, so too their Dad who owns this refreshingly different Lancia Montecarlo.

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Zen Garage flatpack challenge


2 of 4 shop counters.


A well deserved beer.

Yesterday we took delivery of some shop fit-out gear. Rob, John and I put 2 of the 4 big counters together. I was fearing the worst (got to hate putting together IKEA flatpack goods) but to my surprise, despite horrible instructions the stuff came together really nicely!

At one stage, we were sweating it and Rob and I were talking about Dayton from The Malt Shovel Brewery, and whether or not it would be rude to call him up to let him know that we were out of beers, then literally 10 minutes later Dayton appeared, with cold beers! Our positive Zen manifestation skills must be gaining strength!

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Need For Speed: The Run Launch Event


Exotics outside, exotics inside, beautiful people and tunes a pumping, there was a buzz on entry.


CD DJ, note F430 outside too.


We made a bee-line straight for the booze (as you do).


Swimsuit Edition on the big screen? Nice.


Convertible 911 in Automatic, one of 2 cars on display.


It was a packed event, people just kept on pouring in throughout the night.


At one point these 3 guys in hip hop atire (apparently from some talent show on TV, X-Factor?) broke out into a dance. Serious?!


Spotted this gorgeous Maserati Gran Turismo S outside, we had to leave the party momentarily to check it out.


One entire wall was reserved for gameplay.


Interestingly the R35 GTR was the car chosen for all contestants.


Tate and one of the NFS promo girls.


Tate told me there was an F40 upstairs, turns out it was a Testarossa (another one for the Tate wall). I hadn’t checked out upstairs as I hadn’t broken the seal yet, but it turns out Scuderia’s stock pile of cars were all crammed in hard a level above the party. This is where the party’s at!


Testarossa, so much retro goodness.


We bumped into Photographers Kory Leung and Matthew Everingham upstairs, car guys hanging around cars, that makes sense right?!


This gorgeous creamy 964 was tucked away in the corner, what a car.

Last night we were invited to the Need For Speed: The Run Launch Event which was held at Scuderia Graziani on Crown St. East Sydney. If you’re a car guy that’s ever driven down Crown St. you’d know of Scuderia Graziani, a brightly lit head turning showroom loaded with exotics.

We made speedy way through horrible Sydney traffic in Tate’s beaten up Suby complete with asthmatic blow off vale. Maybe it was only speedy because we were cracking jokes all the way, and scaring John, who had never set foot in Surry Hills before in his life (he was freaking out!).

Having our Zen Garage Forza Motorsport 4 launch still fresh in our memories we were keen to check the event out. Comparing the 2 events was inevitable, but it proved difficult as both events couldn’t be any more different to each other.

Where our event focussed primarily on drivers and driving (the main attraction being the Xtreme Sim Gear simulator set-ups which helped to blur the line between driving a real car and playing a computer game), EA Australia’s event focussed on living the dream. Objects of desire, baller lifesty

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Boys & their Toys


Parrot AR.Drone.


This amazing thing is controlled by your iPad. It has cameras all over it, the idea is to watch the ipad to control it, and not watch the actual drone itself (spy camera anyone?!).


It’s amazingly stable in flight. I was crap at controlling it, but Anoop was awesome (hey it’s his toy!).


So awesome!

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Getting out there


Last weekend’s NINJA meet @ Zen Garage.


From Estonia with love!

Zen Garage is slowly, but surely getting out there. Here are some links to sites which have hooked us up over the past couple of days:

On GamePlayer: http://www.gameplayer.com.au/forza-4-launch-event-at-zen-garage/
On 7TUNE: http://www.7tune.com/event-forza-mortorsport-4-night-at-zen-garage/
On Ryan’s blog: http://www.nohatnoplay.com/zen-garage/
On Xtreme Sim Gear’s web site: http://xsimgear.com.au/shop/index.php?route=cms/category&path=3
Linked off Speedhunters + Canibeat.

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Dayton’s S13


2-tone goodness.


Stripped out, how I love it.

Dayton our lovely beer man (he’s a brewer at The Malt Shovel Brewery) came around to Zen today in his rally prepped S13. I love cars like this, gets me excited. Although his visit was a few hours ago now, the all too familiar running rich fumes pouring out of his Kakimoto exhaust are still fresh in my mind. More on Zen Garage.

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Zen Garage video by THA TITH BROTHERS


We had THA TITH BROTHERS attend our Forza Night last week at Zen Garage and they’ve pumped out this amazing video for us. Love these guys (3 brothers), Kim used to be in advertising/design but he makes more money for a living driving trucks, but he loves getting into video, and it shows. It gets my blood pumping!

View more of their videos: THA TITH BROTHERS

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Donations at Zen Garage


JDM toys donated by JDMST member ban_die. (so rad!).


Evo photograph donated by Matthew Mead.


Rad 911 poster donated by JDMST member Andrew Mel.


Oh and the radical son Tom from Hell On Wheels dropped in, turns out he lives literally down the road!

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