I just got my car wash today at a local shopping complex and after 5 minute my car hit the road, It was raining cats and dog. And my car goes back to the condition before it get washed. As Malaysia’s is a monsoon country, raining is inevitable. You can really predict when it will be not raining here as apart from the monsoon rain, here also got an express rain. It could be raining any time or any where. Can be as quick as 3 minutes to half an hour and after that the sky is sunny and bright. Some times rain come in sunny day, mean rain and have sun shine at the same time. Old folks said don’t let your body exposed to sunny day rain as you will get sick very quickly.
So as a result of this kind of weather, your car can’t be clean and shine more than 2 days. Lucky if you got 3 days without raining. Because of this many people here open the car wash business. At my small town there are at least 4 car wash shop. I at least go to the car wash once a week. Before I got busy, usually I wash the car my self. I live in parents houses and there are 3 cars belong to my brothers. So when my mom started singing about the water bill increasing, I think maybe washing the car can contribute to increasing in the water bill.
Nissan 350z is one of my favorite sport car. I’am a JDM fan. I know the existing of the Z sport car since sawing the 300ZX on the road when I was young. Dreaming a JDM sport car like the Z is more rational and realistic I think rather than dreaming of Enzo, Reventon or the R8. All the super car like the Gallardo are above 1 million here. Money moving on the road. Imagine driving an Enzo, proud but afraid to hit a small bump or a small scratch on the paint. So the Enzo will probably have more time at the garage for the owner to enjoy the beauty not in the road. Then the V12 is not more like a beautiful picture in the carbon fiber frame.
In the other hand, JDM sport car are more on the ground, price are not far to reach, your local mechanic don’t jump when open the engine hood and using the same engine oil as our daily sedan. I heard that Ferrari use special engine lubricant that can last for 1 year without changing. But don’t believed it 100% because I just heard from a friend that seem to know everything.
A girl or a car? It’s yours to decide. Once old folk said that where is a sugar there is an ant. Modern folk said where is a sport car there is a women. As we know auto racing are a manly sport. A dori kin will got a chance to date with national beauty pageant. A race driver girl will be a sexy one and usually a model or an actress. When it is a sport full with adrenalin pumping and need all the guts, a women will be the window dressage. Why F1 grid girl not a tough guy wearing spandex holding an umbrella? Because Schumacher will puke.
Surprisingly, all related to race car ads will have girls everywhere. Motor oil, coil spring, audio system…
I am using bars from ultra racing more than 3 years now and I am one of the satisfied user. Before this I used cheap stabilizer bar (no brand, just a hard steel bar) from local car accessories shop. My old cheap front strut bar has 2 point, give me hard stability and a hard ride. Feel not to comfortable when driving at bumpy road because all you body will shaking hard.
Seeing the white bars from ultra racing at car mag, decided to replace my 2 point with 4 point ultra racing front strut bar. While foreman changing my front strut bar he encourage me to add another rear 3 point strut bar for better control on the road. I said “not enough money lah tauke” next time. “We can accept credit card lor. RM2++ only, you can’t be poor with that maa..” the chinese foreman said.
Why is such steering so expensive? It does not make from gold and the Sultans also don’t use it in their Rolls Royce. The price of the steering wheel can buy one sedan or maybe 2. Maybe it is so expensive because the steering wheel is not manufactured for the mass. The Formula One, anything about F1 is expensive. The tickets, the car, and the driver. The driver is paid expensively by the advertiser. Just look at the driver jacket ,many company logo over there. What? you are selling fruit and want your name at the driver shirt? Can be done if your annual sales can match with Intel or Hewlett Packard.
Ahh the steering wheel, you can buy momo at local car accessories shop but it is not even near the momo in F1 car. Yeap a your momo cost $30 but this momo is $30,000. So what about the steering? It’s look like normal plastic steering with many button to me. It is because F1 steering is like a F1 car brain. You pull of the steering and the gazeelion worth of Mclaren will not work. With the steering F1 driver can accelerate, changing gear, brake the car, start the engine, stop the engine and radio contact the boss. Broke the steering wheel on the track and you can’t brake the car because it use button to brake. Nice eh?
Me carro is my Spanish version of ‘this is my car’ and I think it is wrong because I don’t refer to any Spanish dictionary. I’m a poor person but like to drive fast car. With small salary there are not many option left for me in the market. After searching in several car mag, I finally choose the car and it is Proton Satria Gti year 2003. When I buy the car from the owner, the meter just displayed 18,000 km. Wow are you cheating the meter eh chap?
Why the Proton Gti? Firstly not enough dough in my pocket and still want a fast car and sharp cornering. Maybe I can afford the 2nd hand Vios or City, but it is not my type of car. You know I’m kinda racy person. Call the owner for a test drive until I have satisfied with all the car and accessories but can’t nego much for the price. The young chinese owner (just 21) said he had modified the car and the accesories he put in is nearly 6-7k worth.
Most of us feel the fuel price is unbearable. As average consumer we don’t really know about how the fuel price is measured. We just know how to pump the fuel and drive. Most of us also cannot accept reasoning by the government why fuel price is up like, war in Iraq, speculator and increasing demand of oil between the developing country. For example, My country - Malaysia is producing crude oil for export, of course as oil exporter country the people will not try to understand why Malaysia fuel price is also going up. Maybe same goes to the United States, U.S also producing oil but maybe U.S citizens can understand why fuel in their country goes up. This is because U.S is a land of major ‘force majeure” - major flood, major tornados, major typhoon, major terrorist attack and major fire in the wood. Al the disastrous event are not happening in Malaysia, if happen within a small scale. You think the flash flood in Kuala Lumpur is scary? Wait till you see flood in Minnesota, North Carolina or Hurricane Katrina at New Orleans.
Toyota Caldina GT4 is the only MPV used as a First Rescue Operation (FRO) car at the Japan GT 2003 (AUTOBACS), Fuji Circuit. This means this MPV is not just standard family mini van, its raciey!. Sad this model are not in production anymore and last generation is in 2005. Many model we see on the road are the late 2003 model.
Now without Caldina GT4 model in the market, closest sportiest MPV we can get maybe Honda Stream or Toyota Wish. More about Toyota Caldina GT4 specification here.Read readers review about Caldina GT4 here.
When the terms Multi Purpose Vehicle (MPV) arise, the van family starting to go to another height. From the outside it’s still look like a van but an improve internal feature. A typical van in usually have 1 or 2 sliding doors, flat front end and back seat are cramp for a 7 seater. Example are Nissan Vanette. MPV on other hand, have all the option of a sedan, 2 to 4 passenger door, front end like a car, engine at the front not below driver seat, wide interior, multi av station, seat can be rearrange or fold into a bed and more powerful engine.
MPV also have entered into luxury segment with premium features like individual passenger seat,side airbag, back seat lcd monitor, vacuum / automatic door, sun/ moon roof, parking / traffic sensor with camera, climate control, and a V6 / V8 engine. Here are the sample of most luxurious MPV:
