Inhoudsopgave van Winter 2021 - Fast Car

That’s right readers, unfortunately the digital world has finally caught up with the analogue world of a paper-based Fast Car product. The good news is, the brand lives on, for more information about that turn to page 130, but before you do, put your rose-tinted glasses on and let us take you for a trip down memory lane! I’m not crying, you’re crying! The 1980s was a great time for car culture, legends like the Ferrari F40, Sierra RS Cosworth and Audi Quattro were born. It was also the era that the hot hatch really took off with the likes of the Golf GTi, Fiesta XR2, Peugeot 205 GTi, Astra GTE and Renault 5 GTT. It was this movement of affordable performance cars, and the instinct of petrolheads all over…

SHOWS One of the biggest parts of working for a modified car magazine was attending the shows. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s the show scene wasn’t over populated like it is today. Back then, there were the big three (or big four if you include Lax Live), Donny, Ultimate Street Car (formally known as Ultimate Fast Fart and TRAX. Two of those shows still exist today, although in a slightly more reserved manner… Of course, it’s very nice sharing a weekend with a bunch of like-minded people in the UK, but the show every staffer wanted to go to, was SEMA. Of course, this had nothing to do with it being in Las Vegas and everything to do with the quality of builds (and woman).…

When the National Maximum Speed Law was introduced in the USA in 1974, it caused a few ripples. Sure, it was rooted in bona fide safety concerns (although it was actually borne of the ’73 oil crisis), but just picture yourself on an endless, featureless Nevada desert highway, crawling along at what feels like walking pace. As the scenery bleeds past like treacle dripping from a spoon, the temptation to flout the 55mph limit must have been too great to bear. Over on the other side of the Atlantic, heads were being scratched and eyebrows arched in Wolfsburg. Volkswagen were on the verge of launching their box-fresh new Golf, a radical departure from the Beetle that came before it. Whereas the air-cooled VWs fitted in very neatly with the idea…

In this ‘gram-ready world we live in it’s possible to get a little blasé about killer projects and awesome cars. Everything looks good, everyone’s living their best life and doing their utmost to sell you their respective wares. To be truly shocked by an internet post is, thus, a bit of a rarity. However, seeing Jay McToldridge (AKA Jay Mac) unload this Mk2 Golf off the trailer onto the hallowed ground of the Goodwood site the day before the Players Classic show was a shock. Not that we hadn’t seen the car, but that it was here in the UK! Jay had worked tirelessly with 40-year-old Jean-Pierre Kraemer (JP) of JP Performance in Dortmund, Germany to get the car imported to the UK in time for the must-attend event. Having been…

Formerly known as SEAT Sport, Cupra is the in-house motorsport and performance division of SEAT that was founded in 1985. Its predecessor was the SEAT Special Vehicles division, which had been pushing the brand’s competitive rallying efforts since 1971, and the formation of Cupra (a portmanteau of ‘cup racing’) saw them forging into Touring Car Racing as well as going all-out in the WRC. The halo effect of this name meant that a number of high-performance variants of SEAT road cars wore the badge as a spec level across various generations of Ibiza and Leon. Today, Cupra has split off as an apparently separate entity, with models such as the new Cupra Formentor and Ateca - and even the Cupra Leon - wearing no SEAT badges at all. (And as…

We’ve all heard the rumours, read the myths and seen the films that make us think nitrous is either spectacular, explosive or warp speed-inducing. But what is the truth? What does it actually do and how does it work? To pick aside the facts from the fiction we picked the brains of the guys at Wizards Of NOS (WON), who are the people to speak to when it comes to all things nitrous in the UK. They were happy to give the facts on nitrous oxide to us straight, and explain it all simply. Note this guide is based on four-cylinder applications, though six-or eight-cylinder engines use the same principles. HOW DID NITROUS OXIDE COME ABOUT? Nitrous oxide entered mainstream popular culture thanks to the Fast And Furious series of…

CAN I USE NITROUS WITH A TURBO? Nitrous is perfect for turbo applications and not just because it massively cools intake temperatures before it even enters the engine. As nitrous allows more oxygen to be burnt in the cylinders more quickly, the quality and quantity of exhaust gases leaving the engine increases, which works wonders. On large turbo cars it helps them spool more quickly and can act as an anti-lag system, on smaller turbo cars it helps them continue to make boost where they would normally run out of puff. For this reason, using nitrous on turbo cars will always see a significant gain, more than the injector size may suggest. In fact, it can be as much as double; a 25bhp shot can give up to 50bhp. However,…

Ford has found an almost unbeatable recipe when it comes to its small hot hatch warrior the Fiesta ST, with the result being a fun, frugal and frighteningly fast and capable package straight out of the box. The latest Mk8 generation of the ST is just as good and in fact builds upon the legacy of its forebears culminating in a more powerful, more responsive and more fun machine than ever before. The 1.5-litre, three-cylinder engine may not sound that potent on paper, but with 197bhp and 214lb ft of torque it’s easy to understand that this is no slouch, and being turbocharged means it responds to tuning exceptionally well, giving huge gains if you select the right mods. A slick-shifting six-speed ‘box and optional Quaife limited-slip differential ensure all…

The UP GTi is over three-years old now and has an expanding range of aftermarket parts available all over the world from a wide variety of brands, but one thing that’s never been available is a significant camber modification that’s bolt-on and will at least achieve 1.5 degrees of negative camber on the front wheels. It’s been a modification that I’ve been searching for for quite some time, but now I’ve found exactly what I’m looking for! The one major thing the diminutive UP GTi lacks is a pointy directness when initiating into a turn. Steering has always needed to be progressive to steadily feel for the bite (that bite being where the tyre has maximum grip after initiation). This lack of initial bite is a result of the UP…

There’s something inherently right about internal combustion engines. Yes, they may technically be inefficient, they may lack the instant torque of an electric motor and they may produce harmful emissions when they are in use and need the juice of dead dinosaurs in order to run, but my god they sound good don’t they? And this is an area that electric powered cars can simply never live up to. So, if this is the case, why would a devoted petrolhead like Andrew Dharman make the jump to buying the most ludicrous of electric vehicles available - a Tesla model X SUV of all things? “It was my wife that first suggested we get a Model X,” shrugs Andrew. “At the time I was like ‘No way! They’re electric!’ as I’d never…

Drift cars wear battle scars well. All race and competition cars do, really – but few carry off an aura of slight dishevelment with quite the carefree aplomb of those that have been specifically engineered to go sideways. While the nature of point-scoring in the sport encourages balletic grace and precision of movement, the fact that you’re hurtling at oblique angles and improbable speeds with a total disregard for tyre longevity means that, by simple consequence, the chances of hitting something are quite high; the point of drifting is to constantly be almost out of control. That’s why these machines often look best when slightly beaten up. It proves that their helmsmen have been trying. What we’re looking at in broad terms, then, is a wilful and celebratory disregard for…

When searching for a new car I’m pretty sure most of us have completed a cheeky insurance quote on one of the popular comparison websites for a car we didn’t think we could afford to own or at least insure. Most of us, disappointingly, were proved right, with our dreams being whipped away from us within in a couple of clicks of a computer mouse as we discovered our fears were true and that insuring the car is probably just as expensive as buying it in the first place. Tom, the owner of this lovely 370Z, however, was pleasantly surprised when he received a quote of £1000 on a 370Z at just 20-years-old with three-years no claims bonus. While certainly not what you could consider cheap, it was well within…

Anyone who spent their formative years watching The Inbetweeners will have quite a skewed view on the subject of caravans. Why would you want to go on holiday in a wheeled box where you essentially poo right next to the dinner table? There’s no fun in that. But caravans can be cool. Back in the late-1990s, a friend of mine used to have a caravan in his garden, which his folks bought when he was studying for his GCSEs. He shared a bedroom with his younger brother, so they picked up this rickety old hulk to park in the garden and give him a quiet place to study. It had served its purpose well as a holiday vessel for some other family and now, in its crumbling twilight years, it…

Hot hatches work to a proven formula. The whole point of them is to blend practicality and day-to-day usability with tactile agility and amusing levels of firepower. It’s a concept that has endured for generations; when manufacturers started dipping their toes into these fragrant waters back in the 1970s, it became immediately apparent that they were on to a winner, and enthusiasts have been scooping up and cherishing these things ever since. Where things get a little more peculiar is when car-makers start to distort the fun/practicality balance. The idea of making a fuel-efficient hot hatch, for instance, is one that’s kept designers and engineers scratching their heads for a while; today such things are easily achievable with the likes of Ford’s three-pot EcoBoost motor with cylinder deactivation and what-have-you.…

What are the main components of a nitrous kit? (make its own page/section) There isn’t that much to a kit when you break it down, so we took the chance to take a close up look at the specially developed WON kit, which is carefully designed to ensure liquid reaches the engine through keeping pressure high and the temperature low. BOTTLE AND BRACKET The most important thing to remember is that it’s liquid in the bottle, not gas. The bottle has a dip tube in it, like a paint can, so mounting the bottle at the right angle is important (the simple rule is to make sure the valve is at the very highest point it can be). It’s also worth noting that as it’s a liquid it suffers from…

Of all the incredible cars in the Japanese tuning scene, the 1990s Nissan Skyline GT-R is without doubt the best known, and many would say the best all-round performer. So much has been written about its racing dominance, awesome tuning potential, sophisticated electronics, and intelligent four-wheel drive system, that it’s become a household name worldwide. While the RB26-powered GT-Rs first appeared in 1989 with the R32, and finally bowed out with the R34 in 2002, we’re focusing on the 95-98 R33 GT-R. With prices of all GT-R-based machinery steeply rising of late, the R33 is currently considered to be the best value for money as it benefits from similar underpinnings to its R32 and R34 siblings, but can be bought for more reasonable prices. And it goes without saying that…

Given the theme of finality within this issue, I thought this would be a good opportunity to look back at the history of H8 YAY over the last five years or so. I originally bought this private plate because I had an EP3 Civic Type R that I was running as an ongoing project in these pages in Fast Car, and I knew that a few of the changes I was planning might be a little, er, polarising. Particularly the Touring Car super-wang on the back! And you know how the internet likes to make bitchy comments… well, I thought this’d be a fun way to embrace the hate instead of shrinking away from it. H8? YAY! After all, as we’ve always said in FC – your car, your rules.…

RADI8 WHEELS We all know the old saying that ‘wheels maketh the ride’, and we all know it’s one of the truest statements in modifying. This is because no matter how wild your car’s body styling or engine tuning, it will still not get the attention you crave if you skimp on the rolling stock. And even a relatively stock car can still look stellar with the right wheels and stance, so it really does pay to get your choice of rims spot on. Helping you find the rims of your dreams is radi8 wheels who have introduced three new wheel designs to their awesome line up. The first is called the r8hs9, which is a cast wheel with a radical design that features five, narrow split spokes with inter-joining…

Within BMW circles (and broadly without as well), the S54 engine is kind of a big deal. The E46 M3’s S54B32 is essentially a development of the 330ci double-VANOS M54 motor, upgraded with a lightweight crank and graphite-coated aluminium pistons to allow it to rev to 8,000rpm. It has individual throttle bodies and drive-by-wire, and peak power of 343bhp arrives at 7,900rpm. As is characteristic of nat-asp sixes of this era, the torque is relatively low at 269lb ft, although this peaks at 4,900rpm so it’s very exploitable. Which is exactly what you want in a drift car.…

IAN STRACHAN, AKA MONO “I edited Fast Car for three years, but it was my life for the best part of a decade. I have so many memories of my time there it’s impossible to highlight just one, but a lot of those memories are focussed on one place, Bruntingthorpe. Bruntingthorpe is a raggedy old ex-RAF base 11 miles south of Leicester. The 4.2 mile loop was covered in loose stones that could destroy a paint job in minutes, but at just under two miles long, the runway was the perfect place to rag the shit out of your car. We purchased some high-tech timing equipment to calculate acceleration and top speed figures, which was like opening a donut shop next to a police station; people were queuing up for…

The reason for plumbing in a rear-mounted radiator setup in a drift car is fairly self-explanatory, right? Production cars are designed to maximise airflow to the rad through the front end while they’re in motion, but if the car isn’t spending much time going forwards (i.e. because it’s always skidding sideways) then the effects are negated – so it makes sense to wang it in the rear and channel air to it there. Aha, but there’s a bit more to it than that, as Luke explains: “We run a rear-mounted radiator setup to keep it away from any damage that might occur at the front,” he explains. “And there’s also a balance advantage: this puts more of the weight over the rear wheels, to help improve traction.”…

“Many people wrongly assume that this is a recently-imported JDM truck, but Honda officially launched micro-trucks in the UK in the late 1970s, most famously as the original camper van used in the Sooty And Friends Children’s series on ITV, before Bedford introduced their slightly bigger and more powerful Rascal rival,” explains the ever knowledgeable Philip Egan. As the proud owner and builder of the beautiful brown Honda Acty truck splashed across these pages, he’s a bit of an aficionado on these diminutive oddities and has been since he first fell in love with Bedford Rascals when he was just 12 or 13 years old in the early ‘90s. This particular truck was manufactured on 1st April 1985 and originally sold by Boston Motor Cars in Hyde, Cheshire before bouncing…

For as long as mankind has been able to bang rocks together and communicate in anything more than a system of grunts, there’s been one mantra which people have also been using to proffer one another as advice: ‘Get a Golf.’ Alright, maybe the habit doesn’t stretch quite that far back, but certainly to 1974. When Volkswagen decided to replace their evergreen Beetle with a boxfresh new radicalist that delivered haymaker after haymaker to the traditionalists, there was more than a little gobsmackery among the automotive community: this pesky little upstart had its engine in the front, and a water-cooled engine no less; it was a hatchback, with boxy styling and all sorts of unseemly ideas. But it immediately became apparent that this bullish chancer was by far the best-inclass;…

The Volvo 850 T5 has proven to be a popular engine donor with countless tuners over the years. The T5 model came in with the 850’s mid-cycle facelift, and the engine it was powered by was a boosted version of the 2.3-litre 20v five-pot, offering a smooth and insistent 225bhp. This was followed up in 1995 by the T5-R, of which just 200 were sold in the UK in estate form; co-developed with Porsche, its enlarged 2.5-litre engine ran higher boost and produced a thumping 245bhp – heady stuff in the mid-nineties, absurdly propelling this huge car to 60mph in a smidge under seven seconds. Of course, as Erwin has proven here, the potential of this supremely robust engine stretches far beyond those numbers……

Yeah, yeah, we all know the jokes: ‘What do you call a Skoda with a sunroof? A skip.’ ‘Why do Skodas have rear screen heaters? To keep your hands warm when you’re pushing them.’ ‘Have you got a wing mirror for a Skoda? Yep, seems like a fair swap.’ And so on. Generations of lame dad-jokes kept the beleaguered Czech brand in shackles throughout the 1980s… but that all changed when Skoda became the 4th brand of the Volkswagen Group in 1994, offering VW-quality cars at lower prices. And another rather exciting string was added to the marque’s bow in 2001 with the launch of the Octavia vRS – the first of a new GTI-esque sporty line, effectively taking the Mk4 Golf GTI (complete with 180bhp 1.8T motor), making it…

DRY KITS These kits do not use an extra fuel solenoid to deliver the fuel, they instead rely on the engine’s current set up and one nitrous solenoid. This can work very well but only if you have a very clever and compatible ECU that is able to inject the large amounts of extra fuel needed for when the nitrous is triggered. Dry systems can’t be used on engines with carbs. Avoid trying to cheat the fuel pressure regulator into giving more fuel too, it generally results in failure as it either doesn’t make power or melts the engine. WET KITS This type of kit is the more common set-up found in most applications. As a majority of cars cannot run a dry set up sufficiently, wet kits offer an…

BOTTLE WARMERS These are jackets that fit over the bottle to warm it, which increases the pressure inside the bottle and therefore ensures the nitrous that reaches the jets is at the pressure it should be. Hot and cold days both have an effect on the bottle pressure, so this will help to stabilise it. PURGE KITS The plume of gas you see some cars give off on the start line at the drag strip is simply gaseous nitrous being vented off to atmosphere through a purge kit. It brings liquid up to the solenoid ready for immediate use, but only bigger kits using braided lines realistically need it, otherwise it’s just for the pose factor. CONTROLLERS The most important add-on of all: traction control for nitrous. A basic unit…

The Guadalajara Cartel tortured American DEA agents and murdered anyone who got in their way. Joaquín Guzmán - commonly known as El Chapo - and who ran the Sinaloa Cartel, was once the most-wanted man in the world. Yes, we know that what they do is in principle very bad. But that hasn’t stopped them from being the subject of Netflix documentaries and Sundance-acclaimed films. Morbid curiosity comes in all shapes and sizes; and you’ve got to admit we all love an underdog. The RX Cartel, who are clearly out to mess with people, are followed by a roster of fans who watch with a certain grim fascination, waiting with bated breath to see what they are going to do, or say, next. In marketing jargon they’d be called ‘disruptors’.…