9 articles
A solid check engine light is usually safe to drive on for a few days, as long as the car runs normally. A flashing light means the engine is misfiring badly enough to cook the catalytic converter, so pull over and get a tow. Either way, get the code read this week; parts stores do it for free.
On paper the 1M is lighter, torquier and slightly quicker through the quarter mile, while the E46 M3 has the 8,000 rpm S54, a back seat that works and far more cars to choose from. Production is the big split: about 6,300 1Ms against 85,766 E46 M3s, and the market prices the 1M accordingly.
Night car photos come down to a tripod, manual mode, low ISO and a shutter left open long enough to light the car on your terms. Start around f/8, ISO 100 and 10 to 15 seconds for light painting, raise ISO only when you have to shoot handheld, and shoot RAW so you can fix the color of street lamps later.
The modified car year opens with Tokyo Auto Salon in January, runs through summer shows like Wekfest, Gatebil and Goodwood, and closes with Luftgekühlt in October, SEMA in early November and the Essen Motor Show into December. This guide gives dates, cities, crowd sizes and what each event is known for, so you can pick the ones worth travelling to.
Stance is the style of setting a car as low as it will go with the wheels pushed right to the fender edge, using coilovers or air, low-offset wheels, stretched tires and negative camber. It grew from Japanese drift and bosozoku cars and the US Hellaflush meets of the 2000s, and it splits car people because the extreme versions trade tire life, braking and ride for looks.
VIP style, or bippu, is the Japanese habit of taking big rear-drive luxury sedans like the Toyota Celsior and Nissan Cedric and making them lower, wider and more imposing. It grew out of Osaka and the bosozoku scene in the early 1990s and still runs on air suspension, deep three-piece wheels, negative camber and lounge-style rear cabins.
BMW built about 2.4 million E30s, so donor cars are still around $14,000 to $20,000, and the light, simple, rear-drive chassis takes modern engines well. That's why it's a favorite for S54 swaps and restomods, from garage builds to Redux's £350,000 rebuilt M3.
RWB, or Rauh-Welt Begriff, is the one-man wide-body Porsche shop of Akira Nakai from Chiba, Japan. He flies to the owner's car, cuts the fenders freehand and bolts on flares over about two days. A 993 kit with installation starts around $28,000, before the donor car.
The air-cooled Porsche 911 was built from 1964 to 1998 on one basic body, which makes it easy to backdate, hot rod and rebuild. Outlaw builders like Emory Motorsports and Magnus Walker opened the door, and Singer and Gunther Werks turned the idea into cars priced from about $475,000.