After close to 10 years of owning, what will likely be the favorite car of my life it was time to say goodbye to G0ZILLA. I wasn't racing it as much as I used too, and the cost and headache of Hoosiers was getting out of hand. I also always had to have a separate car as a daily driver (mostly STIs). I did pickup an E63S wagon this summer and sold the STI with the plan to sell the GTR as well and try to pick up a new mustang GT to campaign for racing in 2018.
It had Carbon Ceramics on it and was a total beast. It also had 80k kms which really started to weigh on me for future repairs and continuing depreciation. My plans changed for racing in 2018, as I made a deal with a friend in Calgary to drive his Camaro SS 1LE for the year. This meant I would be doing a lot of 1 day trips back and forth to Calgary, so putting 600kms in a day, multiple times on a close to 600hp 4600lb wagon did not seem like a great idea. I found myself scared to drive the wagon for fear of it breaking down on me, so after getting a good trade in value from Mercedes I sold it on Kijiji for a little more that weekend (after 3.5 months). It ended up costing me a little over a grand a month, which is a fair bit better than what an actual lease would have been on one of these. I figured I should get something small that could squeeze 5 people in if needed, but more fun to drive than the STI. I wanted the best of GTR and STi combined into 1 car. I figured out what I wanted and put in an order. It was supposed to take about 4.5 months to get here. I really pushed hard in trying to sell the GTR before winter hit, but had a hard time selling it. No one wanted to touch one with all the mods and the track history it had. I had one serious offer in the fall from a gut in Calgary. For itshays and giggles I asked the dealership to give me a rough trade in price to make sure I didn't let it go for too cheap. They came back with a really fair price compared to the crap offers I had gotten, so I turned down that the offer from Calgary and took the car off of Kijiji.
Fast forward to early February and I find out my car will be arriving over a month early. Holy crap, now I had to get on putting the GTR back to stock to trade it in. It took me a lot of time and effort, but I got everything done myself except the downpipes and 3m removed. Zippy's took care of the Downpipes and an alignment and I got everything flashed back to stock without any hiccups luckily. The Tint Studio took off my full 3m wrap job to expose the pristine paint underneath. I trailer-ed it into the dealership scared that they would rag on the brakes and tires and try and screw me down on price. He just did a once around the car and came back with a very close offer to what they had told me previously by email without actually seeing the car at all. It was more than I expected so I was happy to accept it. We did up the paperwork and I unloaded the car by myself and parked it around the front of the dealership. As I left I had to stop and snap a pic of the 2 cars together.
A shot from the dealers delivery area
I loaded up the new beast and took it over to the Tint Studio to get a full wrap job/tint and windshield film put on.
I also got frcefed to ceramic coat the car and wheels.
A shot at work
The winters are Neuspeed RSe10 18x8.5 +45 with P235/40R18 Hankook Winter I*cepts. They are V-rated and I got a wicked deal from TalonTire on them. They had the cheapest price to start plus I was able to use my AutoX contingency money & a mail in rebate to get them down under $700. Need to get some black lugs as the little black plastic covers are too tight to fight into the holes of the Neuspeed wheels.
Plans include:
-Already have the same Neuspeed wheels in matte black for AutoX. The fronts are 18x8.5 +45 and Rear 18x8.0 +45. Will need some 5mm spacers for the rear as stock was +42. Want to confirm fitment before ordering the spacers and lugbolts.
-Need to get some Bridgestone RE-71Rs - P265/35R18 FR & P245/40R18 RR from Costco once the spring rebate is available.
-Potentially get a front or rear sway bar. Likely rear, but would like to hear some feedback on them first.
This car has been classed in BS which is the same as the STi is. There will be a lot of class shuffling for 2019, including moving the STi/Focus RS/Evo down to DS and letting some ponycars (GT350, Camaro SS 1LE) into BS. I think this car has a good chance in BS and am very happy it didn't get sent into SS like the TTRS did. I will likely run as many ASA events with it as I can, and then likely run it full time in 2019.