Joined
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143 Posts
Well, yes another red Mak.. actually not sorry if you are offended :mhihi:
The car was imported from Japan early last year, by a Polish importer. Rather clean example, a few bits and pieces left to be done over the coming months, but after that it should be a very nice car.
Just ticked over 150K km or 90K miles, so not the lowest milage car out there but still looks very good for its age.
The only thing that's really bothering me are the rims.. Not even sure if I can get them refurbed or have to get a better set somewhere (if anyone has info on one for sale, hit me up :smthumbup)
I should also get the front bumper resprayed since it's collected a lot of stone chips and some **** scratched my roof, so I'll see what to do with that.. :wallbang:
Mostly stock apart from a Kakimoto catback, an Exedy twin plate clutch and a Forge Motorsport actuator. With the current map it's measured at 330HP (thinking about going 100% stock though)
Below some photos and even further down a write up of how and why I bought it :smthumbup
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Oh, and before I forget it, the title of course also has its meaning. I'm only 18 as of yet
The red TME has been my absolute dream car eversince I first found out that it was even a thing.
I soon started looking at ads for fun. That was three to four years ago, so actually owning one seemed completely unrealistic.
Didn't take long though before my search got a little more serious. I gave myself stricter criterion, so it would not only have to be red and come with the SCP but it should also be an LHD RS2/RS.
Finding an LHD car is a pain. I came across a few, but they all didn't look that good, seemed to be scams or were doubles of ones I'd already seen dozens of times.
In Nov 2014 I came across a car in Poland which also didn't look that good, but the price seemed fine, so I contacted the seller. He quickly sent me a lot of photos, but soon after that he stopped responding.
I was kind of fed up, so I went a different route and in December of the same year I bought my very first car, a 1961 DKW Junior.
A tiny bread and butter 2 stroke wonder. I love it to death. My parents didn't have a problem with me buying a car this young, they know about my passion and at least my father shares it, so I made it a deal.
750cc, 34HP (when it was new), no comfort whatsoever, but a big grin on my face everytime I'm driving it. Just a happy little thing. Unfortunately it's undergoing a full engine rebuild, gearbox overhaul and some suspension work. Mostly carried out by myself, but since my time's limited it'll probably stay off the road for a while. I should mention that it's still in its original paint and the interior is completely original as well.. that's why I haven't tended to the dents in the rear fender and so forth. Part of its history.
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Around that time I was contacted by another user on the swiss Evo-Forum.
He told me he was also looking for a LHD car, so we then continued our search together.
A few offers were sent back and forth between the two of us, but nothing seemed to suit our wishes. (Another one on that forum offered me his 47km/ 30 mile show room car for around £60K?!)
I soon decided to extend my search to either an LHD RS2 or a direct Jap import GSR.
Not long after that I was waiting at a traffic light after school when a RHD TME just drove past. Now that was the moment which reassured me.. I absolutely had to have one.
I told the other guy on the forum about that and it didn't even take him two hours to send me two offers.
One of them wasn't really interesting and the other one was the ad for my then future car.
I mailed the seller and asked him about photos and general info on the vehicle. He sent me a ton of photos (which were Photoshopped, but promising) and made a very honest impression.
So I called him up and we chatted about it a bit and he let loose with even more info on the car.
By that time it seemed reasonable to ease my father into the idea of me buying another car, and a very unsensible one at that. He called me crazy a few times, but if didn't seem too serious. He probably didn't understand how serious I was about it..
One phone call later I agreed on a date and time to meet the seller. I think my father was serious when he called me crazy that time.
We started looking for a train/flight regardless. Once that was settled the first period of counting days began. That didn't take too long though and on the 28th Aug I was finally sitting on the train towards Warsaw.
A 15 hour train ride, 5 hours of inspecting the car/hopefully settling contracts and another 15 hour train ride lay ahead.
Once we had arrived the seller picked us up and took a detour to his workshop, so he could demonstrate the car a bit.
The car was freshly polished and the interior was nearly factory clean as well. Everything looked great. At his workshop we took a good look around the car. The Mak looked just as nice as it did on first glance and the seller seemed to be very honest.
He kept pointing things out on his own, gave me a rundown of everything that had been done to the car and even brought out his paint thickness gauge.
After that he treated us to lunch, and then it was my turn to go on a test drive. It was a very thorough one. Lasted a bit over an hour and I got to feel it in the city, on country roads and on Warsaw's big ring roads.
Neither me or my father could find anything wrong with it, so we drove back to the restaurant to sign the contracts.
He agreed on installing headlights that would suit LHD traffic, a headlight leveling system and even fitting rear foglights until I could collect it.
(Unfortunately those are needed in order to register the car here in Germany but I've replaced them with the reflectors as soon as the car had a set of plates on it.)
A tough 7 months of waiting later, it's finally home and after a month of ownership, I've already done 4K km and wrecked the clutch slave cylinder.. it's back on the road though and I'm absolutely in love.
Kudos to anyone who's made it this far! I didn't mean it to become quite this comprehensive :handsup:
The car was imported from Japan early last year, by a Polish importer. Rather clean example, a few bits and pieces left to be done over the coming months, but after that it should be a very nice car.
Just ticked over 150K km or 90K miles, so not the lowest milage car out there but still looks very good for its age.
The only thing that's really bothering me are the rims.. Not even sure if I can get them refurbed or have to get a better set somewhere (if anyone has info on one for sale, hit me up :smthumbup)
I should also get the front bumper resprayed since it's collected a lot of stone chips and some **** scratched my roof, so I'll see what to do with that.. :wallbang:
Mostly stock apart from a Kakimoto catback, an Exedy twin plate clutch and a Forge Motorsport actuator. With the current map it's measured at 330HP (thinking about going 100% stock though)
Below some photos and even further down a write up of how and why I bought it :smthumbup
Oh, and before I forget it, the title of course also has its meaning. I'm only 18 as of yet
The red TME has been my absolute dream car eversince I first found out that it was even a thing.
I soon started looking at ads for fun. That was three to four years ago, so actually owning one seemed completely unrealistic.
Didn't take long though before my search got a little more serious. I gave myself stricter criterion, so it would not only have to be red and come with the SCP but it should also be an LHD RS2/RS.
Finding an LHD car is a pain. I came across a few, but they all didn't look that good, seemed to be scams or were doubles of ones I'd already seen dozens of times.
In Nov 2014 I came across a car in Poland which also didn't look that good, but the price seemed fine, so I contacted the seller. He quickly sent me a lot of photos, but soon after that he stopped responding.
I was kind of fed up, so I went a different route and in December of the same year I bought my very first car, a 1961 DKW Junior.
A tiny bread and butter 2 stroke wonder. I love it to death. My parents didn't have a problem with me buying a car this young, they know about my passion and at least my father shares it, so I made it a deal.
750cc, 34HP (when it was new), no comfort whatsoever, but a big grin on my face everytime I'm driving it. Just a happy little thing. Unfortunately it's undergoing a full engine rebuild, gearbox overhaul and some suspension work. Mostly carried out by myself, but since my time's limited it'll probably stay off the road for a while. I should mention that it's still in its original paint and the interior is completely original as well.. that's why I haven't tended to the dents in the rear fender and so forth. Part of its history.
Around that time I was contacted by another user on the swiss Evo-Forum.
He told me he was also looking for a LHD car, so we then continued our search together.
A few offers were sent back and forth between the two of us, but nothing seemed to suit our wishes. (Another one on that forum offered me his 47km/ 30 mile show room car for around £60K?!)
I soon decided to extend my search to either an LHD RS2 or a direct Jap import GSR.
Not long after that I was waiting at a traffic light after school when a RHD TME just drove past. Now that was the moment which reassured me.. I absolutely had to have one.
I told the other guy on the forum about that and it didn't even take him two hours to send me two offers.
One of them wasn't really interesting and the other one was the ad for my then future car.
I mailed the seller and asked him about photos and general info on the vehicle. He sent me a ton of photos (which were Photoshopped, but promising) and made a very honest impression.
So I called him up and we chatted about it a bit and he let loose with even more info on the car.
By that time it seemed reasonable to ease my father into the idea of me buying another car, and a very unsensible one at that. He called me crazy a few times, but if didn't seem too serious. He probably didn't understand how serious I was about it..
One phone call later I agreed on a date and time to meet the seller. I think my father was serious when he called me crazy that time.
We started looking for a train/flight regardless. Once that was settled the first period of counting days began. That didn't take too long though and on the 28th Aug I was finally sitting on the train towards Warsaw.
A 15 hour train ride, 5 hours of inspecting the car/hopefully settling contracts and another 15 hour train ride lay ahead.
Once we had arrived the seller picked us up and took a detour to his workshop, so he could demonstrate the car a bit.
The car was freshly polished and the interior was nearly factory clean as well. Everything looked great. At his workshop we took a good look around the car. The Mak looked just as nice as it did on first glance and the seller seemed to be very honest.
He kept pointing things out on his own, gave me a rundown of everything that had been done to the car and even brought out his paint thickness gauge.
After that he treated us to lunch, and then it was my turn to go on a test drive. It was a very thorough one. Lasted a bit over an hour and I got to feel it in the city, on country roads and on Warsaw's big ring roads.
Neither me or my father could find anything wrong with it, so we drove back to the restaurant to sign the contracts.
He agreed on installing headlights that would suit LHD traffic, a headlight leveling system and even fitting rear foglights until I could collect it.
(Unfortunately those are needed in order to register the car here in Germany but I've replaced them with the reflectors as soon as the car had a set of plates on it.)
A tough 7 months of waiting later, it's finally home and after a month of ownership, I've already done 4K km and wrecked the clutch slave cylinder.. it's back on the road though and I'm absolutely in love.
Kudos to anyone who's made it this far! I didn't mean it to become quite this comprehensive :handsup:
