On Friday morning I went to the junkyards to sell my old beemer wheels. Once I was done I decided to drive around and take pictures since the weather was good and the sky nice and blue. I really love the place, you can find everything there from the old double decker buses to broken down tanks. There was this one place I found which I think was a huge government impound lot that looked really cool. It was surrounded by a barbed wire fence but I managed to sneak inside from a hole in the fence and walk around a bit. The place is amazing, I found a lot of old trucks and cars, it was beautiful. If anyone can help me get in there legally again so I could take pictures that would be great. If not I guess I would have to jump the fence again.
Update: Higher resolution pictures now available [Here]
Two weeks ago one of the Z4’s wheels developed a crack probably from a pothole and I had an option of either repairing it or getting a new wheel. Since the crack was pretty big repairing it wouldn’t have been a good idea and buying a new wheel would have cost me in excess of KD250. My friends suggested that I order a set of four new wheels directly from TireRack.com. Surprisingly it turned out Tire Rack ship wheels and tires to Kuwait and for a very reasonable price.
K.thekuwaiti gave me the email of a sales specialist he had dealt with before called Gavin and I started searching for my wheels on TireRack.com. They had a huge collection that fit my beemer but I was looking for 18×8’s for the front and 18×9’s for the rear and there were only two models that interested me and were under $400 a wheel. Since I had narrowed down my choices to two, I emailed Gavin asking for a quotation and a few questions. He was very helpful and patient answering all my questions, I even changed my mind twice and he didn’t seem to get annoyed or pissed. I finally got a quotation back and the shipping for four wheels to Kuwait via FedEx economy was just $270. That was around KD18 per wheel which was very reasonable since the total weight of four wheels was 50KG.
I paid via money transfer with NBK online and as soon as they received the amount they shipped me my wheels. It took around a week for the wheels to get to Kuwait and I just installed them today at the Pirelli dealer next to AceHardware. If you’re interested in ordering wheels from TireRack.com you can email Gavin at [email protected].
Took my Tamiya FJ out rock crawling with some friends today in Bnaider. The weather was good and the location was perfect for our cars. I shot some video which I am going to edit and upload later but here are a few pictures for now.
It’s been nearly a month since I got my Tamiya FJ and just a few moments ago I finished building it. It took some time because I had to paint the body and ended up messing up the job, I then had to wait for the motor and electronic speed controller to arrive from the States and finally tonight I just had to source one more small part locally and get some wires soldered onto the motor. I’m now done with it, I tidied up all the wiring and my FJ is finally ready for a crawling session. I missed out on one last Friday because my car wasn’t ready but this Friday I am going and will take some pictures once I do.
I sadly don’t have much info on this event only what I found on the Facebook page which is:
This is the very first car show to be hosted by the U.S. Embassy Kuwait, come enjoy the latest and greatest in automobile technology and modification.
Date: Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Time: 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Location: U.S. Embassy Kuwait
Street: Masjid Al-Aqsa St.
City/Town: Bayan, Kuwait
Here is the link to the Facebook page but there isn’t much else there. An event like this should have been better advertised… only 11 confirmed guests on their Facebook page. I don’t even have a logo or picture to attach with this post since there doesn’t seem to be a flier or anything of the sort. [Link]
How much has car safety come in 50 years? Autoblog has pictures and a video of a crash test between two cars, one a 1959 model and the other from 2009. The result? We’ve come a long way. [Link]
Update: Link fixed!
I haven’t posted about Hüper Optik before because I have yet to pass by and get my car tinted. I should have gone at the beginning of summer but I kept putting it off due to the fact I can be really lazy (and cheap) sometimes. The reason I wanted to tint the car is because Nat doesn’t have any shaded parking where she works so the car sits baking under the sun all day long. So Marzouq recommended I get a tint from Hüper Optik because they offer the best heat protection around.
Unlike most tints in Kuwait, Hüper Optik’s are ceramic based not metallic. I learned that it has a few advantages one being that it doesn’t interfere with mobile phones, bluetooth and GPS and the other is the fact that ceramic based film offers better heat rejection. Ceramic is an insulator while metals are great conductors of heat so ceramic based film makes a lot more sense here in Kuwait.
Here are the specs they emailed me:
100% dye and metal free
Does not interfere with mobile phones, GPS, bluetooth.
High Infra Red heat rejection of up to 96%
High Ultra Violet rejection exceeding 99%
Total Heat Rejection from 32% to 73%
Visible Light Transmission from 8% to 85%
10-year product warranty coverage
So this brings us to today’s giveaway. Hüper Optik are offering a free car tint to the winner worth up to KD250 which makes it the most expensive giveaway so far. In case you are wondering, you don’t need to darken your car windows to take advantage of the heat or UV protection. You can go for a clear film and still have some protection. All you need to do to win this giveaway is to leave a comment below and later on in the evening I will use random.org to select a winner.
Check out Marzouqs review of Hüper Optik [Here]
And here is their contact information which includes their website where you can find a map to their place.
Telephone: 2471 9999 www.huperoptik-kw.com and www.huperoptik.com
Rules: You need to put your proper email in the email field while commenting since the winner will be contacted by email. You also need to respond to my “You Won” email within 24 hours or I will have to make another draw and choose another winner. You can only comment once, anyone caught commenting more than once will get disqualified.
I personally wish I could participate in today’s giveaway since it involves a Tamiya radio controlled car and you know how much I love these cars. My Toy who are the local Tamiya dealers are giving away a ready to race Nissan GT-R TT-01E with battery, controller and charger. It’s ready to race meaning it’s already been built, painted and put together by the factory but its the TT-01E chassis which mean’s you have a ton of parts you can replace and upgrade yourself.
I have the older TT-01 chassis which is what my Lancia car is built on and I love it, its very fun to drive right out of the box and once you upgrade it you can have a pretty serious machine.
The My Toy shop is located in Tilal Complex in Shuwaikh on the first floor right above Roche Bobois and Living Colors. It’s the nicest RC shop I’ve ever seen, its really big and they’re building a huge race track on the roof right next to it. They even have a section in the back where you can build your cars in and even an airbrush room.
This package is worth KD147.500 and all you need to do to win it is to leave a comment below and later on in the evening I will use random.org to select a winner. Please take the time to pass by the shop (don’t take the wife) and check out what they have. If you love cars its hard to leave without picking something up.
My Toy’s phone number is 22256707
Rules: You need to put your proper email in the email field while commenting since the winner will be contacted by email. You also need to respond to my “You Won” email within 24 hours or I will have to make another draw and choose another winner. You can only comment once, anyone caught commenting more than once will get disqualified.
Update: The post was closed for commenting at around 9:30PM.
The winner is…
It took me around 16 hours to build which is the longest its ever taken me to build a radio controlled car but it was a lot of fun and I’m finally done. I had actually completed the build last night but today I passed by the Tamiya dealer to pick up a better quality damper system which is the blue and silver object in the pictures. I still need to change the motor, add an electronic speed controller and most importantly paint the actual FJ Cruiser body to put on it but I wanted to share these pictures I took of the car frame to show you how beautiful the details in the model are. Check out the pictures below.
Here is a link to the FJ Cruiser page on the Tamiya website. [Link]
The local Porsche dealership has put up the Panamera prices. The cheapest is the Panamera S with a starting price of KD35,400 while the most expensive is the Panamera Turbo with a starting price of KD50,100. I like the Porsche Kuwait website, more local car dealers should put their prices online. Actually scrap that, most local car dealers need a proper website first. [Link]
I had a choice between going to Dubai and getting a Tamiya CR01 crawler, wasn’t that difficult a choice. Going to spend Eid at home putting it together and hopefully spend the winter down south crawling with the other FJ Cruisers pictured below. So what are you doing this Eid?
Today’s giveaway is for anyone that has a car because its a full detailing package from Al Falah Car Wash & Showshine Detailing Center. I’ve talked about them a lot and I’ve used them to detail both my Wrangler and Z4. Both occasions they returned the car to me as if it had just come out fresh from the dealership showroom. They’re also the official car wash of The Gulf Run and zDistrict has posted about his experience with them a number of times. I’ve recommended this place a lot and anyone who’s tried them can vouch for me when I say they do an incredible job.
The package they’re giving away is worth KD50 and includes an exterior and interior detailing of your car and also the engine bay. This is a great offer because your car will really look brand new once they’re done. All you need to do to win is to leave a comment below and later on in the evening I will use random.org to select a winner.
They’re located in Kuwait City, here are the contact details for the car wash and detailing if you’re interested: Mobile 65084003 and Land line 22452432
Here is a link to my previous post about them [Link]
And here are two links to zDistricts post where I’ve borrowed three photos from [Link] and [Link]
Rules: You need to put your proper email in the email field while commenting since the winner will be contacted by email. You can only comment once, anyone caught commenting more than once will get disqualified.
Update: The post was closed for commenting at around 5:20PM.
The winner is…
Back in July my car failed the yearly mechanical test because of my large tires. Today I finally swapped them out for 4 much smaller tires that don’t even match and my Jeep passed the test. They were really dangerous to drive with so I quickly put back my large tires again.
