2003 Melbourne Auto Salon - www.mazdarotary.net

2003 Melbourne Auto Salon

Event Report and Pictures: Ben Winstone

The 2003 Melbourne Auto Salon was a highlight for rotor fans this year with a very large number of tough rotors in attendance. The presence of the Pac Performance MX-6 and the Queen St. BMW drag cars had been promoted heavily in the media leading up to the event, however there was a strong showing of some of Melbourne's best street rotaries on display as well...

Rotorworx Racing Developments had 12 cars on its stand, and in their display order consisted of Dave McPherson's KE20 World Record holding untubbed Corolla, Marty's 13BT 'ETAV8' RX-4, Matt's wheelstanding 'EZYTEN' 1300, Simon's Series 3 RX-7 'FREKNU' and James' Series 5 RX-7 'MADRX', both of which have been featured on mazdarotary.net. The '4SFED' Celica from the cover of a previous Fast Fours magazine was also present, along with another former Fast Fours feature car, the blue 'RX004' RX-4 coupe.

Graham had his 'URDRMN' RX-3 sedan on display showing off the new leather interior, and at times attempted to show off his modeling skills (see pics), perhaps his number plate said it all! :)

The red 'SYCORX' RX-3 returned to the Auto Salon again this year and features a Rotorworx 10-sec package, the 'RX1972' RX-3 had a great interior, while Harvey's 'ITUFRX' orange RX-3 attracted its fair share of attention over the weekend (especially when the nurse was sitting on it, see the 'Girls' pics) and the 'JET100' R100 was also immaculately turned out.

Promaz also had a number of cars on display including their 20BT RX-4 Coupe, the red Series 6 RX-7 (which is also currently Australia's fastest Series 6), whilst the 'HERRX3' RX-3 coupe also attracted a few looks. The red 12A Turbo R100 was neatly turned out along with the green 'BABYRX' RX-7 which looked tough sitting on it's Zepter rims. The mini-tubbed yellow RX-4 coupe 'IGNITE' was also on display.

Dalton Automotive had their awesome looking Series 6 Dragcar on show which attracted plenty of admirers, along with Paul Pfeiffer's white RX-7 and the 'IMQIK2' 1300 2 door sedan. Pac Performance had two cars on show including their highly anticipated MX-6 drag car along with the immaculate 'BLODIS' RX-3 sedan, complete with tubbed rear-end and 335-width rear tyres along with the snakeskin and leather interior.

The Queen St. Smash Repairs twin-turbo four rotor drag BMW coupe was also present (along with an array of impressive promo girls) and must surely be the only drag car in Australia with a pink suede interior and a full audio system setup.

Other cars of interest included the Rusty's Racing 20B powered Series 6 RX-7, the car also featured a air suspension setup which attracted a crowd whenever it was being used. The 'BLCJET' Supra reeled off 524kw at the wheels on Sunday afternoon during the Dyno competition.

Mario's drag-style R33 Skyline GT-R was also on display for the first time and attracted a lot of interest, while another mazdarotary.net feature car was also on display, the 'RIPNE1' Subaru WRX STi coupe.

As usual there was also the large number of Euro luxury cars dumped on big rims or the airbrushed Mitsubishi's and Hondas etc., however it was the rotors that we were there to see and it was impressive to see so many high quality rotaries on display, a huge improvement over last year, lets hope it can continue for 2004.

You cannot forget to mention the promo girls, of which there were plenty, you can check out their pics on the last two pages...

(Thanks to a number of the Rotorworx guys for placing the mazdarotary.net stickers on their car, and to Joanne for the tickets)

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