The large scale show scene has been something of a foreign area to me since Autosalon’s final show in 2011, and the Melbourne Motor Show getting the axe all those years ago- MotorEx has been one event that has seemingly survived the dying convention and show scene of the previous decade, yet only this year did I make it to my first one.
I don’t know if it was because I just hadn’t been to a car show of this calibre in years, but MotorEx seemed vastly larger than anything I’d been to before. Covering multiple buildings across the Melbourne Show Grounds, and plenty of cars displayed outside in between, it was impossible for one to get a good look at everything.
Until now, my only real exposure to anything from MotorEx were the ads and cars I used to read about in Street Machine magazines back in high school (even then, it was only because our library had them, and I’d often just skip to the jokes section). I was more than expecting my fair share of Australian and American muscle cars, and received as such in spades, but I was actually surprised to see a lot more late-model cars than I had expected.
V-Spec Performance’s booth had a bunch of Japanese eye candy, from their own demo cars as well as some of their customer cars.
And Harrop’s booth did nothing to take away my desire for their FA20 supercharger systems… If only I had the money for such a high quality product.
Mode Auto Concepts was also another late-model car builder down from Sydney, with their pair of eye (and ear) catching demo cars.
^…and then there was this big booth selling lots of fake wheels…
Like all car shows the world over right now, the bolt-on infection has more than caught on. There were a gaggle of Liberty Walk kitted cars I did not expect on seeing at all. Sunus Motorsport’s E92 M3 (You may have seen it at last year’s 100mm Festival, then painted white), an R35 hailing from Sydney, and even a LW Mini that I didn’t know existed!
Moving into the Superstars pavilion, the notorious ‘XBOSS’ was displayed front and centre. With a constant crowd around it, it was impossible to get a full car shot.
Another car of note was the ‘OVAKIL’ Magna, a poignant and nostalgic blast from the past for me, and I’m sure many others from out Autosalon days. I didn’t even know this car still existed!
This car should make you look twice, catch it at the wrong angle and you’d be hard pressed to guess which is the front of the car or the rear. The crowd loved this car, and rightly so as it’s definitely unique, and just an all round bit of fun. Admittedly I don’t know what car is grafted on to either end, but I did recognise the doors and roofline to be an R33 Skyline interestingly enough!
Speaking of unique; moving into the street car pavilion, amid the XY Falcons, and other much heralded Australian muscle cars…. there sat Oxer’s Honda Civic. I imagine years ago, late model Japanese cars played a much smaller presence within MotorEx, and I imagine an EG Civic inside one of the main halls would have been absolutely unfathomable. But Oxer’s craftmanship more than holds its own against the oldies. I probably stood there for almost ten minutes just listening and watching the reactions from a lot of the old school guys. I’m telling you, they loved it! :P
4:20 blezzit
RWB Australia and Phatt Audio Concept’s two flagship cars also provided the crowd with plenty more widebody goodness.
These have just been a few builds and booths that captured my attention at MotorEx this year, the show was far too big to talk about every car, but if you’d like to see more, keep scrolling to see the rest of the gallery!
