Eurofest | Perth, Western Australia

Tuesday, 26 June 2018
By Josh Mott

In my never ending quest to find the best the Perth car culture has to offer, I usually end up spending hours on end building up contacts in the local scene and trawling over Facebook; looking for any clues as to where the next car event or meet is.

All these events are scribbled in my calendar, and more often than not, there are back to back events and sometimes even events running at the same time. Because of this, I need to choose what event/s I am going to cover, and what I will pass on.

I am pleased to say I made the right decision attending Eurofest 2017.

When Brendon, a member of Southside Car Culture, found the event on Facebook and extended an invitation to join him if I was free, I made sure my calendar was free to take part.

The details of the meet had been posted on the Facebook event page, and this years event was held at the Ocean Reef Sea Sports Club, at a huge car park nestled away from the public and local law enforcement. We arrived to find a small but diverse collection of Euro and Japanese cars.

In Perth, the Euro car scene is probably has the smallest following, however the Euro guys had a clear message coming across - quality over quantity.

The 850i is one of those unicorn cars you only really read about online - one of the rarest BMWs made, and this is one of two in Perth! Created as a Grand Tourer, the 8 Series offered the first V-12 engine mated to a 6-speed manual gearbox on a road car. It was also one of the first vehicles to be fitted with an electronic drive-by-wire throttle.

The owner of this particular car was happy to talk about her prized possession and gave everyone some impressive facts about this legendary car.

The E46’s continued BMW’s brand dominance of the day. The E46 generation introduced various electronic features to the 3 Series, including satellite navigation, electronic brake-force distribution, rain-sensing wipers and LED tail-lights. All-wheel drive, last available in the E30 3 Series, was reintroduced for the E46. It was available for the 325xi and 330xi sedan/wagon models. The E46 was the first 3 Series to be available with an engine using variable valve lift (“valvetronic”).

The M3 version of the E46 was powered by the S54 straight-six engine and was available in coupé and convertible body styles.

The BMW 1 Series M Coupe (“1M Coupe”) is a high-performance version of the BMW 1 Series Coupe, developed by BMW’s motorsport branch BMW M. While BMW naming convention would have called the car the “M1”, the name “BMW 1 Series M” was used instead, to avoid confusion with the original BMW M1.

The 1M coupe was BMW M’s second turbocharged engine (after the S63 V8 which debuted in the X6M). Since the 1M Coupe’s N54 engine was also used in the E89BMW Z4 sDrive35is, the 1M Coupe is also the first M model to use an engine shared with non-M models. The outputs for this engine are 250 kW (335 bhp) at 5900 rpm and 450 N⋅m (332 lb⋅ft) from 1,500 to 4,500 rpm. An additional 500 N⋅m (369 lb⋅ft) is produced during overboost.[59] The only available drivetrain is a six-speed manual gearbox with an M limited slip differential.

Not to be missed was a track spec Lotus that resembled more of a go kart than an actual car. You don’t realise how low these cars are and how short of a wheelbase they have until you see one in person and stand next to it. I truly admire Lotus’ ‘less is more’ approach they take with their production line.

I think ill have to head down to the next track day in the near future to find out more about this car!

In stark contrast to the track focused, lightweight Lotus I just showed you, we have these two classic Mercs. Completely original down to their lugnuts, these cars still make a statement today and are packed with luxurious features. I can only imagine how comfortable it would be to ride in one of these!

Not to let the Euro crowd show them up, the Japanese car community had some very respectable cars representing the scene. Skylines, GTRs, WRXs, were some of the cars on display from Japan. Even an S15 Silvia and my BB6 Prelude can be seen photobombing ;)

After a day like this, who wouldn’t leave the event not wanting to buy a Euro car? I know it gave me some ideas…