Here’s the second in the series of MaxPower car features. This time we’re looking at Simon’s AW11 – a car that had its fair share of hard knocks and time off the road. It lived hard and died young earlier this year.

Originally bought as a $600, 300,000km beater, that AW11 was supposed to have a couple of quick-fixes before getting a WOF. A year and a half later it re-appeared as a completely rust free car with a fresh panel and paint, flashy gold wheels and a bigport 4AGE with mild cams… But that was just the beginning…

This year’s Daybreaker was a bit different to those in years gone by. The new shorter format and late start time means it isn’t so much of a “daybreaker” any more -but the change is welcomed by our crew who aren’t 100% keen on early mornings.

The region had been pelted by rain in the days before the rally, but it cleared up and left a well packed, fast surface for the boys to make a mess with!

Greg Browne’s corolla is always good to watch and he was giving it a fair thrashing this year! The poor old 5-door ended up with some seriously rippled panels by the end of the day.

40 cars showed up to compete at the Sainsbury road hill climb this year, including the three of us from Hamilton with race-able cars. The sun was shining for a change so it was grouse to finally drive this twisty little number to the max.

Dave came away with 3rd in class B (1600cc) in the FXGT… huge effort considering he was more than a little hungover from a wedding the day before! I was 0.73sec behind in the AW11, 4th place. Todd hauled ass and ran consistent 58sec passes, landing 5th place in C class.
Fiat Club Waikato run these events very efficiently, with registration and scrutineering on the Saturday to allow for an earlier start on Sunday. Then practice and three runs back to back in two groups, with no lunch break, meant people could hit the Pirongia pub by 2-3pm. Nice.

Some nice shots were taken by shutterspeed

Our videos:

Dave’s bumper cam for run 2

Click “continue reading” for more videos.

Here’s the first in a series of features on the cars of Maxpower. We’re starting with what is one of the latest additions to the ranks – having only been with us for a year – but the development and drive behind the car means it’s definitely worthy of mention.

The first we saw of this car was November 2010 during an autocross meeting at Manfeild. At the time it was just an AE101 with blacktop 4AGE conversion and a set of Tein superstreet coilovers – a basic package that was being thrashed to within an inch of its life.

It was a simple car back then – basic mods, no cage, great for touge or track use and had few complications. This all changed throughout the year that followed… A lot of hard work, passion and learning over a short period of time has created what you might call “a chequered past”.

Wow. What a road. I’m going to let the videos speak for themselves.

Here’s some sweet footage from Murray’s H22A powered Civic: