November 2009 - dyp (P11) |
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NPOC_COTM
NPOC Staff COTM Staff Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Online Status: Points: 173 |
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Posted: 28 Oct 2009 at 3:30am |
Congratulations on winning November 2009 COTM Steve! You and your minty white P11 GT are a winning combo!! How does it feel bagging this exclusive award and not forgetting an awesome club trophy as well? A complete shock to be honest, especially after seeing the standard of cars at JAE. I was not expecting this at all. Before we talk Primera and jump into car mods and stuff, we’d love to find out about you the owner. Please tell us about yourself and what you get up to, away from the NPOC. I have been with Gemma for coming on two years now and we are expecting our first child at the beginning of March. I work for the Ministry of Defense and I enjoy anything that gets me dirty and wet, like jet skiing, fishing, off roading or scramblers. How did you find the NPOC forums and are we any good? Would you happily recommend the club to other Nissan Primera owners? After buying the GT from my mate, I did a little search for Nissan Primera on Google and I came across NPOC, this was back in December 2007 and I was lurking in the backgrounds as a non paying member. I finally decided it was time to pay the membership and explore the site and within 2 days the advice and help I had received on my alarm problem and the money saved from the solution had covered my membership fee! You are one of our members who pays for an Elite Membership. What’s your reason for that and is it worth it? Within four months I upgraded my membership to Elite and it’s the best 4 golden nuggets I spend each month. It’s not only the happenings in the Elite Section but the money saved from the various promotions by the NPOC Club Owners, including money off NPOC clothing, free Ace Cafe breakfast and discounted entrance tickets, at all the big National shows the NPOC attend. You and Gemma announced recently that you’ll soon be having a baby, a massive CONGRATS from all of us here at NPOC – How does it feel knowing you’re going to become a father? It’s both exciting and scary. As some of you know, Gemma has started to get a nice little bump and we can feel the baby moving around. It’s a big learning curve for me and I have discovered that pregnancy affects her mood swings haha! I am really excited as we had the 21 week scan recently and we are having a boy! The good thing is the Nissan Primera can stay, as I have test fitted the buggy and car seat and it all fits. Do you come from a background of modified cars? Any previous projects you wanna share with us? I have always been into cars, even though I didn’t get a license until I was 22 as I used to have a motorbike. The biggest project I have done so far is to turbo charge my old mk1 Clio RSI. This was a steep learning curve and over the winter, myself and my two closest mates worked under a gazebo to get this complete. This was done over 4 years ago and she is still running today. My aim was not for big power, I just fancied a challenge and to have something a bit different. Some of us here at NPOC, first saw your car for sale on eBay a few years ago.. It was advertised as a P11 GT but without any of the body kit or interior. We then found out it was an ex Police car!! We’ve seen the special speedo but have you found any other “odd / non standard” bits from its days as a crim catching cruiser? The amount of wiring removed by Darren (the previous owner) was incredible! It seems that when she was retired from the force, they just cut the wiring looms and left them in situ. Apart from that (and the speedo), the siren bracket is still located behind the bumper. Slowly though, she has evolved into what she is today - Gone is the drab cloth interior, now replaced by a full leather SE interior. On to the modifications, now would be a great time to tell us all about your Nissan Primera P11 GT, so please list your full spec and all modifications, inside and out: Hmmmn where to begin!?!?! I was lucky when I got the car, that she was nearly back to GT spec. Exterior: 17" MOMO Arrows in Black KYB AGX shocks all round SS Autochrome header Custom cat back exhaust by PMCC Decat Lowering springs Custom Primera grills 6000K HIDS Strobes fitted inside Front Indicators / Front fog lights and mounted in the grill. Leon Cupra R front splitter Engine Bling: Nismo AFPR (and gauge) Polished valve cover Polished fuse box covers HKS mushroom Filter Chrome Intake pipe Raisin Voltage stabiliser No AC Interior: Full SE grey leather interior with powered drivers seat and heaters Two NATS ultra bright blue LED's Replaced the heater controls with 3 smoked faced gauges (Oil Temp, Oil Pressure and Voltage) Relocated heater controls to cubby hole SE door cards all round Arctic white dial surround Installed rear electric windows as they car had manual winders Full Blue led dash and switches D1 spec weighted gear knob
What’s the most enjoyable change you’ve made so far? It’s definitely got to be the heated seats. I drive between What was the hardest modification you’ve taken on? The hardest was probably completing the interior - I didn’t want to chuck silly money away but with help from the following NPOC members: “Cornishprimmie” (SE door cards), “GT786” (rear electric window motors) and “Grim” (wiring looms and drivers door switch), the whole cost of putting in the electric windows and SE interior was about £130, including my £51 seats (another eBay bargain)!! If you found £500 washed up on the beach right now and had to spend it on the car, what would you buy? Hmmn, I would probably put it towards a full respray as she has had a busy life and still shows scars from her working career. Most of them are not that noticeable but I know they are there. If money was no object and you could do anything you wanted to the GT, what would you do? I would love to supercharge the GT just to be different and have her purely as a fun weekend car; she would be stripped down and rebuilt from the ground up. Can you see yourself keeping this car for a while yet? Definitely! I was worried when I got my job in Time for the quick fire question round! Coffee or tea? – Tea 3 doors or 5? – 5 Tennis or golf? – On the Wii, Tennis Playstation or Xbox? – Playstation Japanese or French? – Japanese Are you really a secret agent LOL? – Not secret anymore now, is it!! Tell us your favourite NPOC car? – Oh difficult one here! My favourite 11 is “rhinop11”’s car after seeing it at JAE for the first time. I fell in love with it, the contrasting red and white is a true winning combination. For the 10's it would have to be “Tom-P10”, the boy thinks outside the box and it makes his car tasteful and unique! My favourite modification he has done so far, are the clear lense headlights. You’ve showed out at loads of NPOC Meets during 2009, it’s been a pleasure seeing the rarer coloured white P11 GT on display. Same again for 2010? Of course, I have already penciled in Japfest and JAE. What makes it easier is how Gemma was accepted into the NPOC family. What’s been your most enjoyable club meet so far and why? It has to be my first JAE this year. Although I had already met quite a few of the Southern members, it was good to meet the Northern members even though most of them spoke funny. It was a cracking weekend and we were lucky to have some top weather to boot. Many thanks for telling us all about yaself and your Nissan Primera Steve, it’s certainly a cracking car! Congratulations once again for winning Car Of The Month for November 2009! Please sign off the feature, in your own words and feel free to thank anyone who’s made this one possible. I’d just really like to say a big thanks to everyone who has made NPOC what it is, everyone is so helpful and willing to pull together, which makes this site different from your bog standard run of the mill car forum. And lastly, thanks to the Staff Team for all their effort behind the scenes. Congratulations once again to Steve! November 2009 COTM - dyp
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