Now This is Talent!

So via the magic of social media, someone pointed me to a drawing of my car. When I checked it out - I think it was on IG -  I was pleasantly surprised. Inspired by the cover photo to The Return of Project 33 article I published on Speedhunters:

I found this on Instagram - I actually like it just as much, if not more, than Dino's photo:

Obviously, Harley is a pretty talented guy - and when I contacted him, turned out to be a super nice guy too! (and yes, his brother is ok...).  He directed me to his Etsy store - and then a few weeks later:

And the Japanese is almost perfect! WOW!

First order of business, I had to get a proper frame to mount this in. Not just the same size as the drawing, but with a proper mat too.

Looks like it will fit perfectly...

Love it! Signed and dated. Could be worth a lot in the future, maybe??

That is spot on!

And yes, he also sent me this as a bonus:

Not sure what I will do with this but will hang on to it! It's signed on the back!

So I'm super happy that my car - or at least a photo of my car - is now generating art! NFT, anyone? But in all seriousness, if any of you see anything like this out there, please let me know! Totally happy to support artists and of course such art gets added to my R33 GT-R collection!

Anyone else out there with this kind of talent? Let me know!!

The Other Thing I Put on the Wall (Garage Series)

 So as I mentioned in my last post, the official Nissan poster wasn't the only piece of art I put on my garage wall.

You see, at last year's Nismo Festival, one of the vendors there grabbed my eye - Kusaka Engineering, who are known mainly for their scale model RB26DETT engines!

Scale model of a Mine's tuned engine, anyone?

But in addition to making scale model cars and engines, they also introduced something else, which is made to order. So a few months after ordering it, it arrived in this box, which I had left stored in my office downstairs as I wondered what to do with it.

So Kusaka Engineering makes these LED lit Skyline GT-R displays:

Obviously from the font you can see this is for the BNR32. https://kusaka-eng.com/led.html

And yes they make them in the appropriate font for each GT-R model. So of course I ordered the larger size for the BCNR33.

Looks better in person.

And they threw in a 5 meter extension cord... which came in very handy 

So I went ahead and plugged it in to make sure it worked. Looks awesome, huh? 

Just not sure where to mount it.  Initially I thought maybe next to the poster but that would create an unbalanced look. On the other hand, hanging on that wall would mean I could see it from my office.  But in the end, I decided the opposite wall would do nicely (and my good friend Dino agreed as well).  And it JUST fit, too.

Green arrow pointing to the extended power lead

To hide the power lead, I routed it below the window sill, using these clips, made to hold electrical cords in place.

And that really cleaned it up! Can't tell how it's powered!

So how does it look with the car parked? Well the photo does not do it justice...

Maybe the garage is too bright? To the naked eye the glow is very nice.

Oh, and here is a photo just to show how it looks from this angle. I guess a wider angle lens could capture both?

In any case, I am thrilled to finally have two pieces of R33 art finally up on the garage wall. There are a couple more items I am thinking about wall mounting, but I am in no hurry to add to these at the moment.