The throaty roar of souped up engines echoed around Port Alfred precinct as car enthusiasts converged on an open space off Pascoe Crescent on Saturday on the banks of the Kowie to participate in the annual Stance4Charity event.
The brainchild of Makhanda-born businessman, Kurt Solomon and close friend, Stefan Mentoor, the event is geared towards charity causes and to showcase petrolheads’s passion for customised cars.
Cars – of various makes and models – are judged according to different categories among them, including, the lowest vehicle (suspension), best paint job, overall best of the show award and best engine.
Piggy-backing on the Halloween theme, the cars that packed in the arena while a DJ belted out music from a makeshift stage, were suitably “pimped up” for the occasion. For the uninformed, the appearance of some of the vehicles might have indeed been a “scary” sight.
One of them – an older model BMW – had no front bonnet and no seats. Other later model stance cars had dropped suspensions that left spoilers mere millimetres off the ground.
Rear tyres hung from acute angles from some cars, which apparently improves grip when cornering. There were shiny compressors installed in the boot of cars, which elevates and drops the suspension by push of a button. Under bonnets were pipes jutting from intake manifolds to create smoother airflow that increases speed.
The head-turner was David Williams’s ruby red BMW CI 330 convertible (2001) which earned him the “car of the show” title. The 14-month labour of love to get the car ready for competition proved to be a worthy exercise he says.
“I am building show cars for the past 19 years …this one I call ‘Chucky’, with the theme being Halloween this weekend. I bought this car a year ago and today was the first ‘day I took it out on the road, actually we were busy until late last night (Friday) preparing it,” he says.
I had a few of them but I always wanted a red one … and I told myself I am going to build my dream car, and put my mind to it.”
“I replaced the leather seats, I put in new rims … I built in a 7-inch touchscreen …and the boot contains two compressors for lifting and dropping the suspension. I can even start my car from a distance via remote,” he says.
Another enthusiast is Franklin Jeftha of Gqeberha who together with a few die-hard friends built a Golf 5 Fsi 2l engine in to the shell of a Golf 1984 model.
“This is a passion of mine; I am not here to win necessarily, but just to be here with the community … this car is very fast but it’s not about that. It takes hours of work but when you have a passion you just follow your heart. “
Solomon, who has travelled to a few countries in Africa “competing at the highest level” in stance events, co-ordinates the showpieces at various venues in SA.
“We love our cars. We are spending hours and using our own money to pimp cars for stance events. “We must also be aware that the minister of sport is now acknowledging that for example, drag racing, which is not what we focus on, should become a formalised sport – and it makes us happy.
“There is an economic benefit too … it is a drawcard for tourism; most of the stance community are overnighting in B&Bs and they fill up these establishments on days like these.”
“And of course the proceeds go to charity; we are here also to assist the most vulnerable in our society,” added Solomon.
- This article was first published in Talk of the Town, October 31, 2024. The newspaper serving the communities of Ndlambe and the Sunshine Coast, with a weekly wrap of Makhanda news, is available at stores from early on Thursdays.
