016 http://www.fastcar.co.ukCOVER CARS
Renaultsport Recaro CS front
seats are a great additionWicked wicked jungle is massive
The unmistakable rear
slats of a Prima kitbut helpfully Dale had his gameplan all in place and a lot
of associated talent to draw on. “Like any build, I had an
overall image in my head,” he says, “I looked at old 1970s
magazines, listened to a lot of blues, funk and soul, and
talked to my dad about car culture in the ’70s. I worked very
closely with Colin Ware at Kustom Kolors and Phil James
at The Install Company to map out how the car would be
executed; this included measuring out the perfect size and
fi tment for the air and wheels, picking the perfect colour and
effect for the roof, and making small changes that would
make the Merc different from the others.”
The paint, as with any classic Chicano hopper, is the
build’s crowning glory: the body wears a shade called
Copper Sunset which pops beautifully in the light, while the
roof sports all of the visual tricks of the genre – metalfl ake,
candy, lace, you name it. A double-bumper upgrade addsto come.” As such, this has been done right, and the spec is
formidable. That turbocharged Cléon motor has been fully
rebuilt by Prep’N’Lay, and features a whole host of goodies
from Forge Motorsport including a custom hose kit, actuator,
dump valve, intercooler and header tank – all in black, for
reasons of stealth and subtlety. Rather less subtle are the
staggered Dimma 3-piece wheels, which have been artfully
rejuvenated by The Wheel Specialist, Fareham, and that on-
point retro stance is attributable to a set of custom Bilstein
B14 coilovers. With a fully refreshed chassis and brakes
uprated by EBC, the fi nal fl ourish was the interior: Campus-
spec trim was chosen to accentuate the 3-stage pearl, with
the bare-bones dash and doorcards complemented by a
rather more ostentatious pair of Renaultsport Recaro CS
front seats. The rear bench is trimmed to match, and there are
yellow Renaultsport seatbelts, because of course there are.
Lurking malevolently on the other side of the Goodwood
pitlane is a machine with an entirely different focus. A million
miles from the car park burnouts of Tom’s 1990s hooligan is
Dale’s low-and-slow stacklight Merc, a panscraping W
that channels memories of the Chicano lowrider culture of LA
and cleverly teleports it to this leafy corner of West Sussex.
It hard-parks itself on bags rather than hydros, it’s wearing
big-ass steels instead of chrome wires, but this modern
interpretation of lowrider culture is right where we wanna be.
“I’ve had this car in my head for years,” Dale grins. “I have
a huge passion for American car culture, and always thought
the W114 could look like a Continental’s European cousin.”
This particular car was found at the legendary Paint Box paint
shop down in Essex, where one of the guys was using it as a
daily driver so Dale knew he’d be off to a headstart.
“It was the fourth or fi fth car that we looked at,” he
recalls. “Knowing the car was coming from such a creative
hub made it irresistible to pass up. And when I saw it, I knew
it was the one... plus it was already lowered so it looked cool
on the way home!”
Naturally there’s low and then there’s lowrider-low,