Staff Cars: Dan's K24 Civic - New Shell Undersealed

Time to build a hot K24 Type R from the ground up!

Sing the song with me: Dreams can come true...!

Visualise your goals, they say. Dream big and you shall achieve. Well, when I'm not dreaming of my Max Power magazine heyday of endless babes, beers and bangin' modified motors - which is most nights to the fair! - my sleeping mind is full of images of my Civic project car. We've all been there, when a build just ain't going right sometimes our subconscious takes us to our happy project place. A place without rust! But with cool paint and expensive Japanese rims.

One of our MAXERS mates - Andy P - sent over this sweet purple-powered surprise the other day - designed for me on Forza Horizon 4 - the K24 Civic drenched in a kickass shade reminiscent of my R32 GTS-t Skyline project car from back in the Max day. This Virtual Max also has the same bronze RAYS TE37s as the mighty GTS. A powerful reminder of how cool modified Civics can look, and a well-needed shot in the arm for me after my recent rust misery. Cheers, Andy!

My old Skyline Max Power project car. If that front passenger seat could talk!

With old skool images and fond memories, the Max Power House of Kolor Skyline (colour: Lake Violet Pearl) is serving as modding motivation and it's time to get cracking on the Civic proper. Well, turns out the guys at R2 Automotive are way ahead of the game.

IDK, Euro-spec wheels a bit small?

So, my original black shell is rusty, crusty and nasty - insert Millsy joke here! - but my new silver shell is as clean as a freshly minted whistle. And to keep it that way, and before we transfer over all the sexy new Tegiwa tuning parts from the black car to it, the R2 crew cleaned, primed and sealed its undercarriage. It's spotless and rust-proofed for the next 20 years now, and this makes me very happy.

Above we have the rusty horrors of the black shell vs. the freshly cleaned and sealed silver shell. From the solid base of the silver shell, with the help of R2 and Tegiwa, we shall build a super-clean, super-fast K24 Civic. No more rust nightmares for me!

This is Phil from R2 Automotive. He's been living under the silver Civic for a few days, prepping her for glory. Cheers, Phil!

Above we can see that Phil's done a lovely job cleaning, priming and sealing the silver car. As specialists in Japanese cars, it's a service R2 have offered for some time and many of their top customer builds start this way; properly, from the bottom up (sounds like a fun night in round Millsy's!).

With the K24 engine out of the black car and also getting cleaned and spruced to the max, and the silver car stripped out and the engine bay empty and spotless - cheers again, Phil! - it's time to think about applying that gorgeous virtual purple paint for reals.

It's time to talk to KODE. Serial modifiers KODE Performance just painted Millsy's M3 in one of the most badass colours the modding world has ever seen, and the hope is that they can next level my MAXERS Civic too. More news on this to follow.

In the meantime, check out some more virtual dream Civic pics from Andy P.

Dreams will come true :)