NIPPED AND TUCKED

JAMES BULLIONS'S SLAMMED MAZDA R100 MAY LOOK SIMPLE ON THE OUTSIDE, BUT IT HARBOURS MIND-BOGGLING ENGINEERING UNDER THE SKIN

- KIAN HEAGNEY

JAMES Bullions just wanted a street car his wife could cruise with the kids. "It was never meant to be a show car," he says of his incredible 1969 Mazda R100, which, as you can see, is now exactly that. "Then Owen [Webb] said he wanted us to unveil it [at Summernats], so we took it to the next level."

The entire car was built by James's good mate Nathan Goodwin from the RAR Embossed workshop on the Gold Coast. James actually bought the car off Nathan, who'd already started the project quite some time before. "It'd been sitting on his mezzanine roof for about 10 years, so I purchased it and then we set about finally getting it finished," says James. "I wanted to build something subtle, keeping the original styling but tweaked to my liking. I'm not about big bodykits and showy bits, just improving on what's already there."

The boys went to town on the little machine, and if we were to list every single modification, we'd be here for 20 pages. For starters, it sits on an all-new chassis, with a handmade floor the whole way through that's been raised 120mm. The sills and rear quarters have been extended a further 70mm to complete the dropped look, and underneath the sheet-metal engine bay is a full tubular front end.

The original three-piece bumpers have been converted to single-piece and tucked further into the body.

"When I first bought the car, the 20x10.5 FR1s were already under the rear," James says of the Simmons rims. "Nathan said they came with the car whether I liked it or not. So, we built it around having the right stance on those."