The Adventures of my Camaro in China

[rocknroll_jeph]

Originally Posted by Jeff_SS

Was this a 2014-2015 factory color HUD swap onto your Camaro?
If so, I didn't know that was a thing and sounds interesting..

Yes it was, I found a unit on Ebay for around $55. It took the local shop about 6 hours to do the swap, so labor was not cheap. However, I didn't feel confident doing it by myself. I love the upgrade, so it was well worth it to me.

There are a lot of how to/ step by step articles here and on motortrend's website if anyone is curious about how to do it.

[rocknroll_jeph]

It is strange how the universe works, just in one day, all of my hobbies popped up, seemingly all at one. First, not too unexpected were the pictures from an exhibition that my Camaro participated in. I will have more video and pictures soon, as it was a really big event and even made it on the local news. My car also kept popping up in random people's feeds, and looked really good amongst the eclectic group of 90 cars gathered with vendors and experiences set up in the Beijing Exhibition Center. My new apartment is less than 1KM from the exhibition center, I grabbed my longboard and skated there in about 5 minutes, so with my car being parked there over the weekend I was not too concerned.

The other thing is that a someone posted a video of a band I was in from a show in 2006. That video popped up in my feed and I had not thought of that song in years, but hearing it brought me back to a much simpler time in my life and the song, I Feel Tired, really resonated with how I feel now. Interestingly enough I still have that shirt from the video, it just is missing the sleeves and full of holes after more than 20 years of wearing it at punk rock shows....

The last thing is that someone send me the link for a movie that I acted in. While it was not my first move, it was my first time with a speaking role, and I got to drive a GM product too! My tiny role was just "driver". It was in theaters all over China this summer, but because of the baby I couldn't get out at all to see in, my many of my friends said that my scene was the best in the whole movie! Haha!

While I was filming it, I was so focused on hitting the mark for stopping the car and giving my lines that I didn't realize who the passengers were in back. After my wife saw the video she told me that Wen Jiang was one of the passengers. While he's not a household name in the US, he is pretty big here in China, and the director/ lead role in that movie. For Star Wars fans, you might recognize him as the character, Baze, from Rogue One.

I'm not sure if this link works in the west, but here is the link and my 3 seconds of scene time are at around 1h46 into the film.

https://www.ipianba.com/yun/418174-3-1.html

It was a really good feeling to see my car, my music and my "acting" to be shared online all on the same day. I put a lot of hard work into all of it, all while balancing working full time as a teacher and caring for my family and it was the boost of positivity that brought up my spirits.

[chevy pilot]

[rocknroll_jeph]

Not much free time to have fun anymore, but here is another needlessly long story. It seems like these things happen to me too often.

If you have been reading my journal, you may recall that I live in Beijing, China, and that we need to get our cars registered and inspected once a year, but the car needs to be in stock appearance. Now that I'm in my 40's, I have a 5 month old baby at home and the new apartment complex I live in isn't as convenient as my previous place, I wanted to go the more sketchy route, that is to pay off someone so that I could get my car registered without having to go through the hassle of taking off the mods.

My friend suggested we go to Tianjin, a city not too far from Beijing, as he needed to get his modified car inspected too. We planned to go on a Saturday. It would cost about 450RMB for the inspection. The day before we were going to go, he heard that they were updating their systems so we had to postpone the trip until the next week. Which was not a big deal, as my mom was visiting and I could spend more time with her and the baby. However, the next week, again, on Friday, my friend called me up and said that the system update means they can't just pass cars like they used to so that option was off.

I frantically asked around in my car club (AMCC) group chat and they said there is a place in a district on the other side of Beijing from where I live, and all the people from the club go there for inspection. Basically if you fold the map of Beijing diagonally, and poke a hole in the map, that's how far it is away. With no wormhole to go through I had to drive south-west for over an hour to get there.

I called the contact there and he gave us a time, and my friend in his VW R36 wagon, and I in my Camaro, drove there last Saturday. For me it was about an hour and a half drive to cross the city. When we got to the gate, we called him and waited around for about 30 minutes. When he finally came out, he had a thick Beijing accent, so thick that even my Chinese friend, who was translating Chinese into Chinese for me, could barely keep up. The guy squinted at my car and said, “你的车改的太狠了” (“Your car’s been modified way too aggressively.”)

I just stood there thinking, Really? It’s just a carbon fiber hood and a couple of bolt ons. There are guys running illegal engine swaps, wild body kits, and crazy wraps who get through fine... but me? My friend and I exchanged that kind of look you give each other when you know the plan has completely fallen apart.

We felt totally out of place, two nervous guys waiting on a stranger to do something not entirely legal, and now even that had failed.

So, that was a blow. Especially because I had sent him pictures the night before, and the head of our club had gotten some very sketchy cars inspected there with no issues.

At least my friend and I are optimists. We decided to just go back to my house, and do what I do every year, take most of the mods off and get it inspected the legitimate way. We drove over an hour to get back to my place. On the way home, we took a newly built stretch of elevated highway that literally ended about 500 meters from my apartment. From the top of the offramp, I could see my building—so close—but the road narrowed into two lanes, and traffic was completely jammed. It took us 15 painful minutes to crawl that last stretch, both of us squirming and texting each other about how badly we had to pee.

Absolute torture.

When we finally made it back, my mother-in-law was there and made us a nice lunch. By 2 p.m., the car was back to stock again. Around 4pm I drove about 15 minutes to the inspection station and except for a taillight, which I didn't realize we broke the wire during the uninstall, and I just twisted it back together for the inspection, everything went super smoothly and I was back home just after 5pm.

In the end, the legitimate inspection only cost 260RMB. Considering the trip to Tianjin would have cost nearly 400RMB in gas and tolls alone, we actually came out ahead. I had thought that by paying a little bit extra I could save some time for the yearly inspection, but I realize that taking the effort to de-mod the car saves time and money in the long run.

I'm not sure what I'll do next year, should I try to bribe again or just put in the work?

It's a good thing that I have good friends that don't mind playing with cars.

On Sunday I called up another friend and we put the car back together again. It actually took longer to put it back together, despite me only using half the screws or connectors on the stock parts. I had to tear off the vinyl stripes off the trunk which left the entire back side of the stripe stuck on the trunk lid, and soldering the brake lights back took most of the time. Once again, I was grateful that my mother-in-law had prepared some lunch for us.
In the end we got it put back together in a couple of hours and he mentioned that he felt like a kid again, playing with friends building a Lego set or something, and I also had the same feeling. Just innocent, tinkering on a car, chatting about life, society and cars on a lovely fall afternoon.

Thanks to friends and family for supporting my crazy choices and joining me on these little adventures.

[mlee]

As soon as you said system updates I knew it wouldn't be good.

Glad you got it done and on the road for another year.

Great movie shots too. I was unable to play the video for some reason. Would have enjoyed some punk rock.

I'm sure the little one is growing like a weed now as well.

[rocknroll_jeph]

Originally Posted by mlee

As soon as you said system updates I knew it wouldn't be good.

Glad you got it done and on the road for another year.

Great movie shots too. I was unable to play the video for some reason. Would have enjoyed some punk rock.

I'm sure the little one is growing like a weed now as well.

Thanks for the reply! The little guy is 5 months old now and in the 95% of length, he's wearing clothes for 9mo - 1y. My mom brought a suitcase full of clothes from the US a few weeks ago and already outgrew most of them.

You are not missing much from the video, but I'll try to post some to my youtube channel when I get some free time if you really want to hear some obscure early 2000's Chinese/ American psychedelic blues punk rock!

[mlee]

Originally Posted by rocknroll_jeph

Thanks for the reply! The little guy is 5 months old now and in the 95% of length, he's wearing clothes for 9mo - 1y. My mom brought a suitcase full of clothes from the US a few weeks ago and already outgrew most of them.

You are not missing much from the video, but I'll try to post some to my youtube channel when I get some free time if you really want to hear some obscure early 2000's Chinese/ American psychedelic blues punk rock!

[Ashen L99]

Keep up the post, Jeph! I look forward to reading your thread every time I get on here.

[rocknroll_jeph]

Originally Posted by Ashen L99

Keep up the post, Jeph! I look forward to reading your thread every time I get on here.

Thanks!

[rocknroll_jeph]

Between studying for my masters degree, working full time and the baby, it's been hard to do much else. Not much time for enjoying my car hobbies or filmmaking. With that being said, I threw this together pretty quickly, its really not my best work, but I hope that you all can enjoy nonetheless!

Just a quick 3 minute video highlighting some of the scenes from the car show I attended in September.

https://youtu.be/H4tCBTXrYwU


Thanks everyone! I always appreciate the community's support!

[mlee]

That VW bus was crazy cool... and Mr Hu needs to clean up those door jams and engine bay

Nice car show and close to your place too.

[rocknroll_jeph]

Originally Posted by mlee

That VW bus was crazy cool... and Mr Hu needs to clean up those door jams and engine bay

Nice car show and close to your place too.

After I got over the initial awe that there someone has a running Cadillac of that age here in China, I noticed the same things on the Caddy! Mr. Hu has quite a collection of vintage American cars and does a fairly good job of keeping them in shape, I hope to visit his garage sometime and get a good look at all his cars.

[rocknroll_jeph]

I had my first solo adventure with the little guy. We went to an American car themed meet up at a coffee shop about 6km from home. He behaved really well, but didn't like sitting in the stroller so I carried him around for about an hour as I caught up with friends and checked out some interesting cars.

There were a few cop cars bought form auction and imported, a 4th gen convertible Mustang as well as about 10 current and a few 5th gens, some Dodges and one Corvette C8. All in all, not a bad meet. With two of my fiends and their Camaros, we were the minority in the muscle car category.

I'm happy that now he's getting bigger I can start to go out more, too bad that winter weather has already arrived and I'm not likely to get out with him until spring.

[1JEWLDSSRS]

Totally awesome sir!! Glad you had a great time with the little guy..