FTO Australia Annual Bonfire Meet

Since the early 2000’s, every year on the East coast of Australia, past and present enthusiasts of the Mitsubishi FTO gather from around the country to catch up, check out each other’s rides, and generally have a good weekend away. With Bonfire 2016 on the approach, I thought I’d give a recap of last years event!

Bon Voyage!

I hail from the South Australian capital of Adelaide, so our story begins when we depart from there on our ~1600km (~1000 mile) road-trip to Batemans Bay in New South Wales. With a healthy convoy of four cars making the excursion we were certainly an unusual sight rolling in procession through small country towns!

The most direct route for us SA guys is generally straight through the middle of Australia, but since it is mostly flat scrub, it does get a little boring! This year we travelled the coastal way through Victoria to Melbourne, and were rewarded with an almost non-stop downpour of rain that made setting up camp on the first night somewhat troublesome. (I, forsaking comfort for dryness, slept in my car). Nevertheless, we braved through it, and Phil, our GPS-handy leader guided us via CB radio through four lanes of peak hour traffic in Melbourne to our second stop.

We met up with the Victorians for breakfast next day to set out again. One of the guys had to trouble-shoot some overheating problems on the way which necessitated a few extra stops, but fortunately managed to make it to the next destination in one piece.

Finally on the last leg, our SA contingent made use of an available tap at our camping spot (with permission), to get the worst of the road grime off our cars before the bonfire on Saturday. (Arguably redundant as it’s a dirt road into the property where it is held, but it was satisfying at the time!)

After being rested and having lunch we made the short trip to the location of the bonfire at Dwayne Stocks (FTOAus Vice President) property in the hills, and were helpfully directed to the correct path on the driveway by Ben who was passing in his Paseo. :P

Finally, we’d arrived!

Bonfire!

There were a few surprises! I was convinced into trying to peel off the “vinyl wrap” on Dwayne’s GP Version R, and after remarking how smooth it felt, was informed that it actually was paint that he had done just recently (having had it wrapped in the same blue colour prior) much to everyone else’s amusement.

Mike was there with his completely stock Car of the Year edition. Only 207 GPX Limited Edition models were produced, to commemorate the FTO winning the Japan Car of the Year award for ‘94-‘95, and were equipped with an LSD from factory as was the GPvR of later years.

Rob also showed off his custom turbo conversion on his own rare red GPvR that he had been working on under wraps. With a raft of modifications that didn’t break the bank, the car is running on E85 with a decompressed engine, and producing 200kw at the wheels at 15PSI, he’s certainly addressed the “too slow” criticism that is often levelled at the FTO.

The bonfire is a great occasion to put faces to names and forum tags, where it is especially true that one associates a persons car with their identity more than their own physical appearance!

The attendance list is already looking good for 2016, and I plan to take twice as many photos as I did last year! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed seeing a little of what we down under get up to.

For more pictures, follow the Flickr link on my profile :)