NAME: TIM CHAI AGE: 30 LOCATION: WINDY CAPITAL OCCUPATION: SLEEP SPECIALIST
NZ Performance Car : Hey, Tim. Is this your first foray into European cars, or have you had a few now?
Tim: Hi, team. Do you want me to list them all? My daily-driver history has been mostly Euro. It’s my dad’s influence, as he’s always been into the European side of cars — purely for the interior luxury, and the looks are more appealing to me personally than, say, a Honda.
On the flip side of that, you choose to track a Honda [which will be in a later issue] instead of a Euro — why?
That’s an easy one: Hondas are cheap and reliable on the track. I love both Japanese and European cars, so having the Audi as a daily with all the luxury it affords, and like the El Paso ad says: “Why not have both?”
Good call. And you couldn’t help but modify the daily?
We needed a new car with the growing family, and I said that I’d only buy a car if it had the same or more power than the previous car (Mk5 R32). This popped up as a trade-in at a yard. I knew that you could extract good power from the engine, and one thing led to another — I really just got carried away. Then the factory stuff didn’t handle that extra power output, so I had to do the mounts and brakes, etc. The suspension was purely for the ‘low-is-a-lifestyle’ ethos, while it being such a whale required the sway bars to keep things steady. It all makes perfect sense, really.
Had to be done then. Do people tend to underestimate how good it actually goes now?
Yeah, it’s definitely underestimated. I had a quick squirt against a mate who owns a supercharged E90 M3 — it has a claimed 550hp [410kW] at the wheels — but, sure enough, his mouth dropped when I slapped him sideways, and the Audi beat him. Conducted on a private road, of course.
Of course. So, even after the mods, it’s still practical as a family hauler, and the wife wasn’t mad?
It’s deceptively low but still gets into places, and the fuel economy is pretty good, all things considered. As for the wife, she was a little mad, mainly because she wanted a faster car [laughs].
There’s a keeper, both the car and the wife.