Category Archives: World Meetings

REV9 Bangkok Meet (Most Expensive Roadsters!)

I’ve visited a lot of places in my life, but Bangkok caught my heart. The place has a lot of fun, feels quite safe and has all the craziness you’re looking for. In other terms of craziness, a ND MX-5 has a base price of 2.7 Million Baht (2,700,000B)!

It may not mean anything to you, but 30B = $1 USD. A rule of 3 makes a MX-5 price out of the showroom at a whooping USD $90,000! Now, that’s a high price to pay, but let me tell you that all owners really take care of their cars! A used NA car in Thailand costs about USD $20,000, so the value is still pretty good.

 

Why are they so expensive? The government put around 300% tax on specific import vehicles… and they don’t allow import of used cars!

 

During my visit to Thailand, I decided to do a small and informal REV9 Meeting. I decided the location very last minute, and the forecast was less than ideal, so I didn’t expect many people to show up.

 

Luckily, the meet ended up being pretty nice… now let’s show those pictures!

 

It was a beautiful and colorful event:

 

Many people who showed up are long time REV9 customers, I was so happy to put faces on names! Here’s a car who had parts mostly coming from us:

 

The car had a neat and rare RS Aizawa Front Bumper, RS Active Headlights, beautiful Jet Stream Turn Signals & ZOOM Fuel Lid :

The interior was also pretty crazy with a lot of awesomeness. It had a beautiful match of yellow Kevlar, carbon fiber & suede. Not to mention the super rare and cool Club-NA Swarovski Horn Button (bling bling!).

 

This car was built to perfection, the rear end was just as amazing as the rest of the car. He has the REV9 OE-Style Carbon Fiber Trunk that’s custom painted to fade to blue, it’s the first time I saw that and absolutely loved it. The Garage Vary Tail Lights also really complement the car!

 

The car was also rocking some beautiful special edition Work Equip 03 15” Wheels with AP Racing Big Brake Kit and the rear fender body work was exceptional:

 

Don’t get me wrong, usually, when doing meetings, I don’t post SO many pictures of one car, but you really do need to see the engine bay:

 

The car had a beautiful IRTB kit that ran perfectly fine (and was swapped with 2005 NB 1.8L engine), everything was just perfect. The REV9 OE-Style Carbon Radiator Panel also looked quite nice in there.

 

The owner told me he also has a Pit Crew NA as well as an Acura NSX… I was starting to get jealous there…

 

OK, now let’s check the other cars who attended the meeting;

 

A brand new $90,000 car!

 

A mildly modified ND with many parts from Blitz! I really like the Blitz ND Battery Holder! The car was also on beautiful Rays 57Transcend 17” Wheels!

 

Some more people showed up!

 

This ND had some interesting custom mods. Also, it’s actually very rare to get a Manual Transmission ND in Thailand… this one had to come through the grey market… at least he’s got the Recaro package!

 

The car had custom spoiler (KUHL inspired), custom dual exhaust and Advan RS 17” Wheels!

The event was going pretty well!

 

A last visitor came in, with a beautiful time capsule!

The car was rocking A LOT of super rare parts. He had beautiful RS Watanabe 14” B-Type Wheels, Garage Vary Tail Lights, Mazdaspeed Roll Bar, Runabout M2 Mirrors and something I never saw… NOPRO Triangle Window!

 

The exterior of this car was simple and beautiful, done with taste.

 

And now you can see the beauty of the Garage Vary Tail Lights for NA…

 

The interior was done really modestly, but with lot of taste, too. It had beautiful KG Works Crash Pad Integrated Meters,  a nice Motolita Steering Wheel, a cool & retro Denon Sound System & KG Works Ventilation Balls were featured:

 

The car also had super rare Mazdaspeed Bucket Seat:

 

This meeting was absolutely fantastic. I really enjoyed my time in Thailand (the land of smiles), made new friends and had great time checking all of those super cool cars!

 

I hope you enjoyed this blog post! Lots of pictures… I know! If you missed it, we also did a meeting in Taipei, showcasing the biggest Mazda dealership in Asia!

REV9 Taipei Meet at biggest Mazda Dealership in Asia

Right now, I’m doing a business & fun travel, aka Workation. I choose Taipei because of relatively low cost of living, safety and because I have many customers from Taiwan.

Even though this was not supposed to happen, I decided to organize a small Roadster meeting!

There was not so many people who showed up (heavy rain, last minute event), but I am glad that the biggest Mazda dealership in South East Asia decided to let us use their location. Check the photos, it’s worth it.

The Meet

Meetings in Taiwan are much different than the ones in America. Most people don’t just come to hang out and show their cars, they prefer to do activities (driving, dinners, etc.). So, many people didn’t show up because it was mostly a picture session that I was hosting (note to myself : next time, do an activity).

This is the first car that showed up. It was a ND with Rays 57Transcend 17×8.5 +40 Wheels. I loved the look of the color combo!

Then, we started posing. Nice way to show the color palette of the ND!

This was Andy’s car. One of the only Manual Transmission ND in Taiwan (read below for the reason). He’s also rocking the RK Design Rear Spoiler!

There were also 2 people who showed but it wasn’t for the meeting, just for maintenance… haha!

A beautiful white ND with Zeromotive Muffler Cutters:

And this VERY rare piece. It’s a ND “Gran Turismo” Edition. To get this very car, you need to order Gran Turismo (collector’s edition) and the car comes as a bonus. It’s probably the most expensive Gran Turismo Game EVER.

And a few more showed up!

Lastly, a few more people showed and this ND owner wanted a picture for the blog, so here we go:

Here are some pictures of where we hosted the event, it’s worth showing it off:

The reception looks like the one from a high end hotel :

As you can see, it’s just HUGE. All made of beautiful black marble as well as wood. It’s 2 stories high.

The showroom is SUPER neat.

They have a nice collection of old school Mazda magazines :

They even have a Skyactiv Engine on display

So, why is the Mazda dealership SO big and SO beautiful, you may ask?

Let’s do basic economics here.

A loft in downtown Taipei can cost you ~$500 USD per month (which is really low, in my opinion).

Cars are taxed HEAVILY. We’re talking 60% + tax.

A ND Miata (Soft Top) in Taipei cost you a small NT$1,320,000 ; that’s about USD$45,000

The RF cost NT$1,500,000 so about USD$51,000

Fun fact, ALL Mazda cars here have the Automatic Transmission (AT). People with Manual Transmission (MT) vehicles MT actually need to import their cars from overseas (the manual ones I saw came from Germany).

I still didn’t answer the question, though. Let’s just put it this way. Since the price of the vehicle is up to par with what a BMW or Mercedes-Benz would cost in USA, the dealership reflects the high price of the price people will pay for a car.

Here’s the waiting area, so you can work or just relax while your car is serviced:

You can see your car being worked on, if you don’t trust the mechanics:

When I did the photo shoot, they were doing a demo of camping gear for the new CX-5. I learned that you can actually camp on your car… neat.

They even offer you free coffee, and it’s not coming from a K-Cup machine!

It’s fair to say that this dealership is nicer than any of those I ever visited during my many times in Japan. I hope you enjoyed this read and understood a bit more about the scene in Taiwan! By the way, it was not a ND-only meeting. It just happens that there never were NA in Taiwan, they sold NB for a few years and it was not popular enough. They skipped the NC and when the ND was revealed, they started selling it back again!