For a lot of people, the arrival of children means that the projects get sold. But for Mr and Mrs Mertens of northern Belgium, losing their beloved modified Honda CRX was never an option… 

Feature first appeared in Banzai magazine. Words: Dan Bevis.  Photos: Ron V

The modern perspective of what constitutes a good family car has shifted. It used to be the case that small families had saloon cars, and as the family grew they might consider trading up to an estate. Today the roads are an anonymous greyscale mish-mash of relentless same-same SUVS. It’s pretty damn bleak. But there are still families out there with an eye for the path less travelled, choosing a deliberately unusual car to ferry the family about in. Had you considered, for example, the Honda CRX? No, of course you hadn’t, as frankly it’s a silly idea. And if we’re being completely honest, that’s not what Peter Mertens uses this CRX for either. That said, however, for his wife and children, this slick retro Honda is very much a part of the family.

“I started out with Fords, including an Escort RS Turbo, but it was through my brother and my wife that I got into the Honda world,” Peter explains. “He was driving an EJ9 Civic, and my wife – after coming to a few shows with me – bought the CRX you see here. This is actually her second CRX, and we’ve owned it for around ten years now; we originally built it in the import style, with parts from Wings West and so on, but after a few years we had children and realised that this wasn’t the ideal car to be carrying small kids in the back!”

So the little coupe was retired from daily duties, with Mrs M picking up an Accord Type S (Peter’s daily is a DC5 Type R, very sensible, eh?). Given the emotional ties with the Honda CRX, they couldn’t bear to part with it; in fact, Peter set about swapping in a B16 motor from its bigger brother in the range, as he was craving those zingy VTEC thrills, and this continued attention started to give him ideas. With daily transport taken care of, surely the time was right to turn the CRX in to the build he’d always wanted it to be – a full-on show car?

So that’s exactly what he did. “I immediately knew that the big eye-catcher would be the engine bay, because Honda is so celebrated for its high-revving engines, so I wanted to make a unique feature of it,” he says. “I started cleaning it up, welding all the unnecessary holes, removing brackets and everything I didn’t need, and hiding everything possible out of sight. I also smoothed out all the seams to make it look as if the engine bay is all one piece.” While all this was going on, Peter’s friends were occasionally popping by to observe his progress, and one friend in particular – Dries – was inspired by the smooth bay; he’d been experimenting with carbon on his own car, laminating various items with real carbon fibre. He was struck by the idea of covering the entire CRX bay in carbon, which is something Peter got very excited about. “At first glance it seemed an impossible task,” he recalls, “because we didn’t have much experience with carbon, and also because of the size and complex shape of the engine bay. But after a bit of experimentation, we went for it and Dries came along to laminate the whole bay. The laying of the cloth went reasonably smoothly, so then it was the lubrication of epoxy, many hours of sanding, and re-greasing the epoxy to get the last imperfections out. I varnished it myself, and it all turned out looking incredible.” He’s not wrong – we’ve seen carbon-dipped and carbon-wrapped bays, but a full-on real carbon fibre engine bay is a hell of an achievement.

However, the act of being a trailblazer does lead to you tripping up in the woods sometimes, and it turned out that this pioneering experiment didn’t quite work out as intended… With the CRX pushed out of the workshop while Peter busied himself with other projects, his wife unexpectedly went into labour six weeks early; obviously life quickly became a whirlwind of activity and the CRX was left sitting out in the elements for a while as reality took over. And when Peter finally returned to the car, all the epoxy on the engine bay carbon had turned a bright translucent green! “After some research it turned out that the epoxy wasn’t UV-resistant, and as a result the entire carbon was affected and could no longer be repaired,” he recalls. “At that moment I really didn’t know what to do any more. Months of work lost, and I had just become a father, so I knew I could spend less time with my hobby anyway. At that point I contacted Eric at JEM Design, asking if he could tidy up the bay with poly and just make it a nice colour…” This decision didn’t sit well with Peter though, who quickly realised that the whole point of this project was that he was doing it all himself along with his friends, and he needed to see it through. He didn’t want to be showing off someone else’s work. So arrangements were cancelled, he waited till the time was right, and then he and Dries started again from scratch.

“This all set me back about half a year and quite a lot of Euros, although I’m kinda glad it happened,” he reasons. “Better that the engine bay discoloured the way it did, rather than after a few shows sitting with the bonnet open… we finally got it done right, and better than before!”

And with the party piece complete, Peter could turn his attention to the rest of the car. The chassis in particular received some fastidious and obsessive attention – you can see from the spec box just how comprehensive the upgrades were, and he also fitted all new joints, bushes and bearings to get everything as-new before sending all the arms and subframes and everything else off to the powder-coaters. The brakes were treated to upgraded discs, pads, pipes and lines, and the car’s now suspended by KW Variant 1 coilovers along with all of those juicy aftermarket camber kits. It’s all show, but also all go.

When it came to the exterior, it appears that all of that work with carbon fibre under the bonnet had given Peter a taste for the dark arts, so he set about crafting some further sixth-element embellishments for the outside. The roof, window frames and bumper trims are now all carbon, with the latter proving especially tricky as they’re seamless one-piece items which took a lot of fiddling to get right. He also created an exquisite front lip, rear diffuser and sideskirt extensions, their exposed weave providing a beautiful complement to the Porsche 997 GT3 RS Grey Black paint.
“At the front I also made a kind of air duct in the middle of the bumper, which leads air to the radiator,” he says. “This part is a bit hidden in the bumper and doesn’t stand out for most people, but there was a lot of work involved to make it!” He’s a details man, you see, and this is evidenced by the bodykit decisions, whereby Peter has gone a bit more OEM but with his own stylistic flourishes. There’s a subtle J’S Racing lip at the front, but he couldn’t find anything he liked in terms of sideskirts and rear lip, so he made his own. As one does. The rear lip he chose to work with was originally designed for an Opel Kadett GSI, which he reworked into the OEM bumper before adding his own carbon diffuser, and the result is a flawless and almost factory-like finish which leaves the purists scratching their heads.
“There’s also a JDM bootlid with integrated third brake light and JDM spoiler,” he continues, “and the mirrors are classic Spoon Sports replicas.

Choosing the body colour was one of the hardest parts of the build, and in the end it was my wife who decided on this Porsche colour. For the paintwork I spoke to a friend of mine, Birgen – he’s done some great work, so I knew the CRX was in the right hands.” It really looks spectacular too, doesn’t it? The grey paint working hand-in-hand with the carbon fibre, with the amber indicators and full-width red strip at the rear providing a splash of colour, it’s at once old-school nineties and super-modern.

“It’s taken about six years to get the car to this point,” says Peter, “due to various setbacks, or simply a lack of time, and sometimes just no longer wanting to continue! But if you really want something, you will always find the courage to start over again and bring it to a successful conclusion.” Never a truer word spoken. After all, it’s the reality of family life that stopped this car becoming a full-time obsession, and the car’s very nature as a member of that family which ensured that it was done right rather than simply done fast. In an oblique and surreal but very real sense, Peter can argue that a show-winning modified Honda CRX is the perfect family car. And that’s the sort of logic we can get on board with.

Tech Spec: Modified Honda CRX

Engine:

B16A1 1.6-litre 16v VTEC, Hasport engine mounts, B16A2 throttle body, Killerglass velocity stack, Outerwears velocity stack bootie, Mishimoto straight couplers, SRS 4-2-1 exhaust manifold, SRS adjustable test pipe, Tanabe Touring Medallion cat-back system, Mishimoto radiator and slim fan, Mishimoto hoses, Mishimoto coolant tank, fully tucked and shaved engine bay – skinned with carbon fibre, home-made carbon engine mount covers, painted engine and gearbox, chromed nuts, bolts and hose clamps, catch tank removed, washer fluid reservoir removed, wiper motor removed, fusebox relocated, battery relocated, MAP sensor relocated, brake force distributor relocated, Downstar brake line and fuel line tuck, Aeromotive 10-micron fuel filter with AN couplings, Skunk2 oil cap, Skunk2 brake fluid reservoir cover

Chassis:

8×16-inch ET20 (front) and 8×16-inch ET0 (rear) XXR 531 Platinum wheels, 195/40 Toyo T1-R tyres, KW Variant 1 coilovers, Skunk2 front camber kit, D2 rear camber kit, APC lower control arms, Skunk2 front strut brace, custom rear strut brace, all suspension parts powder-coated, Energy suspension bushes, all new bearings and ball joints, Brembo Max discs, Brembo Racing pads, rebuilt and painted calipers, Goodridge braided lines, all new copper brake pipes

Interior:

Momo Tuner 320mm steering wheel – black with red stitching, Mugen pedals, Vision gearknob, Password:JDM gear gaiter – black with red stitching, Proline oil temp, oil pressure and A/F ratio gauges, Integra DC2 Recaro seats – black with red stitching, Wiechers half-rollcage, Takata harnesses, custom harness bar, flocked rear interior trim, Alcantara headlining, home-made rear seat replacement with Alcantara and Recaro fabric, 8×16-inch ST20 XXR 531 Platinum spare wheel

Exterior:

Porsche 997 GT3 RS Grey Black paint, J’s Racing front lip, home-made rear bumper apron, home-made sideskirts, modified OEM front bumper, JDM EF8 rear bumper, JDM EF8 boot panel, JDM EF8 spoiler, replica Spoon mirrors, aerial removed, rear washer removed, home-made carbon fibre rubstrips, home-made carbon centre air duct, home-made carbon window trims, home-made carbon roof and sunroof, home-made carbon front splitter, home-made carbon sideskirt extensions, home-made carbon rear diffuser, Password:JDM amber corner lights, rolled arches

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When the country you live in makes it extremely hard for you to try and restore your classic, turn it into a wild, wide-body creation instead and this modified BMW E28 is a shock to the system in the best way possible.

Feature first appeared in Performance BMW magazine. Words: Elizabeth de Latour. Photos: Alex Hamby

It seems like the past couple of issues we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the beauty of a pure build, how much we love to see classics that owners have chosen to modify minimally when it came to the styling to let that iconic, elegant design shine through. And now we bring you this, a wide-body E28 that has probably already caused a whole bunch of you to go into shock. But the simple fact is that we also love this car because it’s so wild and completely goes against the grain and, sometimes, that’s exactly what you need. The modded BMW scene is so incredibly diverse and varied and we love to bring you cars from both ends of the spectrum and while Hari Benz’s wild wide-body machine won’t be to all tastes, we think it’s awesome.

We might be a UK mag but the modded BM scene is very international and while we’re very aware of how active Europe, the US and even Australia and Japan are when it comes to building awesome Bavarian machinery, there are BMW fans modding cars even further afield in exotic locales and this E28 comes to us all the way from Bali, Indonesia. We’re not even sure if we’ve ever featured a BMW from there before, but it’s awesome to see how far the BM love extends and the different approaches that people around the world take when it comes to modding.

For Hari, modding cars isn’t just his pastime, it’s also his job as he owns BSS Garage (@bss_garage) which carries out custom work on a wide variety of machinery so he’s about as passionate about modifying as it’s possible to be and he’s clearly got a taste for German cars going by his motoring past. “My first car was a Mercedes W123,” Hari tells us, “and I’ve owned and modified an E320 Sportline, a C124 300CE, a W210 E-Class and a G300 G-Wagen.” Yes, okay, that lineup is a little Merc-heavy for our liking and while Hari’s interest in BMs is a rather more recent affair and he’s only been into the marque for five years, his E28 easily makes up for everything. “I love classic BMWs, especially the E9, but they are very hard to find here and very expensive. I wasn’t actually looking for a car but a friend told me about this E28 520i, which was in Java – he said ‘There is an old BMW here that has been sitting on the street for a couple of years and nobody is taking care of it.’ That’s when I had the idea to buy it – I asked my friend to check who owned the car and to tell them that I was willing to buy it and two days later I had it in my garage,” smiles Hari, but as you might expect from an E28 that had spent a couple of years sitting neglected outside, it wasn’t in great condition. “It was rusty everywhere, even on the chassis, and when I checked over the car I saw that some parts were missing. My first idea was that I would like to restore the car to its original condition but that would have needed a lot of work as the Indonesian government made changes to the regulations and we are not allowed to import second-hand parts. So my plans changed and I decided to make it a stance car,” Hari grins and that’s the way we do things – if life gives you lemons, you stance those lemons, hard.

So Hari had an E28 and he had a plan but he also had a lot of rust to deal with so getting the car completely cleaned up and fully painted were the first items on his extensive to-do list and after that, he could get stuck into the mods. There’s a lot to take in here but it’s impossible to ignore the sight of that M20 sitting in that beautifully wire-tucked bay. “My first idea was to put a 2JZ Supra engine into the E28 but trying import the engine was not easy and also expensive, and that’s when my mechanic suggested doing a wire tuck to make the engine bay look clean and modify the M20, so that’s what we decided to do. It took almost 10 months to finish the wire tuck,” says Hari but it was absolutely worth it. The bay looks so clean you could eat your dinner off it, it’s absolutely stunning, and it shows off the M20 perfectly. Now, an NA M20 might not be all that exciting, but this one has been treated to a few enhancements; the biggest change is that it’s now running ITBs, which not only look fantastic but also deliver an epic straight-six induction noise and they are joined by a tubular exhaust manifold and a custom exhaust for even more epic noise at the back. Other engine mods include an aluminium radiator, coil pack conversion and an oil catch can, while the gearbox is the stock five-speeder.

The bodywork is actually the last aspect of the car that Hari worked on, but it’s so spectacular that we can’t ignore it any longer than we already have done, and that custom, Pandem-inspired wide-body gives this E28 some incredible presence. Of course, we fully appreciate that, for a lot of people, the idea of taking a classic 5 Series and bolting on a set of massive arches will not be one they’re okay with but, love it or hate it, there can be no denying that it looks utterly spectacular and a lot of work has gone into fabricating those arches. Oh yeah, that’s right, this isn’t some off-the-shelf wide-body, everything you see before you was hand-fabricated by Hari himself and not only that but the entire kit has been made from metal. It’s an awesome achievement and, truly, the fit and finish are exceptional and there’s a lot of attention to detail here; we love the way the arches flow into the US impact bumper mouldings, then you’ve got the carbon side strips and the rivets running along the entire bottom of the car. It’s clear that Hari has really put some thought and effort into creating this kit and making it work with the styling of the car and it shows.

While the kit delivers the biggest visual hit there’s a lot more to the styling than just the wide-body and Hari clearly has a keen eye for detail. Up front sits a BBS front bumper, a dual headlight conversion and there are also carbon mirror covers while the C-pillar trims are also finished in carbon. There’s a whole load of flair and individual style all packed into one build and this E28 makes a big impact wherever it goes.

Of course, wheels are an essential part of any project but even more so when you’re doing a wide-body build; we’ve seen some pretty impressive-looking wide-body machines ruined by terrible wheel choices but Hari has absolutely knocked it out of the park with what he’s tucked under this E28’s fat arches. “In the beginning, I wanted to put my BBS RSs on this BMW but I needed really wide wheels and so I choose Work Meister M1-3Ps because they come in exactly the sort of sizes I was looking for,” says Hari and these wheels look so good here. These three-piece 18s measure a hefty 10” up front and a monster 12.5”-wide at the rear, they really fill out those fat arches to perfection and the fitment is on point. The colour combo is killer as well, with matt copper/bronze stepped lips and matt black centres and they look fantastic against the candy red bodywork while the classic cross-spoke style suits the design of the E28 perfectly. The wide-body and the wheels combine to deliver a devastating visual blow that just completely knocks your socks off and leaves you reeling – this E28 is all about making a big statement and it’s not shy.

The perfect wheels demand the perfect drop and for Hari, there was only ever going to be one option; “I installed two-way Air Lift Performance universal air suspension because I love to see my old BMW looking very low on the ground,” he grins and we have to agree with him there. Air works so well on classic BMs but when you’ve got one with a wide-body as loud and lairy as this and with wheels as epic as these, air is the only suspension option that can truly do justice to the rest of this build. The manual setup might be simple but it’s all Hari needs to get his E28 sitting as low as possible and when he airs it out it tucks its tyres perfectly into those massive arches and adds that final visual flourish.

Finally, we come to the interior and while Hari says that he decided to make it as simple as he could, we feel that he’s really selling himself short. The reason for his course of action was that attempting to find an original E28 interior in Indonesia to install was proving rather difficult and so the simplest option was to keep things simple, as Hari says. Up front sit a pair of extremely sexy carbon-backed Bride Cuga seats and they are joined by a Nardi steering wheel and a Momo gear knob while the controls and air pressure gauge for the air-ride are mounted in a custom Alcantara-trimmed panel on the dash. So far so good, but then you notice the custom door cards, which are trimmed in Alcantara with red stitching to match the paintwork, and then you realise that in place of the rear seats there is an Alcantara-trimmed bench and that the entire rear of the car is taken up by a stunning and incredibly elaborate air install. There’s a carbon-skinned tank, a single Viair compressor and an intricate network of hard lines and it’s an absolute work of art and the perfect centrepiece for this build, reflecting that eye-popping exterior visual flair on the inside. Hari may have a personal preference for OE over aftermarket, but when there’s no option but to do his own thing he really doesn’t hold back.

What Hari’s built is very much a Marmite kind of car and while, based on our research, it appears Marmite isn’t too readily available in Indonesia, the sentiment transcends language and culture. We’re pretty sure that some local BMW enthusiasts are as disapproving of his creation as those around the world reading about it right now, but we highly doubt that he cares because he’s too busy enjoying himself. And the thing is that Hari’s initial plan was to restore the car but because of the restrictions of the Indonesian government and the rarity of classic BMs out there, it was actually easier to go all-out and build an insane machine like this, which is in itself a little bit insane. Hari says he is done with his modified BMW E28, and there really isn’t a whole lot else he could do after taking it to this level. He’s not given up on his dream of owning an E9 and being able to restore it and make it as clean as possible, though, but in the meantime, he’s got a loud and lairy 5 Series to enjoy. Driving a machine as wild as this is always going to be an absolute riot, and something of a shock to the system for any and all unsuspecting bystanders, and that’s precisely why we love it.

Tech Spec: Modified BMW E28

Engine and Transmission:

2.0-litre straight-six M20B20, full wire tuck, ITB conversion, coil pack conversion, aluminium radiator, fan shroud, oil catch tank, performance exhaust manifold, custom exhaust. Five-speed manual gearbox

Chassis:

10×18” (front) and 12.5×18” (rear) Work Meister M1-3P wheels with matt black centres and copper/bronze lips, 255/40 (front) and 295/35 (rear) Toyo Proxes T1-R tyres, Air Lift Performance universal two-way air suspension, custom front strut brace

Exterior:

Full respray in candy red, custom metal wide-body kit by BSS Garage, BBS front bumper, dual headlight conversion, black grille, black-painted US impact bumpers, carbon mirror caps, door trims and C-pillar trims

Interior:

Bride Cuga carbon-backed seats, Nardi Steering wheel, Momo gear knob, custom-mounted pressure gauge and air-ride controls, custom-trimmed door cards by BSS Garage, rear seat delete, carbon-skinned air tank, Viair compressor, custom air install by BSS Garage