Hot Import Nights (HIN) debuts in Malaysia

Hot Import Nights (HIN) is a popular car-show featuring compact and tuner import cars in the U.S.A. This show is owned and run by Hot Import Nights (the company) who are located in Orange County, California. In the U.S. HINs are mostly single-night events held in many different cities across the US, ranging from hardcore car enthusiasts cities like Los Angeles, New York (city) to exotic ones such as Honolulu in Hawaii.

HIN (the company) also runs HINs (the car-shows) across the world, in Europe, Asia, South America and even Africa, through its network of associate. In Asia for e.g. HINs have been a feature of the Indonesian enthusiasts scene for 10 years now. For 2011, HIN is making its debut in Malaysia.

HIN 2011 (Malaysia) is currently running at our Malawati Stadium at Shah Alam, the location famous for its annual GRA (a local version of Gymkhaha or Auto-X) events. HIN however is held inside the Malawati stadium itself. Word of HIN has been spread very well by its organiser and most car enthusiasts in the Klang Valley are aware of it. Having gotten media credentials with the organiser, I paid a visit to HIN early on the first day in order to check it out before the crowds arrived. It also gives better photo opportunities.

Main Venue

The main venue of HIN is inside the Malawati stadium itself. Taking centerstage is the Honda booth, with a white CR-Z together with three selected modified Hondas being displayed. These Hondas were selected from a competition where owners submitted their cars to Honda Malaysia. Two FD2 Civics and one current gen City were selected (thanks to Fish-Chan for the correction). Photos of the 3 cars and the CR-Z are below.

Surronding the center Honda display are the displays of the main participants. Tom's Stickers have a large booth there, showing off their comprehensive ranges of stickers plus a host of other similar companies. One that caught my curiosity was 'Jaz Airbrush' who put an EF CR-X on the floor with a 'live demo' of air-brushing the car. There are lots of other wonderfully motif'ed cars on display as well. Also on display are the mandatory super-cars like a 'Bumblebee' lookalike yellow Chevrolet, plus a Lamborghini, an R35, Porsches and so forth.

Dyno Challenge

Besides just static display, HIN also feature supplementary car competitions, the 'dyno challenge' being one of the more talked about one. The location of this 'dyno challenge' is via a small exit located in the corner of the main venue. Unfortunately this exit is not well signboarded and I myself almost missed it. Once pass the exit doorway, I had to make my way up a twisty flight of stairs and I get into the dyno-challenge area. HIN has brought in a 'DynoLog' dyno machine from Australia for the dyno-challenge. This dyno is a twin-roller retarder based dyno and is a 4WD unit. Unfortunately the main dyno challenge event is to start at 6:30pm so I didn't stay for it. 

Spread around the dyno are some of the cars participating in the challenge. It was gratifying to see that Hondas still features prominently in a dyno challenge, eventhough there are no more truly hardcore sports Honda model available today. Consequently, almost all the Hondas on display are older models, like the DC5 (Integra Type-R), AP1 (S2000), and even an EG6 Civic which has a K20A swapped in (very neat job I might add).

Below is a selection of my photos taken from my visit/coverage of the show, with a bias towards Honda of course.