Euros at Koh Samui Island, Thailand.

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My recent trip to Koh Samui island turned out to be much more than a perfect holiday. I didn’t expect to see any real cars there, let alone an Euro scene in Samui. Within my 5 minute bus trip to the Baan Talay Resort (which is in my opinion the best in accomodation experience, The Talay rooms.), I’ve already laid my eyes on this Schnitzer, above. People there actually ferry their cars from mainland Thailand considering, there pretty much isn’t any flat roads to drive on the small island.

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Later that day, I rented a Cub bike (or kap cai) and came back here to take some pictures. I concluded a few days later that he must run a business in that market area. A sticker in the rear also mentioned BMWE34Club.com, a prominent Thai BMW E34 club site. He must be a local a local Euro carboy. Touring the Samui Island in my rental bike for 5 days also made it easier to absorb the experience. The slower speed gives you more time to see, the ease of a bike also allows you stop or detour at any time (almost). You can even ride without helmets.

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Petrol, or Gasoline as is more commonly known there, is available anywhere, not just everywhere. There is no way you’ll ever run out. Occasionally, you’ll see a petrol station. But what’s everywhere are the part-time gasoline sellers.  Operated outside of sundry shops or houses or anything, just 1 or 2 generic barrel drums, a manual pump, a funnel a sign that says Gasoline and you have a Gasoline Stall. They sell by the litres bottled. Fuel quality is very questionable. My bike didn’t run as smoothly or had double the mileage with these bottled petrol compared to the more better quality fuel sold by the real petrol stations there.

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Here’s an occasion riding on the inner roads of Samui. I bought petrol from a gasoline stall there. I chose to stop at this stall because it had an E34 and an E30 parked at the porch. Again, some pics.

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Moving on, riding to find some roadside stall for lunch, I found this E30 right after digesting my bowl of noodles. I found it dumped on the side. No history available on this and the nearby shop doesn’t own it.

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As I walked around it, I found this picture below. By now, you should realize that, many if not most done up old Euros like these, do not run on any M40, M20, M50 engines anymore.

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I’ll be posting a part 2 on this as I chat up with 2 local car boys who shares their thoughs on the local car scene and their transvest-euros.

5 thoughts on “Euros at Koh Samui Island, Thailand.

  1. the white E34 look very dirty , but it also look very fast. is it intercooler fit in the front ACS bumper ?

  2. most of them are already running Jap engines like the popular 1JZ and 2Jz engines.. so they ARE fast, stock. That’s Thai :)

  3. ooo, what a pity, euro cars should run in euro engine, better run in stock engine than swap it into jap engine.
    just my 2 cent
    :p

  4. even boats run 2jz engines at the floating market! btw, maybe euro car fans at bangkok! was there & saw like 10 mini’s in 1 hour! :D

  5. Sugi:
    Yeah, it’s not for everyone. I really appreciate swaps like these but i don’t think i’ll have one for myself.

    Andrew:
    wow, too bad i didn’t see any there. the speedboats with twin and triple 250s are already pretty cool for me. it’ll be crazy if they have speedboats with twin 2js making 600hp each

    speaking of the mini.. I can’t wait to see the Baby GT3 RS soon

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