Monica's Modified Hatch
Monica Giaccherini is a girl who has put one hell of a lot of work into her car. Monica is Josh's (91LTI) girlfriend. If you read the story on Josh's car, I said that a Mitsubishi Mirage was an unusual car to want to modify, well I guess it goes double for a 2002 Daewoo Lanos. But like Josh, Monica has made it into a very nice show quality car.
The engine is pretty much standard, the 1.6 litre DOHC 16 valve item. The only real engine mods are a K & N Filter and a custom 2 inch exhaust with a cannon muffler for a bit of a note. But this car has been built for it's beauty, not to make great amounts of power.
The rest of the car is a totally different story. The front and rear bumpers came from carmate.com, and the sideskirts are factory. carmate.com supplied the rear spoiler as well. The car is painted in "Pine Lime' green with gold pearl. It is a unique and very nice colour. 'FNT51 (FANTASY) personalised plates. The car rides on a set of 17 inch MKW 11 chrome wheels with 205/40/17 tyres. The suspension is resting on King Superlow Springs. The paint job wasn't really planned, until mother nature intervened. A massive hail storm came and when Mon went to walk outside, the hail stones were as big as tennis balls. It was too dangerous to go outside so she had to stand at the window watching her car moving around the place with the power of the hail. That was until one hit the house window and smashed it too. All she could do was sit there and hope the windows didn't smash, ruining the new interior. the windows and interior survived, but the outside of the little hatch copped a severe pounding, even the taillight was smashed and the aerial broken off, so it is pretty amazing that the window survived. Anyhow, after a ton of hassles with the insurance company, it got the great paint job you see today, which is the standard colour with larger paint flakes and the gold pearl.
The interior is another stunning piece of this car. It has had a full custom retrim in 'mustard' vinyl and suede. There are custom false floors with Daewoo symbols and custom door trims which also have the logo. The boot is fully customised and the steering wheel is aftermarket. Monica also has over 100 green LED lights everywhere in the interior of the car. Talk about a night club in the back seat!!
You can't have a night club without music, and Monica is in no way lacking in that department either. The head unit is a JVC MP3 DVD player and their is a 7" LCD screen in the dash. The noise comes from a pair of 15 inch Schneider SPX-415 Subs, and MTX 6 inch splits. Jaycar provided the 4 channel amplifier and it is all tied together with heavy duty wiring. It has all been installed with custom mirrors and glass to make it look fantastic.
There were lots of tiny little dramas about building this car. First one was Josh.......... So Mon decided to not tell him until she had the cash organised and all of the tradesman lined up before she told him........haha. The first problem was the original pod filter. It caused some overheating problems with the car and destroyed the thermostat. Nobody had one so it took a while to find. Next problem was with modifying the interior. You see the wise men at Daewoo decided it would be a good idea to use 'special screws' to hold the steering wheel on. Screws that nobody has, so the mechanic decided to remove it the professional way, with a hammer. Mon got the call to go and pick up the car from getting the new body kit installed, and was told "be careful on the driveway...This thing is low" - She scrubbed it out before even hitting the road........Hmmm This is the part where some people might mention something about women drivers, however I wont.
Mon would like to thank Mark at Wells Smash, and Josh, Dion and Tina for all their help. Also, all the team at lo4show for all their help and support. Mon has won a few awards for the car. Top Daewoo at Gold Coast Autosalon 2007, and Top Girl's exhibit at one of the Raceline events.
Mon is a girl with who loves her car. Seeing it get a battering from hail that day had her screaming, and the hassles from the insurance companies got her to a point where she nearly wanted to get rid of it, but luckily for us, she didn't, because now it is one stunning piece of machinery, even if it is a Daewoo.
