JUNE: Boomin’ Up The Ace Café

Regular readers will know about the bonkers 1.2 Golf I have been following lately. The brainchild of the dude who sells the fabulously posh Jade Mountain Resort to the likes of Kuoni and other posho travel vendors. His dad is the architect and owner. He does have a bit of a cool lifestyle. Nikolai is his name and he has a keen intellect and a stripe of lunacy in his soul. This also informs his career as a games developer. You need to be bright but bonkers enough to want built what he did!

And today was the day. I am going to do a proper car feature on this one. Installed with steel reinforcement to the roof so it would not need a ‘stripper pole’, yet take more pressure without roof bulge, it also has steel strengthening in other places. It has bespoke uprated beefier springs added to the suspension and the alternator has been taken out, had diodes added to take it up to a whopping (for a Golf stocky) 250 Amperes and put back in, to feed the beserker battery bank.

The whole install is multiplex or posho plywood and has been fitted so smoothy and well, it looks really cool and stripy. Stainless steel door and cheater panel cappings, engineering Allen-headed bolts and silicone mastic like a bathroom, sealing all edges makes the doors absurd. It all feels like it isn’t hollow but rather solid, like a tree trunk with no bark.

I took video and stills. I ate a BBQ sauce slathered heap of ribs and Nikolai had a rudely high caloric monster breakfast – he is skinny…. and I called Ian ‘Iceman’ Pinder, who said he had seen the earlier little bit of stuff about it and just had to drop everything and get to the Ace to see and hear it! My ribs were tender-to-fall-off-the-bone and the sauce was gooood, with caraway seeds in it. Their coleslaw is creamy dreamy.

I want to offer the Guv’nor Mark and his whole team of bright, switched-on kids who run the place and keep everyone fed and watered, a massive thanks. They are just bloody wonderful to deal with as press folks and they have ONE rule, which I saw one arse in a van in their carpark, contravene with a sandwich of his own! On the premises, you are not to bring your own food and drink. It’s a CAFF!

The video was good. I have not seen the rushes but I DO cop out and plug my head with my fingers as it soars past 158dB in there… Jaysus it is norty. And a thanks to Ian for pressing the buttons on the camera and for coming down to check it out.

Below, taken with permission is the Harley-Davidson day being put on the chalk boards. This was the duty manager when we went…