Dino DC: Exploring Rural Indonesia’s Kustom Car Culture

Dino DC Video Transcript

Hey so I’m here in Joga or yoga Carta I’ve traveled to cover the custom show again and I just thought I’d show you a nice view of the countryside of Indonesia quite the stark contrast from the buzzling city of Jakarta you can actually breathe here there’s a bit of

Oxygen uh not so much pollution like the big city but yeah we’re just off now to meet everybody downstairs get on a little shuttle bus that will take us to the show so we are going to go and check out what people have been up to in the

Kind of like custom car culture here in Indonesia and that also includes you know neighboring countries like Malaysia and Thailand there’s a lot of people that bring their bikes and cars to the show so it should be a cool mix of things this is a new custom Fest t-shirt design for this

Year mix of everything so we’re going to be riding with a bunch of guys from Japan um just so I don’t feel too homesick but uh we just wait for the car to arrive and then we’re off yeah I guess I’m uh riding alone today so very different vibe here in

Georgia traffic is still pretty gnarly um it looks okay today being Saturday morning but um last night Friday night it was insanely packed like nobody was moving on the street and um it was just like a continuous uh line of these bikes everybody gets r with Okay check this out there’s a guy in front of us that has a speed Hunter Katakana windshield Banner which is actually a complete copy cuz we never actually made them like that more that small And there’s some cool cars already bare metal strip down Corolla hello and a drag Beetle let’s see if we can get in the event hasn’t actually uh open yet we still have about an hour and the reason is most people that come from Japan are actual uh you know bike

Builders uh or people in the custom bike and car show there’s a couple of guys from moai as well today and uh they usually set up a little booth uh I’ve never actually done a booth here I used to do booths at artist speed so custom

Fest is mainly uh you know all about bikes and bike culture but they’re really like I’ll give it to them they’re really trying to push car culture a lot um you know out here uh outside of the big capital hital people prefer bikes it just makes sense to cruise around in

Bikes and therefore this whole lifestyle has developed around you know cruising with bikes you know the custom bike culture and there’s like thousands of little shops and brands that cater to this lifestyle but they’re really trying to get and promote the local car scene and every year this is my third year

That I come here and the first time I cover for YouTube obviously is that you know they’re really kind of fasing what the abilities of the local Builders are and I have to say in only 3 years I have seen an insane amount of change like the way people build cars has really

Improved a lot they’re uh coming up with really unique Parts really thinking outside a box and I just love to compare it to you know car culture that we see in Japan or around the world you know they push the envelope they do their own thing they have their own ideologies and

Stuff so um it’s always fun for me to see kind of like you know familiar cars but done in a slightly more localized school of thought starting off with this mustang I mean this is definitely inspired to what you would see something like a SEMA uh but there’s so many

Little cool touches like these guys do Billet uh parts for the entire car I was looking at the side vents here and it’s just really nice to see people kind of recreate and uh Embrace culture from abroad and bring it here to their little community in Indonesia Ah Ah Of course my roots I can’t keep away from Old Fair ladies no matter where I am and uh this one from hbt Motorsport has really been done uh well it’s a very clean build uh very simple just slam down on some over fenders some watab wheels and I think we’ll try and find

Whoever built it and see if we can have a peak inside the engine bay this is something that I find really cool uh this actually is a Volkswagen Beetle with an FR FRP 356 Porsche body on top it was built in Bandu by one of the Volkswagen Specialists there Dany and

The cool thing about this car is basically aside from the fact that it’s celebrating 50 years of uh Janice Joplin’s uh death it actually kind of highlights the fact that you know you can still enjoy really classic designs without going crazy and you know buying collectible cars that

Cost so much money these days so this is the s 15 Liberty Walk that we saw uh last week at the IMX show in Jakarta so I think this is pretty cool so yet another custom bug the most popular platform to modify cars of course here in Southeast Asia we

See so many bugs being transformed and this one really pushes that envelope so it’s like a an off-roader rat rod type build with a Toyota straight 6 carburetor on the intake side leaf springs set up up front or should I say leaf spring as there actually is only

One here longitudinally across the front end just pass these kind of heavily patined Chevy pickup up here Apache tan moris Miner here and you know this really really uh reminds me of the Moon I uh hot rod show where people really take their displays to the next level by creating very

Intricate designs or themes um this one’s going for kind of like a full type layout Morris Miner as I was saying Indonesia is like so into its air cool stuff and it’s not just details it’s the camper the the micrus that is just so so popular here last year it was actually

The highlight of my coverage for Speed HS where there was a kind of like a pickup version like this uh kind of laid out as a Porsche support vehicle for like you know mechanics or race them I thought that looked really cool this year complete fresh lineup this one here

Is actually carrying a choer in the back right here we here we go another one this I’m guessing is milk Transportation it’s got interesting uh window conversion on the back side so this is a customized Land Rover obviously it’s been stretch because the wheelbase is absolutely gigantic and if it wasn’t obvious with

These headers coming out there’s a V8 inside I would like to see what engine they’re actually using here pretty simple cabin two seater the rear end is being converted into this kind of like tilt back rear end right next to this custom Land Rover is this super sick beautifully restored

I I think because it’s just too clean to be like an original car it’s a 300cl 3.5 Slamm down on these really nice Wheels there’s something so cool about these uh older Mercedes sedans okay so this is one that I definitely will choose as like one of my top three cars this years

Custom test this is a 1974 Honda life four-door uh it runs an extremely powerful 360c engine completely customized inside and out I love how they done in interior in this kind of like chocolate leather I just I can’t believe how tiny these SSR mk2s are 10in wheels so cool right onto the

Minis so it’s actually this one here that really stands out mainly because it’s got a supercharger coming out the hood with a twin barrel carburetor feeding it it’s kind of recreate thing that um American hot rods look and feel except in miniature here’s the moai official dealer so these guys are actually based

Out of Jakarta and they are bringing in all the moai merch here in Indonesia always big moai are big pretty much everywhere so it’s no surprise they have Distributors even in Indonesia I’m not the biggest X expert on Volkswagen I’m not the biggest expert on Volkswagen microbuses but I know that the more windows they have the more expensive they get so this one has to be quite the collectible [Applause] thing so simple really nicely Done from Smart Walt work so this is actually quite uh interesting uh the organizer of Uh custom Fest uh owns this retro three-wheeler brand and he makes his own Recreation of the original Morgan three-wheeler all handbuilt here in Indonesia and uh I’ve driven the actual or the current Morgan three-wheeler this

Is quite a lot wider bit more space in the cabin of course there’s various uh things you can do with these cars is fully customizable aside from all the the bikes that are obviously here there is one uh one part I really always enjoy every just taking a look at the custom

Bicycles that uh usually uh have their own little separate displays lots of like 70s Chopper style bikes I love the I mean this is pretty much like what my first bicycle look like and it’s just so cool to see these style of bikes either in their vintage State like this one or completely

Customized slammed down like this so cool I think the level of craftsmanship really is or really does shine when it comes to bikes here in Indonesia there’s so much custom awesomeness right down to little scooters and mopeds and of course the Wilder Creations specifically built for shows

Like this H they’ve even recreated a Boku style bike this is exactly the sort of stuff you see at da coku parking area on a New Year’s meet straight pipes of course usually no number plates or folded up ones like this the massive Saddles and that extended front cow I’m pretty much

Always interested interested to see what people do with the Honda Cub and they really do transform these uh very popular bikes here in Southeast Asia into something completely different always cool to see and it really gets pretty crazy with the amount of styles and one of Creations that are done for

This show actually just noticed this Harley Davidson is pretty much into entirely clad in this uh forged carbon even has remote all-in reservoirs a double damper setup at the back these of course are massive heavy bikes again completely customized hey this is Lulu the organizer custom Fest

Can you do me a favor can you just quickly explain custom Fest yeah uh you know when you started what you’re trying to do and where you’re at today okay uh this custom Fest is 12 annual Uh custom Fest Indonesian custom Castle Festival uh held in J Jakarta Indonesia and in

Myo that uh custom car custom bike uh low ride bicycle and outside is uh race spread track yeah yeah it’s like a big Gathering uh like Melting Pot all custom Enthusiast in Indonesia uh uh I hope next year all of you can come and join with us celebrate Uh custom Culture Festival in

Indonesia yeah absolutely we’ll be definitely back next year as well thank you for inviting me again thank you thank You Go Your Okay so here we are outside the main venue and I did see this lineup of cars uh coming in so I wanted to take a closer look and I really cannot believe I’m actually seeing a fat 124 this is insanely rare even in Italy I mean crazy

My my uncle used to have this um back in the day I remember this thing leaked uh water from everywhere when it was raining Land Rover older Merc a Chevy Kingswood I just can’t believe how long this thing is must be like 5 and a half L meters

Long yeah just goes to show the variety you can find here at custom Fest seems to be getting better and better every year after two full days here at custom Fest I’m going to end the coverage I really hope you enjoyed seeing a slice of Indonesian car culture very different

From the IMX show that I went to last week it’s also very uh interesting to see how in the past 3 years the quality and the craftsmanship just keeps getting better and with that you know I really look forward to coming back to next year’s show so uh hopefully we can make

It back here in 2024 I hope you enjoyed the coverage from Indonesia and uh check back soon for More oh