Words: Deven Solanki Photos: Adam P Photographer
Let’s rewind to the early 2000s, which some would call the ‘golden era’ of the New Zealand car scene. The streets were alive with old-school rotaries on chopped springs, chrome wheels, and enough tyre smoke to choke half of South Auckland. Somewhere in the chaos was a young Mike Whiddett — not yet ‘Mad’, just a dirt bike FMX punk cruising in whatever cheap rotary he’d swapped for that week. “Dudes would go out and buy drugs and alcohol,” he laughs. “I could buy a rotary for the same price. That was my addiction.” Back when rotas were everywhere in the Trade and Exchange — the OG version of Facebook Marketplace. Mike would go through rotaries like most people go through socks, spending his Saturdays with his buddies, swapping motors and wheels between chassis and keeping the cars running however he could.
FURSTY started out as one of those random swaps — Mike traded an already well-known 13B peripheral-port (PP) rota-van that he and his buddy Brad built in the corner of Joe Kyle’s shop — then known as ‘Rotor-O’ — plus a slammed Mazda B2000 for a blue 808 wagon up in Whangārei that was already painted, caged, and running a 12A bridgeport with an RX-3 front end. “The day we picked it up, we were trailering it home, unloaded it at Wellsford to do some skids, and blew the motor the same day,” Mike laughs. From there, he and Brad built and dropped in a 13B bridgeport, and FURSTY went on to run every rotary set-up that the duo could throw at it, constantly evolving with each version.
Mike was rolling with Rotang Klan: “There were all kinds of rotary clubs, some were known for shows, some for drag racing or Sunday cruising.” Rotang Klan, though, was notorious for fat skids, rattle-can backyard paint jobs, and no springs. The Smurf Blue 808 wagon fit right in, rocking a locked diff, chopped out springs, 13-inch Modgies wrapped in Eagers, and proudly wearing the ‘Rotang Klan’ sticker with the FURSTY plate that had been worn on many of Mike’s creations — a timeless look that defined the era and remains just as iconic today. Around the same time, he met Toni, and together they built her dream Mercedes show car, ‘XBENZV’. Toni would later become the first female winner of King of Auto Salon.
Mike had always loved hitting up burnout comps at 4&Rotary Nationals, Summer Drags, and so on — drag racing wasn’t his thing. “To have an exciting car in drag racing requires having a far bigger budget than what I had,” he says. But the first time he rolled into Skidfest wearing the plate ‘HEDAKE’, named after that obnoxiously loud side-pipe, it was mostly V8s, and rotaries weren’t exactly welcome. “Someone actually chucked a burger at me, splatting all over my door, telling me to f**k off,” he recalls. Didn’t bother him though — all he wanted was to rip some skids.
Skidfest 2004 became the turning point. Behind the wheel of the blue wagon was a scruffy Mike, thrashing a 13B PP built by Alec Bell at Kiwi-RE. He jumped out mid burnout and waved to the crowd while FURSTY kept screaming and shredding his Eagers. That moment cemented his place in the New Zealand car scene. “It’s always been about putting on a show, giving people their money’s worth,” Mike says, a mindset shaped by his freestyle motocross days that helped lay the foundation for the Mad Mike brand.
Some memories just stick, and for Mike, one of those is doing roundabout skids the weekend after X-Air in Hamilton. Back then, everyone knew two 808s that everyone would talk about: FURSTY for burnouts, and ‘HELYEA’ for show — 13B turbo, Simmons, fully legal, crushing every car show and winning awards for all the categories, but never once seen on a burnout pad.
Anyway, Mike rolled up to a Hamilton roundabout and spotted HELYEA on the other side. He started swinging FURSTY, and sure enough, a cop turned up, sirens blaring. Mike kept going, throwing a manji up the road before handing the keys over, earning himself a six-month disqualification and 28 days’ impound for the wagon. “I just wanted to prove my wagon was more wild than his, plus entertain the two kids on their BMX bikes that were at the roundabout,” he says proudly.
This was nothing out of the ordinary for young Mike. FURSTY mirrored his chaotic youth: fines stacking up over $80K, learning everything the hard way, juggling three jobs, and late nights spent in the workshop wrenching. Having never met his father, he didn’t really have a role model to call him out when he was doing the wrong things. Even though his mother didn’t have much money at the time, she gave him freedom — with the occasional warning, of course. Back then the price of a cert was out of reach at $500, so he’d get pulled over, then take the risk of peeling off the pink sticker, drive to work, then get stickered again. It was the same story over and over. Eventually, something had to change.
One day, Toni dragged Mike away from his burnout comps to his first drift event at Pukekohe.
“What the hell is this?” he asked her.
Toni replied, “You already do this; you can do this professionally!”
From that point on, Mike and Toni were invested to make this a reality. He remembers watching legendary Japanese drifter Yoichi Imamura in his FD RX-7 on an Option DVD. The experience changed everything, Yoichi becoming a role model for young Mike. “It was freestyle motocross but with a roll cage,” he says. Different cars, personalities, graphics — everything Mike loved, just on a much bigger stage.
But chasing his newly discovered dream came with sacrifices. They had to sell FURSTY; Toni’s show car XBENZV; and even their TV, VHS and DVD collections, and CD wallets, among other items — anything to fund the build that would become ‘MADBUL’.
“I remember getting my first sponsorship money,” Mike says. “I was ready to spend it on whatever I wanted, but Toni made sure it went straight to paying fines.” That moment flipped the switch for Mike, setting him on the path to take his drifting seriously and rewrite his story.
Over the years, FURSTY has been passed around many owners between Mike and recent owner Stefan Collins. Every time it popped up for sale, Mike would get tagged, but it would always unfortunately be the wrong time.
After winning the Formula Drift Japan Championship, his goal was to tell his story to inspire others that you can change at any point in your life. So the plan was to find Stefan, buy back the wagon, transform it into a pro-level drift car, and take it all the way to Japan to compete in D1GP (the championship from those original videos that got Mike hooked) — the finish line of a journey that began with a younger version of himself, full of mistakes, and a single drifting DVD that started it all.
He had a clear vision to completely transform it, going full circle and using the wagon to tell his story. “If I can turn things around, anyone can,” he says. “I was on a rapid downward spiral back then. Bringing FURSTY back was about showing people you can change direction.” For Mike, the car became a symbol of his redemption and a way to inspire others.
Kiwis on social media were split when he chopped it up; some thought he was destroying history. But one fan’s comment stuck with him: “You aren’t chopping up history if you’re telling more history.” Even Mike admits that the four-inch grinder moment was harder than cutting up his Lamborghini, which says a lot!
When D1GP came calling with Toyo Tires Japan, Toyota even offered Mike new GR chassis options — Supra, Yaris, Corolla — to go all out. But he had different ideas. He chose to reunite with his 1976 Mazda 808 wagon. “It would have been far easier to rock up with ‘HUMBUL’ or ‘BADBUL’ and be super competitive, but that was never the plan,” he says. “The goal was to tell my story and inspire. The trade-off was a car that was incredibly difficult to drive, with less than half the horsepower of the rest of the competition.” When he rolled up to the first round, the CEO of Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR) came over and told him it was his favourite car that he’d ever seen drifting. Coming from the head of TGR: “No wonder they call you ‘Mad’,” he said in Japanese. And there Mike was: the guy who turned down a brand-new GR build just so he could reunite with a 1976 Mazda 808 and tell his story. He went on to crack the top 16 at D1GP in Odaiba — a moment he’ll carry with him for the rest of his life.
There’s a photo Mike always checks when he rolls up to the start line: young him, hanging out the side of the 808 at Skidfest ’04, a reminder of where it all began and why rotaries have always held a place in his world. Everything that’s happened, good or bad, is part of the journey. FURSTY came back for one reason: to finish that story and show anyone watching that, no matter how it started, you can change the script.
SPEC LIST
1976 Mazda 808 / RX-3 Station Wagon
Heart
ENGINE: TCP-Magic 26B peripheral port, 2600cc four-rotor, lightened and balanced high-compression rotors, high-rev mod custom end and centre plates, WPC coated hand-built chromoly crankshaft, TCP-Magic apex seals, three-window bearings
INTAKE: Hand-fabricated intake runners, EFI hardware 55mm throttle bodies, 5.5-inch twin K&N air filters
EXHAUST: 3.5-inch stainless exhaust system, custom stainless muffler
FUEL: Radium fuel rails, Radium lift pump, Radium cell, Radium fuel pressure regulator, VP Fuels C9 + premix
IGNITION: Haltech, NGK spark plugs
ECU: Haltech Nexus R5
COOLING: PWR radiator, PWR oil cooler
Drive
GEAR-BOX: HGT sequential five-speed
CLUTCH: Exedy triple-plate carbon clutch and fly wheel
FLYWHEEL: Exedy
DIFF: Bulldog quick-change
EXTRA: Driveshaft shop carbon driveshaft, Driveshaft shop axles
Support
STRUTS: KW three-way adjustable coilovers
BRAKES: (F) Wilwood callipers rotors and pads (R) Wilwood twin callipers rotors and pads, Autosport Dynamics hydraulic handbrake
ARMS/KNUCKLES: Madlab cross-members, Madlab modified Techno Toy Tuning knuckles and front control arms, Destroy or Die arms and drop knuckles
Shoes
WHEELS: (F) 15×9.5-inch Work Equip 40 (R) 15×10.5-inch Work Equip 03
TYRES: (F) 195/50R15 Toyo R888R (R) 225/45R15 Toyo R888R
Exterior:
PAINT: Smurf Blue
ENHANCEMENTS: Rocket Bunny x Mad Mike collab, Rocket Bunny duck bill wing, custom Madlab livery, rear end chopped out and converted to NA MX-5 IRS, C-notched and body dropped 180mm by IMR fab, factory steel doors and fenders, steel 12A nose cone front end, original Savanna honeycomb 12A grill and badges, RX-3 ‘hockey stick’ mirrors,
Interior
SEATS: Bride historic style carbon racing seats, NRG harnesses
STEERING WHEEL: NRG x Mad Mike wheel
INSTRUMENTATION: HGT shift knob, Haltech iC-7 digital dash, T, NRG harnesses, Auto Meter five-inch tachometer, Auto Meter gauges
EXTRA: TCP-Magic six-point roll cage, custom alloy dash and door skins, polycarbonate windows, JDM tsurikawa train handles
Performance:
POWER: 410kW
TORQUE: Not much
FUEL TYPE: VP Fuels C9
TUNER: Taisuke Kawato at TCP-Magic
Driver Profile:
DRIVER/OWNER: ‘Mad Mike’ Whiddett
AGE: 40+
LOCATION: New Zealand
OCCUPATION: Tyre Shredder
BUILD TIME: Three months
THANKS: There are a lot of people who have supported this dream of mine to transform this car to hopefully inspire anyone that, no matter how much trouble or debt you’re in, you can change. The biggest thanks to my super chick Toni for always believing in my vision, the love, and the support. Toyo Tires for making this project possible, and then also taking it to Japan and competing at the highest level of drifting. I also want to thank the brands that jumped on board and made all of this possible
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This article originally appeared in New Zealand Performance Car issue 318
