Import Alliance Spring 2012 Meet Coverage… From Varying Perspectives…Part 2…
Hopefully all of you are enjoying these photos from the Import Alliance Spring 2012 Meet from our panel of guest photographers. In the nearly four years that I’ve been running this site, I’ve always made it a point to do everything on my own, but I am more than happy to send some love over to the east coast every now and then so I can shine some light on great builds out there. After seeing some of these photos, I feel like I was out there, minus having to stand around in the heat for hours and trying to get away from the police as they were ushering people out. Today we will be looking at the IA ATL meet from yet another photographer. This guy, Eric Badis, is a Honda owner himself. He actually owns the white Acura TL with the custom front bumper on gold TE37s. It isn’t a car for everyone’s taste but it is definitely unique. He really didn’t take any photos of his own car at the event but he did get a couple of good shots of some of his friends cars, one of them being the IS350 that I posted up yesterday that I am pretty fond of. These guys seem to roll with a pretty solid group of cars and I’m sure you guys will enjoy them. I believe I have one more set coming, but there won’t be too many repeats of cars you have seen already from yesterday and today. The whole point of getting photos from different guys was so that we could see a diverse group of cars. Not everyone is going to get everything at the meet but with a multitude of photographers, the chance of seeing something you hadn’t seen yet is much better than if say, I went out there…
Anyways, thanks to Eric Badis for providing the photos today. And for the rest of you guys, I know it’s a little different feel this week with people who are complete strangers to you providing photos for your enjoyment but after this month, things are going to pick up and pick up pretty quickly, and I’ll be back to taking photos of cars you’ve seen before and whatever the fuck I am eating at that moment…
…and now, more from IA Spring 2012, through the eyes and lens of Eric Badis…
Here’s the IS350 I was talking about… I’m not gonna lie, I dig this car a lot. The only thing I don’t really like is the back part of the rear fender flare but the rest of the car more than makes up for it. I guess this was taken in the morning on the way to the IA event…
One of the major reasons why I like this build is because of how well-rounded it is. The owner has paid attention to not only the exterior but also to the motor and interior. It’s rare for guys with these cars to really go all-out on them and this one is a great example…
This AP1 S2000 looks like its got quite a bit of work done to it as well… Immediately you’ll notice the Voltex wing, what looks to be a Spoon rear diffuser, Advan Racing wheels, just to name a few…
Nice rolling shot of the IS on the road…
Posted up next to an older IS, also on gold Work Meister S1…
Y33 Q45 with a Version Select kit and AME wheels. Nice to see that ridiculous oni-camber hasn’t hit the VIP market over on that side of the coast yet, haha…
2JZ-GTE-swapped Lexus IS300…
Infiniti G37 sedan on 2-piece Work Meister S1…
Russ Antonio’s JGTC-inspired widebody Acura NSX from JADE crew… Dude behind him was staring at the car so hard he ended up with a white streak in his hair like Rogue from X-Men, haha…
The aero is probably a little much for most enthusiasts but it definitely makes for a eye-catching show car…
A shot of the rear as it was cruising by… I want to say that Volk GT-S wheels were vastly underrated but I’d be lying because they just weren’t very popular due to them not being very attractive…
Loving this VIP-styled Acura RL… I remember getting a shot of it from the IA summer meet last year…
Not sure if his front tire is low on air or not but that shit is like, on some rubber band-type shit…He might be the only guy that ever curbed his wheel not being anywhere near a curb.. Not a bad looking car either..
Justin Semon’s (aka “wEaK Squad ATL”) EK looking good on Kosei K1 wheels… I’m not usually a fan of these wheels but they work better on his hatch more than his older wheels, in my opinion anyways…
RSX on some CCW classics…
Acura TL also on some CCW Classics…
I absolutely love 370Zs…something about the lines of the car and how they sit on just suspension and wheels is very appealing…
Speaking of Z34s, here are a couple more shots of David Cordell’s from Hybrid Racing…
Here’s a shot of how it looked last year when I saw it in Nashville (click here)…huge difference now… I kind of preferred the bronze wheel set-up though because it had color-matched inserts on the spokes…
Love the new aero additions though regardless…
Turbocharged RSX on Volk Racing CE28s…
Black STi on silver-faced Work VS-XX wheels… Note the vanity plate…
I posted up some photos of this STi in yesterday’s post and here are a couple more since Eric took some better shots of it…
Front shot of the pig nose and Perrin intercooler…
I’m really liking the fact that people are able to running meaty tires with their aggressive wheels now…I think by 2013 it’ll be more common than the whole incredible-stretched tire look that has become so popular in the last two years…
Evo from Team EMOTION and the back half of Eric Badis’ TL…
Here is the only other shot…
IS and S2K not getting any attention because a Lexus LF-A was cruising by…
Also note the vanity plate on the S2… pretty clever… Meanwhile, people are still gawking at…
…this LF-A… This owner, however, didn’t really have anything clever in mind when coming up with his vanity plate…
I am really digging this FA5 sedan on Enkei NT03s…I posted up a shot of the rear of this car and thanks to having photos from various photographers, we get to see a shot of the front today…This Civic is on point… I don’t even like the U.S. front ends but it looks good with the FD2-inspired front lip…
No motion drifting…haha…
Another GD-chassis WRX STi, this one has some white Work Emotion XD-9s…
GR-body Subaru on all-white BBS LM…
A couple more of the neon yellow S2000 on black Meisters…
Evo X on Enkei NT03…
A better angle of the STi on Emotion XD-9s… Nice and simple…oh and wingless too, which I prefer…
Here you can see Turner Field, where the Atlanta Braves play, in the background…
Just can’t get enough of this IS…though the hot pink under the hood is kind of random…
Check out how aggressive this thing looks from the rear… Random, but the guy to the left of the photo is apparently anticipating a major flood…
Man, people love their vanity plates out in Georgia… I know Jay from JDMEGO would appreciate that Voltex wing (also random)…
Acura TL on custom step-lipped Work Equips…
Custom orange S2000 with J’s Racing aero and Spoon Mooncraft hard top…
That pretty much wraps of Eric’s coverage of the meet..the rest of these shots are just random pics he took (while driving it looks like) of the IS and S2000 that he cruised with…
This one is probably the best of the bunch…Really liked this shot…
Pretty good shots either way considering he should have been paying attention to the road at high speeds, haha…
That’s all folks…I think I have one more coming but that will probably come after the Throwback Thursday post tomorrow… thanks for looking and thanks to Eric once again for providing the photos…
Exclusive Content: Unpublished Photos of Brandon Burke’s RB-S13 from Super Street’s April ’12 Issue…
Now that the April 2012 issue of Super Street has officially come and gone, I figured now would be as good a time as ever to toss up the rest of the shots that didn’t make the cut. I took a lot of photos of this car that morning of the shoot because it’s a build that I personally really enjoyed. I was the one that spotted this coupe at Hot Import Nights L.A. last year and was the one that pitched this car to Jonathan Wong, the head honcho over at Super Street magazine. Soon after the car debuted, it became quite popular and people left and right wanted to shoot it and do a story on it. Luckily, I was quick with it and Johnny was interested in featuring it in SS. Of all my time shooting and writing story’s for magazines, Brandon Burke’s S13 is right up there as one of my personal favorite shoots. I was very happy with how the photos came out and I had a great experience working with Brandon. He’s a bit of a quirky guy but he’s a nice dude. I had only spoken with him briefly before we met up to shoot his car but I was immediately acquainted with his odd sense of humor. Another reason why I thoroughly enjoyed shooting his car was because I had previously never shot in just a wide open space. I don’t even fucking remember where I shot this car, but it was in the middle of nowhere, and it was cold as fuck. I mean, it was somewhere in the desert but I can’t think of the name at the moment. It was so cold, that the water inside the tire tread marks in the mud were frozen solid. I remember having only one glove that morning too so I had one hand that wasn’t even functioning correctly. On the way to the location of the shoot, I also encountered the musical road for the first time. Do you guys remember seeing that Honda commercial where they drove over a portion of road that created the sound of a song? Well, I found it and apparently it wasn’t the original location. They had moved that musical road over to that area because after hearing the song for 3 or 4 times, it gets pretty damn annoying. I remember Brandon texting me that morning on the way to the location that the musical road was there, I drove over it, and thought it was the coolest thing ever. Than we set up to shoot about a mile or so away from there and after hearing car after car driving over it, it wasn’t so cool anymore. I am still haunted by the song to this very day…
Anyways, it was a great experience for me because I had never shot in a desert environment before. The sun came out unusually early that morning too, which helped to produce some interesting effects. In the photos you’ll see the sun just blazing down, and while it would appear to be hot, it was cold as shit…or should I say shit as cold because it was so cold that morning that if I took a public dump, it would have came out like an icicle spear from Sub Zero in Mortal Kombat. They say the most painful shots turn out to be the best ones, and I have to say that while these aren’t the best, they are defintely some of my favorites. A couple other interesting things to note are that the rolling shots were completely unplanned. I usually have someone roll with me to my shoots and they can drive my car while I take the rolling shot, but nobody wanted to go to the freezing desert with me that morning. I didn’t expect anyone else to come along but Brandon’s friend ended up meeting up with us in the morning. The resulting rolling shots were taken by me, with a complete stranger (at that time) driving me in my car. I didn’t know the guy, I didn’t know if he had insurance, or if he even knew how to drive for that matter, haha. I had to get the shot so I let this dude drive me down some random stretch of road in a completely unfamiliar area. I am still alive so I guess it worked out. That complete stranger turned out to be Gus Rivera, who is also quite a talented photographer. Thank you for not stealing my car and murdering me. Thank you also for driving at a steady pace for me to get the shots I needed. With that said, the same rules apply as normal. Below each photo is a link to a larger version. I liked these photos so much that the larger versions are even larger than normal. Instead of their typical 1400×933 format, I’ve bumped up the resolution to 1600×1067. Fucking neato. I’ve also attached two 1080P desktop-sized images for you guys who like to change your desktop images. You can’t always have a naked broad on your screen. Sometimes mom likes to come over and she’d rather see unpublished images from cars featured in Super Street magazine….
Oh, that other interesting tidbit that I forgot to mention was that I had to use Photoshop to add lug nuts to his car. The man can build the shit out of a car inside his crappy garage, but he can’t for the life of him have a complete set of lug nuts on each wheel. I didn’t even notice until I got home that day from the shoot that a couple of his wheels only had three lug nuts holding them on. I didn’t want the close-ups of the wheels to reveal that so I took the liberty of adding lug nuts to the photos. You probably won’t even notice it with the size of these photos but I thought it was funny. I never had to do that before for a feature and I don’t think anyone would have ever noticed if I didn’t mention it. You can try to take a close look at the photos to see which ones had lug nuts added. If you look at some of the other shots and compare them, I think you’ll start to spot them. In any case, that shouldn’t take away from the car and the owner, it’s still a beauty of a S13…
Enjoy and don’t steal my images. I mean, you can save them and shit but don’t fuck with the watermarks. I made them all gold and fancy this time too…leave them be and whore the photos if you please. If you don’t like them, ehh, fuck off, I don’t know. Go find something else to do but stare at things you don’t like…
Yes, your eyes don’t deceive you, the paint on the bumpers do not match… and no shits were given by Brandon Burke… The man painted the car himself, give him a break… Larger Version (1600×1067)
Look closely… 
Larger Version (1600×1067)
Larger Version (1600×1067) Random, but I thought it was interesting that Burke’s coupe still retained the automatic seatbelts…even more interesting is that they still worked…
If you’re still trying to figure out the lug nut thing, this one is probably easier to spot…. Larger Version (1600×1067)
Larger Version (1600×1067) In some ways, this S13 is still related to this site because the front lip is actually from a Honda Accord, haha…I also love how down Brandon is to just drive at this ride height all the time….shit is just bananas…
According to the “HONDA KILLER” 240SX hatchback from the Formula D tech day coverage a couple days ago, having a RB25 apparently automatically demands respect from everyone else. Brandon just threw his motor in his car because he had it laying around… You don’t see him spray-painting “_______ KILLER” on his intercooler…. Larger Version (1600×1067)
Old school Signal Auto bucket looked like it had been sweated on a couple times and was exposed to copious amounts of sunlight…I’m glad I captured Brandon’s sweaty essence on this seat… While I would have liked to see more attention paid to the engine bay and interior, I almost prefer it to be this way because it reflects the grittiness of the build and how it was built inside his garage with a lot of spare parts…. It gives the car character. The outside is just pure white and so clean that you wouldn’t expect it to be built in a random house garage, the contrasting bay and interior says otherwise… Larger Version (1600×1067)
A pair of unused rolling shots below…
My favorite shots of the day were actually totally unplanned as well. I had met up with Brandon at his house early that morning to shoot, and I noticed how cluttered and trashed it was. Then after hearing him talk about the build, I knew that I had to get a shot of the car inside the garage. The car was so clean and the garage was so filthy that the two contrasting items just seemed to work well together. I shot these at the end when we returned to his house and I watched struggle to drag the low frame of his S13 into the garage. I told him to just act like he was working on the car while I snapped some photos. The sun was glaring down already, harshly onto the front end of the car as it sat in the garage, so I needed no artificial lighting to light the car. It was so bright that the resulting image of the front end almost looked cartoonish and unreal. The garage itself was still dark though so I used one strobe to backlight the car and garage. The shots below were outtakes because I didn’t have a set idea on where to place the strobe since he had stuff laying around everywhere. As it turned out, the random garage shots worked out and the final one I submitted ended up being the opener to the feature in the magazine…Pretty cool…
Of the three different variations I took, this one was probably my favorite, with the strobe directed back at Brandon as he looked at his creation…There was very little processing used for these shots. Just a whole lot of natural light with some backlit artificial lighting… Larger Version (1600×1067)
In this shot, the strobe is aimmed incorrectly because it had fallen over from whatever I had sat it against….the result wasn’t too bad though…And yes, that is a Subaru Boxer engine sitting on two old tires to the left of the shot… Larger Version (1600×1067)
The last two shots are 1080P sized desktop images. I realize now that since the photos above are already pretty large, they could be used as desktop images as well, but the two below are resized correctly to fit a widescreen format….
This was the actual rolling shot used for the Super Street feature… Desktop Version (1920×1080)
Thanks for looking…
The Chronicles’ Choice…Favorite Non-Honda Builds of 2011…
Well this is a first…During the last couple months when I was busy trying to figure out how the order of the Top Ten Hondas of 2011 would go, I came up with an idea to spotlight some of my favorite non-Honda builds of the year. I am after all, an avid automotive enthusiast and I love cars of all types. I don’t even own a Honda anymore personally, and I’ve at one time had a Toyota, Honda, and now a Nissan (Infiniti). I always have my eye out on everything because I can appreciate a great build without brand bias. Another reason why I’m always looking for great builds in general is because I work in the magazine industry. It’s sort of my job to go and seek out new cars to feature so I have to always be aware of new builds that are coming out every year. This list isn’t in any particular order, much like the 2011 Honors list, because I feel all these cars are great in their own right. All are very different builds and from varying parts of the world. Some I have seen in person, some I hope to someday see…either way, it’s my personal list of favorite non-Honda builds from 2011. The Top Ten Hondas list will always trump any other list I make here on The Chronicles but to show my deepest appreciation for their hard work, here are some builds that stood out to me the most and really captured my attention….
Joy Abdalla’s Subaru STI…
This car absolutely took my breath away when I first spotted it at the 2011 SEMA Convention…It’s just a great looking car. I love how aggressive the widebody is on it and how it still flows with the original lines of the STI. Where this build really shines though is under the hood…the bay is very well-done and one of the cleanest Subaru engine bays I have ever seen. Everything just comes together nearly perfectly…the custom paint, aero, engine bay, interior…man, just top-notch… I believe this is going to be in an issue of Import Tuner in the future so make sure to grab a copy of that. I had a chance to meet the owner at one of the industry parties’ during the SEMA weekend in Vegas last year as well and when David Do from MayDay Garage introduced us, I can honestly say that I was very surprised to see that it was a female owner. I’m not saying that I’m surprised that a woman can build a great car, because I’ve seen it plenty of times before…I’m just saying, a lot of STI owners are usually like bro’d-out white dudes or larger gentlemen that seem like they enjoy a good competitive game of Warcraft…haha, okay that’s not totally true but thumbs-up to Joy Abdalla for building herself a wonderful car. A favorite of mine for sure…
Nick Weir’s K20-powered Volkswagen Caddy…
Nick’s Caddy is probably one of the coolest builds of 2011. He wasn’t the first to do a K-swap in a VW Caddy but his is definitely the most well-rounded. When I first heard about this thing, I was really interested in seeing it in person. Luckily for me, I had a chance to fly out to Nashville, TN for the annual summer Import Alliance meet and I did indeed get the opportunity to see it for myself. There are little things here and there that obviously don’t make it “perfect” by any means, but Nick never intended it to be. It’s a little rough around the edges and that adds to the appeal of the truck. For what it is, the quality of work is very good. How often are you going to see a VW caddy with a K-swap and a battleship-greyish bay? It’s a one of a kind build with some unique personal touches to it that leave no question that it’s the work of Nick Weir. He was bummed that he didn’t get the Rotiform wheels that he wanted for it but the Work CR-01s look pretty good on there. This Caddy was one of the highlights for me in 2011 and I’m happy that I got to see it in person to appreciate it. Nick is a bit of a weirdo so his personality reflects his cars..haha. This thing is most certainly an odd-ball build but odd in a very cool way…
Machan’s A60 Toyota Carina wagon…
Speaking of oddball builds, this Toyota Carina wagon is about as outside of the box as it gets. I first spotted this thing at the Hellaflush Japan event and I’ve been looking for more information and photos of this wagon ever since. It has a Japanese Firetruck theme on the outside and apparently, it’s actually used at one of the firestations. I love how it’s a mix of genres and also a mix of old school styling and new technology. The bay is tuck and shaved with the cage running through the firewalls to the shock towers, and the heart of this Carina is a Toyota BEAM’s 3S-GE from the Japanese market Toyota Altezza. It also has individual throttle bodies, a custom header, and a custom semi-trailing arm suspension. If that’s not enough, this Carina also features a Tilton brake system and 14×8.5/9 RS Watanabe wheels…Man, this thing is so sick. I know that the “stance” and “hellaflush” style is just getting completely out of hand but when it comes to a build like this, it works…. Everything is over the top and not meant to be anything taken too seriously… I don’t know about you guys, but I thoroughly enjoy old school Toyotas, Nissans, etc. and it’s cool when you see something like this that has a mix of everything…
Jin Ueno’s Aimgain VIP Lexus LS400…
Jin’s LS from Kyoei USA has to be my favorite VIP build of 2011. I say that because I’ve always preferred the more traditional VIP “look” and Jin has executed it well. When I say “traditional”, I mean, it’s not just all about wheel fitment and modifying fenders. He has taken the time to create a well-round VIP project…he’s paid attention to the interior, which is essential when building a VIP project, and he’s added some one-off touches that make it stand-out in a sea of black and white VIP cars. I love the simplicity of the Aimgain kit and the contrast of the red pinstriping and red exhaust tips. It’s another car that flows every well because the owner has paid great attention to minor details. The red also transfers over to the front fogs, something you never really see, and the black/red them is also found throughout the re-wrapped and custom stitched interior….VIP-style isn’t all about cramming stupid wide wheels into your luxury/non-luxury vehicle and this is a great example of how to build a VIP-style car…
Wilson Tam’s Carlsson 2010 Mercedes Benz E350…
I’ll be the first to admit that I am not all that familar with European vehicles. It’s just not something that I’ve taken an active interest in throughout the years. I just love Japanese cars and Japanese automotive culture, so my attention has been devoted to that. When I ran into Wilson Tam’s E350 at SEMA 2011, it made me want to learn more about a car that I would otherwise overlook normally. It was sitting in the outside display area and it just looked so good sitting on the ground on some custom bronze BBS LMs. I walked up to it and noticed that it also had a full Carlsson aero kit. Everyday that I went to the SEMA show that week, I found myself stopping by to take another look at it. If you have seen my coverage from SEMA and Autocon in 2011, then you most likely have already heard me rambling on about how much I like this build…I’m not that big of a fan of Mercedes Benzs but I love this one…
Ka Wong’s F20C-powered AE86 Toyota Corolla…
I’m a big fan of Ka Wong because he not only built himself an amazing AE86 Corolla, he also happens to be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. This car has been around for about two years now but I like the fact that he continues to add new stuff to it. This year, he showed-off his custom audio set-up in his trunk and it just makes his Corolla that much more untouchable at car shows. The guy has been a consistent winner and he’s very much deserving of all the accolades that he receives. It’s just one of those cars that you can’t help but notice, you know? Not only because of the bright orange color but because of the S2000 engine swap and the myriad of other things he’s put into this build. There are very few AE86 Corollas that are built this level of quality and I’m happy that I’ve had plenty of chances to see this Corolla in person.
Ryan Deguzman’s FD3S and FC3S RX-7s…
Ryan Deguzman happens to have a pair of two of the finest RX-7s in the west coast. I don’t know how or why he has both these sick ass builds so I’ll just sit back and enjoy the view. His FD RX-7 stands out much more because of the yellow tone but his white FC is not a car that you should just overlook. It’s in mint condition and I believe his FC is also his daily driver. I’ve included links below to take you to some online features of both cars so that you can read more about them if you choose. I’ve never had a chance to meet this guy or speak to him but he has great taste in parts and has a very good sense of style. I really like both of his RX-7s and they are definitely two highlight builds of mine in 2011…
Click here to read more about Ryan Deguzman’s FD3s RX-7…
Must be nice, right? Haha…round of a applause to this guy for having a pair of well-built Mazdas…
Brandon Burke’s S13 Nissan 240SX coupe…
I didn’t get a chance to see Brandon Burke’s S13 until December of 2011 but it immediately became a favorite of mine in 2011. I just love how simple it is and how it can still look really aggressive without having any wild aero. What I like the most about it is that it’s completely garage-built and everything but the paint itself was put together inside his crappy garage. It’s a little rough around the edges here and there but it’s almost a throwback to how cars were put together back in the day. Brandon is completely self-taught and put this whole car together himself without having the help of any shop or anything. I can’t say much more about it because his Super Street feature drops in about a month so just pick up that issue if you want to hear me write more about how great it is…
Mark Arcenal’s Hakosuka Skyline 2000GT…
2011 will probably be remembered as the year that Rauh Welt cemented it’s status in America and that’s largely due to the efforts of Mark Arcenal from Fatlace/Illest. His Rauh Welt Porsche was the talk of the second half of 2011 but my favorite Mark Arcenal automotive build will always be his Nissan Skyline 2000GT. I just feel that the Rauh Welt look is a look that Akira Nakai created and it will always be Nakai’s style. Mark’s Porsche was built to represent Rauh Welt so the car is very much Nakai’s creation and not truly his. His Skyline on the other hand, is more of Mark’s handy work and has more elements to it that are more representative of Arcenal himself. It’s not built off another car that’s already been done before and I love the overall look of it. It’s style in it’s purest form. I also enjoyed how Mark himself described the car in a video that I’ve attached below. Check it out and you’ll understand why I like this build so much more than “Pandora One”. You can tell how big of an enthusiast he is just by listening to him talk about his car…really neat stuff…
If the video link doesn’t work for you, click here to go to the page…
Well, that’s it for today. I promise this is the last of the “Top”-whatever lists. Haha…Time to move on to stuff that’s going on in 2012…Thanks for looking….
On set…
Sorry guys, not much of a heavy update for you all since I spent most of my morning up in the Lancaster, CA area shooting a car for Super Street magazine. I got a bunch of stuff going on that needs to be completed before the holiday break so that it can make it into the issue so I didn’t have time today to put together a solid update. After I got home, I worked on the photos and then knocked out for a couple hours. Now I’m back on the road again to get to a Christmas party with some friends. Here are a couple behind the scenes shots from today’s shoot for Super Street. This car is becoming quite popular since it debuted at Hot Import Nights and I’m proud to say that I was one of the first people to spot it as it was rolling in that Friday night. Since then, Brandon Burke’s S13 has popped up all over the web but he saved the best for last and now he’ll soon grace the pages of one of the best import automotive publications around…Thanks for looking and have a happy holidays everyone…
I absolutely loved how grimy and messy his garage was and considering the fact that he built this entire car inside the garage, I had to get a shot of the car inside. How clean and subtle the car turned out is in stark contrast to the environment that it was built in….Man, I fucking love it… Here’s an outtake from that series of photos…
Just a man alone with his thoughts…
Exclusive Content…Unpublished Photos of Dennis K.’s Subaru STI from Super Street Oct. ’11…
I had never heard of Dennis or his Subaru STI before I did this story. I’ll be perfectly candid with you guys…as much as I try to keep up with everything car-related around me, I don’t really invest too much time into the Subaru-community. I’ve never owned one and the only ones I’m exposed to are the ones that I see either at car shows or on the interwebz. I only know of a couple guys personally that have them, and Dennis wasn’t one of those guys. We had exchanged texts back and forth when I was trying to get a hold of him to do a story on his car for Super Street, but that was about it. The only thing I knew about the guy was that he was from Team Hybrid. I’ve been familiar with Hybrid since the early 2000s and I’ve also done a couple of other stories on some Hybrid cars for Super Street. When Jonathan Wong hit me up to do this story, he told me that it was for the “stance” issue and I was honestly a little puzzled as to why I’d be shooting an STI for it. The only Subaru STIs that I had seen at that point with aggressive wheel fitment were usually rolling on some fake, knock-off wheels and their fenders were (as expected) fucked-up. I went in with no expectations and when I saw Dennis Kongvongsai’s STI, I was plesantly surprised. The build itself was pretty well-rounded and it looked great sitting on some Mag Blue Volk RE30s. His fenders also weren’t haggered to shit and that’s always a plus.
We met in San Diego over at Autofashion USA because Dennis is from there and I didn’t want him to have to drive up to LA, especially considering the fact that I too was originally from San Diego and I was pretty familiar with the area. I headed down to Autofashion early that day of the shoot so that I could spent a couple minutes hanging out with Freddie. I’ve known Freddie for quite some time now so it was good to see him and catch-up. Dennis arrived a little while later and I took him to a spot down the street to set-up for the shoot. Everything went smoothly for the most part. The only real issue I ran into was that the surrounding areas produced a lot of dust, so Dennis’ STI got dirty right away. He had his cleaning supplies and white cars are usually easy to shoot anyway so we quickly eliminated the problem. I met up with Dennis late so the sun also set quicker than I wanted but we made it work. When you shoot in the late afternoon, you’re always chasing the sunset and that’s why you’ll notice that some of the shots, like the interior and engine bay, look like they were shot in the evening….that’s because they were. By the time we found a spot and started shooting, it was already late in the afternoon. I mean, it wasn’t pitch black or anything but it was getting late. Dennis was a real trooper though and stuck it out with me until we finished. He’s a cool dude. Pretty quiet, not much to say, and just an overall chill attitude. I still run into him at various events and he’s definitely not one of those dudes that you’ve met before, but walk by and act like they don’t see you, if you catch my drift…I remember him saying that he had plans of selling this STI, even before we featured it in Super Street, and the feature just happened at the right time. I believe he already parted it out or was in the process of doing that now so maybe he’ll get choked up seeing these photos, haha, I don’t know. Today, we are going to take a look at some of the unpublished photos from the story as well as some that were used. I normally don’t put up the ones that were published already but I noticed that the ones used on the Super Street website were cropped and parts of the car were cut off in the process. I’ve provided a link to the original story, so please check that out if you haven’t already. The story itself is based around the whole “stance” topic since it was, well, the “stance” issue. I was pretty happy with how everything came together. Dennis is a huge fan of the “hellaflush” and “stance” scene so it works out that I was able to discuss that as well as the build-up and history of his STI. There aren’t too many extra photos from the shoot. Space was pretty tight that day and I knew what shots I wanted already so I didn’t bother with shooting any and every angle. I’ve provided some bonus 1080P-sized wallpapers below, as usual. I’m sure you guys know the routine by now….I did try something new this time around though; I consolidated the interior shots so you guys don’t have to click on each individual photo…Enjoy…
A shot of the Mature rear diffuser, a part that I hadn’t heard of or seen until that day… Larger Version (1400×933)
A couple bonus desktop images for you guys…
Thanks for looking…
The Return of Toyota Relevancy…
Well, it’s official…Toyota is back in the realm of consumer existence thanks to the newly announced Toyota GT 86. While this isn’t a site about Toyotas, I believe the announcement of this car is important enough to make note of on The Chronicles. I’ll leave the press images for the sites that had first dibs on them and I will link them later, but today I’m just going to give my thoughts on the 86. I personally, love the way that it looks. I know a lot of skeptics out there were complaining that it wouldn’t look anything like the FRS/FT-86 concept upon release but it looks pretty close. There were a lot of pieces of the concept car that wouldn’t be road legal just based on design so I think Toyota/Subaru did a good job with the final variation of the car. The motor is a Subaru Boxer-4 which is cool and definitely different from the economical Toyota engines of the past. I love that Toyota finally got with the times and created a vehicle with Subaru that had the younger generation in mind. It’s nice to see a car that comes straight from the factory with the younger consumers in mind that don’t care for Kei cars or boxy looking gas savers. The best thing about the 86 is that Toyota wants owners to modify them and to “express” themselves in their automotive forms. Honda has taken a lot of heat in the past for not caring for enthusiasts like us so it’s great to see Toyota embracing the idea that their newly released GT 86 will be modified and modified extensively.
I see a lot of people, who are making themselves sound awfully uneducated by the way, complaining about how the GT 86 looks nothing like the legendary AE86 and how they should have done what Dodge and Chevy did. While that seems like a novel idea, the fact that Toyota would attempt to make a car in the year 2012 and try to make it look like an early 80s era economy car is just out right ridiculous. Can you imagine how unattractive this car would look like if it had the lines or any resemblance to a AE86 Hachi Roku? You have to remember that the Corolla was never built to be a profoundly timeless looking sports car like say, a Camaro or Challenger. Camaros were mainstream American icons. An AE86, while legendary within the tuning community, is by no means a worldly-recognized “icon”. It’s developed quite a following over time but it is by no means anywhere near the realm of being an iconic to anyone who isn’t into imports. The GT 86 carries the “86″ moniker because it’s considered Toyotas return into the sport compact world in rear-wheel drive form. That should be the only resemblance it has to an AE86. An AE86, while greatly respected for it’s tuning potential, was never a great looking car with great lines. You had to put work into making it look good.
Just be happy that Toyota even cares about the enthusiasts and the aftermarket tuning community. They were busy making Camrys and Avalons and cars like the last generation Celica, which was popular for maybe a year or two at the most. The fact that they have brought an affordable sport compact, rear-wheel drive vehicle back is a wonderful thing. I’m very excited to see what companies and enthusiasts will do to these cars in the future. There are so many possibilities of great things for this platform and it is going to take the tuning community by storm. Who cares if it doesn’t look anything like an AE86 Corolla? The GT 86 isn’t exactly a terrible looking car by any stretch of the imagination. Congrats Toyota, you may have just made yourself relevant again. Camrys and trucks and what not are great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s nice to finally release a car that people are excited about.
Below are links to official photos and press photos of the GT 86 in production form….also check out the video…thanks for looking…
OFFICIAL PHOTOS OF THE TOYOTA GT 86 VIA MOTOR TREND…
TOYOTA 86 FIRST DRIVE AND IMPRESSIONS VIA SPEEDHUNTERS…
Exclusive Content…Unpublished Photos of Cody Chan’s Miata from Super Street Oct. ’11…
I really wanted to post these up awhile back after the October issue of Super Street dropped but I’ve had so much other stuff to post up lately that I didn’t want this to get lost in the mix. One of the reasons why I wanted to get this up sooner was because I was really happy with these photos, and also because the owner, Cody Chan, has been asking to see the rest of the photos. We took a lot of photos that day and I told him early on that there would be a lot that wouldn’t be used when it was published. He understood and I told him that after the issue drops, I’ll get the unused ones up for him to see. He doesn’t follow this site at all but I’ve known Cody for quite some time now. We used to have a similar group of mutual friends but Cody was much younger than so we didn’t really hang out that much…
One day, while I was looking through some event coverage at some random event, I spotted this Miata and I really liked it. I don’t really see Miatas that often because the community seems to be relatively reserved and tight, meaning that they don’t really mix with other crowds. I loved the way this particular Miata looked because of it’s raw aggression. It’s a Miata and they get a bad wrap, but this one just looked fucking beefy, you know? You’ll see in the pics that follow if you didn’t catch the story in Super Street. The car has it’s flaws but one of the reasons why this car works well as a total package is because it’s raw and rough around the edges. Cody takes it to the canyons and beats the shit out of it and the aesthetics and functionality of the car work very well together. When I saw this car earlier in the year, I had no idea it was Cody’s because I haven’t seen him in such a long time and didn’t know that his car had seen such a drastic transformation. I’ll be perfectly honest, when I first met Cody, I wasn’t a big fan of his Miata…he was young and was still trying to figure out what direction he wanted to go with the car so there were just a lot of different things going on with the car that just didn’t work together. He’s grown up along with his car and it’s good to see that he’s finally gotten the grasp of what he likes. After I saw the photo online of this Miata, I knew that I wanted to do a story on it for one of the magazines, whether it be for Super Street or Import Tuner. I hit up Cody after I found out it was his and left the decision up to him as to which magazine he wanted to be in, because they were both interested in doing something on the car. He ended up going with Super Street and I’m happy to say that I got to shoot it and do the story on it because this is one of my favorite personal shoots that I’ve done since I started shooting. Ironically, my top personal favorite car that I’ve shot was Ka Wong’s orange AE86 Corolla, and he too was on Volk TE37Vs….Maybe I’m just a huge fan of the wheels and the cars they go on, who knows…haha…This shoot also marks the first time I’ve ever shot out in the canyons. I don’t know my way around those parts but Cody was pretty familiar so he navigated us to the appropriate areas to shoot. I wanted to shoot in the canyons and not a more public place like downtown L.A. because it fits the theme of the vehicle better. Anyways, it’s a very unique car and I’m glad to bring these photos to you guys today. There are little details that I think are easily overlooked in print, so you get to see them today…
Basically all the shots that you are seeing today were unpublished and not used in the Super Street story, so go to the link above to see the original images that were used. The ones that are repeated are just a couple of the interior shots that are hard to see on the SS online page because they don’t resize correctly and come out really small when you click on them. I’ve also attached two 1080P-sized desktop images for you guys, if you want to switch up your desktop…Enjoy, and thanks to Cody Chan and Super Street magazine for making all this possible…
Links to larger versions of each photo are provided under each image like usual…
OH, AND PLEASE DON’T BE A LOWLIFE PIECE OF SHIT AND STEAL MY CONTENT AND POST THEM AS YOUR OWN…
Love this stencil of the iconic “Great Wave Off Kanagawa” on the end of the wing… Larger Version (1400×933)
A couple of bonus desktop images for you guys…
Thanks for looking….
Autofashion VIP Festival 2011 Coverage…Part 1…
About a couple hours ago, I made the decision to go ahead and go through the photos from this year’s VIP Festival and get those up first before we get to the SEMA coverage. One of the main reasons behind that decision is because there are just so many photos from SEMA. I’m going to have to divide those up and it’ll take multiple parts before we can get through all of it. The Autofashion VIP Festival provided a lot of good photos so I figured it would be better to get those out to you first. SEMA photos are floating around already but the VIP Festival just happened on Sunday, so you probably haven’t seen anything up about that yet. There’s only around 70 photos or so from the event as well so we can knock that out in the next two days. The SEMA coverage will take up a bulk of the next two weeks so be prepared for that….
Anyways, let’s get going with part one of the Autofashion VIP Festival…
I try to make it a point to come out to any event that Freddie from Autofashion puts together. We’ve known eachother for quite some time now and we have always made it a point to support eachother. He’s taken time out of his schedule the last two years to come help me out at my anniversary meets so it’s only right that I make the trek down to San Diego to be a part of his annual VIP Festival events. I’ve been in love with the VIP-style of tuning since the early 2000s and I’m happy to see how big the scene has grown throughout the years. One of the main reasons behind it’s growth is due in part to Freddie and Autofashion. They laid the groundwork for the VIP scene years ago and Autofashion has developed quite the following since then. The annual VIP Festival happens the Sunday after SEMA every year because it’s easier to get everyone out to San Diego since they are already in the same general area. A lot of VIP enthusiasts are out in Vegas for the SEMA show already so it makes sense to make the drive down to check out the event…
I’ll be honest, I was pretty worn out from the entire week in Vegas but I wasn’t about to just lay in bed all day and miss out on the VIP Festival. We all made the trip out there last year and it was a great time so it was definitely something I was looking forward to. The last couple days in Vegas, it had already begun to rain so on Sunday morning, I woke up to check the weather reports and it showed no indication of rain until the evening. I called up DPK David to see if he was ready to roll and he didn’t believe me when I told him it wasn’t raining in San Diego. I don’t blame him because we were just about an hour and a half away from the event and it was pouring where we were at. I grabbed some breakfast with May and left with a sense of optimism because I really didn’t want it to rain. I was worried the event would be dead because of it so I looked online and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was not only busy, but it also wasn’t raining. I picked up DPK David as well as Rywire Ryan and the four of us headed down to San Diego. The whole drive down was pretty intense because of the rain in our area but we were looking forward to arriving to a nice, dry, VIP Festival. I kept telling everyone in the car that it wasn’t going to rain but a couple miles away from the freeway exit, the rain was still coming down pretty consistently…. Turns out that we were basically racing the storm the entire time and it beat us to the meet. When we arrived at Autofashion, it started to come down pretty hard but luckily for us, the guys at Falken Tire were there with a booth that provided us coverage from the rain….
All the cars were soaked by the time we got there but at least it made for some interesting photos…
It was pretty gloomy and gray which was a stark contrast to the Facebook photos we saw posted from the event earlier on in the day…
One thing that was really surprising was the sheer number of cars that were there and remained there even through the storm…
…it was a great example of how devoted people are to Freddie and the Autofashion family. Many of these cars would never even touch the rain on a regular day, let alone sit out in torrential downpour…
One of the cars that I was excited to see was the debut of this Aurora Flare Blue Pearl Y33 Q45, which belongs to VIPstylecars forum member Tony aka “Blitz”…I met him while I was standing under a random canopy hiding from the rain and he was a pretty nice guy…I was really hoping the rain would stop for just a quick moment so I could go take a closer look at his car but in the mean time, all I could do was look at it from a distance…
SL65 AMG pulling into the VIP Festival…Only way to out-floss all the nice Japanese VIP builds is to pull up in a 12-cylinder European beast…
Kevin from Autofashion and “Miss VIP Festival” Julie Mai checking out the event… Julie looked pretty upbeat walking around in the storm…
…while this dog wasn’t particularly happy to be drenched…
5&A Dime and the Dudeblvd crew were on hand to show support…
Enrique Rosario and Natalie attempting to stick it out…
Tetsuya Yamaguchi from USDM Jam/Yamaz Store flew out from Japan for the 2011 SEMA show and decided to stop by the VIP Festival…
The first couple shots are pretty random because I spent a chunk of time under the Falken Tire tent just getting whatever I could with the 70-200mm lens…I wasn’t afraid of getting drenched or anything, I just wasn’t really down with getting my camera wet but eventually I sucked it up and started walking around when the rain let up a bit…
I walked out and ran into my old high school buddy Dennis Kiyan and snapped this photo of Jay Borcena’s Acura TL while I was chatting with him…
Really love this TRD widebody SW20 MR-2 but I really wish he would just fix that wing already…
I’ve always had a soft spot for the Y34 Infiniti M chassis…I was trying to find one actually when I was looking for a car to build a couple years back until I landed on the Y33 Q45 I have now…
This Aimgain-equipped LS from Arizona was one of my favorite cars at SEMA so it was great to see it at the Festival…
Blitz’s Y33…I can’t say I’ve ever been a fan of Weds Kranze LX-Zs but they look amazing on his Q…The Aurora Flare Blue Pearl paint is a color from a 2012 Nissan GT-R that’s supposed to have a really cool effect when the sun hits it. I would not see that cool effect that day because of the obvious…
Even though Leon Casino has never personally built a VIP ride, it didn’t stop him from making the trip down to SD to show his support…
The Lexus 2GS chassis was definitely one of the most popular at the VIP Festival…
This magenta/fuscia/hot pink-toned G35 was definitely interesting, especially with the gold Leon Hardiritt Ordens…
Really liked this 2GS on Weds Kranze Bazreias…
Meanwhile back at the Falken Tire tent, Ryan was bragging about how he found a pair of dry socks in his snowboarding jacket…
Dennis Kiyan’s M45…
Absolutely loved everything about this LS….the attention to detail is awesome and something that many VIP guys overlook…More on this car in the SEMA 2011 coverage later…
I personally would never build a pink car on gold wheels but I have to say, I like this G35 a lot…the kit is not too over the top and the wheels aren’t poking out all ridiculously…
Silver 2GS on Eurolines from the crew “Royal Flush”…
Hakosuka Skyline GT-R that’s popped-up at numerous events this year…
JonJon’s supercharged IS350…
Oscar aka “Pancakes” Y33 Q45…
Big fan of this VIP Acura TL…love the custom kit and fender work…
Great wheel fitment on this 2GS…Interesting how he incorporated the JDM sidemarker lights into his vented front fender instead of shaving the hole like many would…Makes for a cool look since people just expect you to shave everything and delete things these days…
Q45 belonging to VIPstylecars forum member “Brokey33″…
…his Weds Kranze Cerberus wheels with custom Z32 300ZX brake calipers “bedazzled” with Swarovski crystals…
Q45 also repping VIPDOUT…I actually went and checked out their website and it’s got some pretty cool shit on it… check it out here if you’re into VIP stuff….
Gonna cut it off here for now…Definitely coming back with the second and final portion of the 2011 VIP Festival Coverage…thanks for looking…
Old school gems…
Any one that really knows me and knows what I’m about understands that while I have a true love for Hondas, I am a very big fan of all Japanese imports and just cars in general. I started out in the Toyota community, jumped into Hondas and just fell in love, and now I own a Nissan/Infiniti. I’ve been involved with all facets in the scene, shot cars for print from all makes and models and one of my favorites parts of my job and being an enthusiasts is seeing the wide variety of modified vehicles that are out there. One particular genre that I am really fascinated with is the old school car community. Man, I just love these things….There’s just something about a slammed, old school Toyota, Nissan, etc., that has a certain appeal to it. When they have crazy swaps and custom engine bays that makes things better of course, but often times, the cars just being in pristine original condition is great to see. I missed out on the Japanese Classic Car Show this year but while I was scrounging through Flickr the other night, I caught a very nice collection of Japanese classics from some classic car gatherings in Japan. As you know, I recently found Koji Karimata’s Flickr gallery when I was looking for photos of the Hellaflush Japan event. Well he is also a huge Japanese car fanatic and goes to all sorts of different events out there. He seems to have a fascination with old school Japanese cars as well and today, I will be showing you guys some of my favorites from his Flickr page. Like the Hellaflush photos, many of these are in their RAW format straight from his camera so I’ve taken the liberty of cleaning them up and re-sizing them to fit the format of this site…I don’t know all the names of all the cars I’m posting up, simply because a majority of these cars never made it over here stateside but I will try my best to give you guys some information about the cars….Enjoy, and I hope you like Japanese classics as much as I do…
This is by far one of my favorites…Second generation Mazda Cosmo AP or outside of Japan, known as the Mazda RX-5…It’s cool to see these because well, you’ve probably never seen one before and also because of the distinct styling cues that are on-point with how a majority of the late 70s-early 80s vehicles looked…It’s crazy how immaculate this one looks and to think that these cars came with the 13B rotary engines that later went on to become world-renowned in the RX-7s…
Not 100% sure what this is but I thought it was a good look with the fender flares and all. I want to say it’s a C210 Skyline but again, not too sure….If anyone knows, feel free to post up…
This is a C110 Skyline or what many call a “Kenmeri” Skyline which nickname is derived from a commercial during those days that featured characters called Ken and Mary, hence the name “Kenmeri“…
A couple of Datsun B210s…one a coupe and the other sedan, both on old school SSR wheels…I find these to be pretty interesting looking even though I think the original B210 chassis in completely stock form is hideously unattractive…
Really wish I knew the name of this car as well…love the interior though and how it’s just planted on the ground…Perhaps it’s a Toyota Crown coupe?
Datsun 510 with a lot of modern day touches…
A couple of “Hakosuka” Skyline GT-Rs…perhaps the most popular and well-known of the older Skylines pre-R32…
Slammed Toyopet Crown sedan…
Unsure of what this is but it’s definitely interesting…
Cool little Subaru R-2…
Another pair of Hakosuka Skyline GT-Rs…first one is on Watanabes and second looks to be on some SSR Longchamp XR4s….
This one is also a C10 Skyline or Hakosuka, but a 2000GT sedan…
This wild looking thing is an old Nissan Laurel SGX coupe… Dual Factory, which you can see represented on multiple cars here, pumps out some fucking, awesome old school builds….
Early 80s-era Corolla on some widened OEM Toyota wheels…
Mazda Carol kei car that was produced from ’62-70…
One of my favorite old school imports of all-time…second generation (E20) Toyota Corolla/Sprinter…It’s always a pleasure when I get to see one of these in person. Love the fender flares and just the overall styling of the Corollas back then…way better than in the late 80s to now Corolla because those things were just plain boring. The ’91 Corolla my dad had was a fucking champ though, he drove and crashed the living shit out of it and it still ran…There were a couple times when he crashed it and came home, tied some rope/chain to the front end, and used a Toyota 4Runner to pull and straighten it out…haha, the guy was a fucking mad man…totally reliable car but nowhere remotely as cool looking as these older Corolla/Sprinters…
Gonna close out this post with a Honda N360 with some aggressive SSR MK2s….looks wild with the flares and what looks to be the header coming through the front grille…
That’s all for today, hope you guys enjoy this trip in history…if not, go start your own blog, haha…
Exclusive Content…Unpublished Photos of Henry Mendez’s Corolla from Super Street Sept. ’11…
Got a major announcement coming your way next week regarding the 3-year Chronicles Anniversary Celebration…if you’re a fan of The Chronicles, then you won’t want to miss out on it…
Anyways, for this weekend I thought I’d pass along this photos that were unpublished from the September 2011 issue of Super Street magazine. I had the opportunity to shoot and do the story for this 1971 Toyota Corolla Deluxe a couple months back before the summer started. It’s a very special shoot for me because the people directly involved were not only people that I knew, but the owner of the car is actually a friend of mine. I know, I know, the whole cliche’ of “it’s all about who you know in the industry” immediately jumps into your mind but allow me to explain. I shot Henry Mendez’s ’71 Corolla not because he was a friend of mine, but because of the fact that the car holds a very special meaning in his heart. Our friend Armando Flores Jr. passed away a little over 2 years ago and this Corolla is a rolling dedication to his memory. Henry had always told Mando that he would bring the Corolla around again after he had lost interest in it but Armando never had the opportunity to see it again. Henry is a man of his word and promised him that he would bring the car back out someday and after Flores passed away tragically, he decided to revive the Corolla in his memory. The story explains it all and I’ve attached a link to the original article in Super Street below. While I will never be as close to Armando Flores Jr. as Henry and some of my other friends were, I felt that it was a heart-warming story that had to be told to the world. Often times this whole car “scene” is so deeply entrenched in competition that we take the people in our lives for granted. This is one of those stories that reminds us that the people that we consider our friends are an essential part of our lives and well-being. To me, this story is special because it focuses on the human condition and our ability to devote ourselves to something that is bigger than any material thing. Armando was an amazing friend and person, so it was an incredibly untimely and unexpected event when he was taken away from us. Everyone that knew him dealt with his passing in different ways, and for Henry Mendez, bringing this car back to life was his way of dealing. To him, this was the appropriate way to honor his life. Cars were always a huge part of Armando’s life, so Henry committed himself to a hobby they shared together because he knew how important it was to his friend…
So many times you open the page of a magazine and you get a quick rundown of the parts on the car and a small introduction to the owner. I love to tell a story and it’s a greater feeling when I can tell you a story that means something, you know? It’s very important to remember the people that inspire us everyday. As I stated in the story, the car isn’t the greatest thing ever built, nor is it 100% pristine showroom condition…that’s okay though, because no one ever tried to make you believe that the car was anything more than it was. It’s what the car meant to Henry, and what it meant to Armando. Hopefully I did a good enough job translating that to you guys, who took the time out of your day to read it. Another moment that I thought was important was that Armando’s father was there. I’ve had the chance to spend some time with Armando Flores Sr. and he’s definitely unique in his own right, and every bit as much of a car guy as his son was. One of the things that I admire about Armando Sr. the most was his ability to understand everything that was important to his son, and continue to basically live his life through his son’s eyes. He knew his son was into photography, so he picked up a camera and learned to use it…he knew how important his friends were to him, so he took the time to get to know his friends and they became his friends…he knew how his son had a fascination with Hondas and cars in general, so he hopped in his son’s S2000 and is slowly continuing on with the build and continues to drive the car often. There’s no better way to honor the life of someone, than to live it through their eyes and to see things from a point-of-view other than your own. I have enormous amounts of respect for that and it warms my heart every time I think about it. For him to be at the shoot and be able to be in a photograph with Henry was a big thing for me. We have all lost somebody at one point or another, but I hope no matter what, we have all been able to look back and remember them, and appreciate what they meant to us and smile. I hope that by doing this story, it will be forever be a standing memory of Armando Flores Jr. and I really honestly hope that every time Henry looks at this particular story, he can remember the great times he had with his friend…
With that said, here are some extra shots from the September 2011 issue of Super Street magazine. For the original story and photos, please click below…
“A LIFE REMEMBERED” -Super Street Sept. 2011
At the end, I’ve also attached a 1080P sized desktop wallpaper for you guys…
Henry Mendez and Armando Flores Sr….. Larger Version (1400×933)
This was actually a group shot of all of us that I took just for personal use and just for us so it was never submitted to Super Street mag, I just thought it was a cool shot…(hence the different border and marking)…. Larger Version (1400×933)
Widescreen desktop shot bonus….
Widescreen Version (1920×1080)
Thanks for looking…
Exclusive Content…Unpublished Photos of Peter & Theresa’s LS14 from Super Street Aug. ’11…
Got some unused shots from the August 2011 issue of Super Street for you guys today…I’m sure you guys have seen plenty of this car by now. It’s been at all the major Socal car shows and meets this entire summer and has been a consistent winner of award. It’s a very basic set-up in terms of modifications, with a different mix of styles. The build is unique in that it encompasses style traits from a drift-themed S14, with a touch of Japanese VIP styling, and an all-American GM LS1 motor under the hood. One of the coolest things about it is that the car is driven a majority of the time by it’s female co-owner. Peter and Theresa built this thing together but she’s definitely the one that sees the most seat-time in it….
When I first shot these photos, I was pretty happy with the results. It was a pretty quick shoot at a very quiet location. Since the car had a lot of Earth tones to it, I tried to edit the photos in a way where it had a similar feel. For the story, I wanted to have a little fun with it and went a different direction than what most are used to and I think the story complimented the photos well. Overall, I was really happy with how it came out when it hit the newstands. The owner(s) were easy to talk to and chill, the car was easy to shoot, nobody drove by and bothered me while I was shooting since it was a pretty secluded spot…all in all, I had a good time doing it. It’s one of those shoots that remind me how fun my job really is. When the magazine dropped Peter and Theresa couldn’t have been happier with it so that makes the satisfaction of producing a good story even more gratifying. Below is a link to the original story on the Super Street website. If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you take a couple minutes to read it because it’s a pretty cool story. The published photos are also on their site in a pretty large format as well. The ones I have attached are the shots that weren’t used and at the end I’ve also included a 1080P-sized wallpaper for you guys…
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ORIGINAL STORY FROM SUPER STREET MAGAZINE
Same rules apply as usual, click the links below for higher resolution, larger format images…
Widescreen desktop shot for you guys….
Widescreen Version (1920×1080)
Thanks for looking…
Read this shit…
Tada!…back with another new issue of Super Street magazine. This month you should be picking it up if you’re a Nissan head or a big fan of all cars in general because there are some pretty good stories lined up for this August issue. I just finished taking a look at it myself and I’m pretty happy with it. I only did one story for the mag this month but it’s a good one. I first spotted this S14 at the Need for Speed: Shift launch event at the Source Interlink offices. I didn’t get a chance to talk to the owner(s) at the time but when Jonathan Wong hit me up to go do a story on the car, I was more than happy to go shoot it. What made the whole thing so easy was that they’re local to my area so meeting up wasn’t an issue at all, like many cases in our industry. It was so convenient, that Big Mike decided to look himself in DPK David’s backyard for 45 minutes the morning he was supposed to go with me to the shoot, which made for some interesting conversations when we arrived at the shoot. In any case, I’m very happy with the photos this month and the story is quite an interesting one. You guys know how I get down with the storytelling so expect epic greatness, haha. It’s a very nice, simple build with a lot of elements that you wouldn’t normally expect from 240SX owners. The couple who owns it are very nice people as well and today we can still say what’s up to eachother without that random awkward gap during conversations where you want to leave but can’t because you want to be nice, haha…you guys know what I mean. They’re cool peeps and I talk to them all the time whenever I see them at events and it was a pleasure having the opportunity to immortalize their build in print. Congrats to them and be sure to pick up the issue….
To commemorate this event and since it’s a July 4th weekend, here is a widescreen desktop-sized version of one of the images that didn’t make it into the issue. Enjoy, and thanks for looking! Check out this months editorial from JDM Wong himself for his thoughts on the whole “SUPPORT PRINT” movement as well as an introduction of one of the newest Super Street staff members…
Read this shit. That is all.
Oh this time around, I went with like a very natural “earth tone” sort of feel being that the car is an olive-like tone and the wheels and all that shit with trees in the background, okay bye….
“Thought patterns consist of boss matters…”
HeyMikeyyyy really requires no introduction. Within the Honda community, he’s become a very familiar name and he hasn’t had a Honda for a couple years now. I’ve known Mikeyyyy for probably over 6 years now and he’s one of my closest homies. Even though he never picks up his phone, I know I can rely on him whenever I need something. He and Tina have been a welcome staple in my life and I always enjoy their company. Many of you know Mikeyyyy, but not that many of you actually know Mikeyyyy, if you know what I mean. DPK David and I were actually talking about this over the weekend when we were all on vacation in Catalina Island. He’s a good man, a great friend, and I appreciate the fact that I can call him a friend. He’s had this Scion xB for awhile now, as long as I’ve known him he’s always had this thing. I don’t know if anyone of you know, but he’s had this xB even long before he had any intentions of building a Honda. The Integra was a cool build but the Scion, I think, has always been his favorite. That’s why he’s had it for so long and never had any intentions of getting rid of it.
Another reason why he never tried to get rid of it was because the car was always fucked up, haha. Oh man, this thing has been through so many stages. The stages that I remember them being in were as follows….it started out fucked up, then got more fucked up, then he fixed it, then it got more fucked up, and then he fixed it again and that’s how it stands today. It’s been in so many stages of “fucked-up” because he’s never been afraid to take any risks and to push the limits of the car, especially when it came to wheel fitment. I remember a time when he had some red Work Meister S1s on it with some cut springs and the wheels sat so aggressively that when he drove on the freeway, the lips of the wheels would hit the fenders and spark. He didn’t even have to hit a bump or anything, the shit would just hit and spark. Definitely not the smartest thing to do but hey, we all grow up and learn along the way. Now he’s on air suspension finally and has his fenders modified and radius’d in such a way that he can literally drive and turn full lock end to end with the car aired all the way down. It’s a crazy sight to see if you haven’t seen the car in person. I almost think that the car looks better when it’s rolling because it just doesn’t make sense how the car can actually drive on the street hammered to the floor. Many of you will probably swear up and down that this xB isn’t functional and that it’s stupid, but hey, function is in the eye of the beholder. It is a fucking Scion xB; it’s not going to see the track any time soon and it’s main purpose is to be a street cruiser. The function, in essence, is to be a street car and that’s definitely what it is. Mikeyyyy put this xB together with his own sense of taste and style and it functions and performs the way HE intended it to. It’s a little wild and probably wayyyy over the top for some of you but you can’t deny the work that was involved to get this xB to this point. Some of the shit he tells me that he has planned to the car even makes me scratch my head sometimes but Mikeyyyy pulls it off. Some of the ideas that goes through this guy’s head makes no sense sometimes but it turns it into reality…
The car belongs on some stance blogs or whatever sites that are focused on wheel fitment alone but today, you’re only going to see these shots here on The Chronicles. I recently was at work doing a shoot for Super Street magazine and Mikeyyyy came out to chill with Salem, Tina, and some other homies. The shoot ended up going really well and wrapped up early so it left me with some time to get some shots of Mikeyyyy’s xB. The location was cool and I already had all the equipment ready so it was as easy as him just rolling up to the spot and me taking the photos. They’re nothing special and there aren’t any dynamic angles or anything, we just wanted to get some shots of the car since I rarely have an opportunity to do so and Mikeyyyy also needed some close-up wheel shots for his Dipped-Parts.com website. The car was kinda dirty because he drives it all the time and it kind of shows in the photos…oh and yes, the wheels are two different colors on each side. He’s always wanted to add color to his CCWs but just never got around to it. Now that he has a booming parts-dipping and plating business, it was the perfect time to show the type of work that he can do. If you ever need anything chrome-plated, powder-coated, dipped, or even gold plated, be sure to head over to DippedParts.com…Tell him that StickyDilJoe sent you and he won’t give a shit but still cut you a good deal on his services…
Usual rules apply, click on the links below for the larger versions. I’ve even attached a full-screen 1080P desktop wallpaper for you guys at the bottom, enjoy…
Desktop-sized image for you guys…
Widescreen Version (1920×1080)
Thanks for looking…
There’s work to be done…
Trying to knock out some work for Super Street today….Definitely not ideal weather to be sitting by my desk by a hot ass window in nearly 90 degree Socal weather but hey, I can’t complain. Got a chance to meet Peter Vong and his fiancee’ recently while I was shooting their car for SS. Very cool couple with lots to say…Went to one of my old spots to shoot at again since I haven’t been there in awhile and it was the most convenient place to meet up at since they’re from an area not too far away. Big Mike came out to help me as usual but ended up causing us to arrive almost 30 minutes late because he somehow managed to get himself trapped inside DPK David’s backyard. How it happened is a much longer story than I have time to tell right now but he was basically locked inside the backyard until David decided to answer his phone and come out to let him out…Shit was so random that you can’t even make that stuff up. I almost left his ass too, haha…Have a good day guys and stay cool.
Some Guy’s Q45, This Other Guy’s Corolla, and Introducing Sheila…
Well, the last couple weeks off have been good but work is starting to trickle in again so I’ll be back to my usual late nights writing and editing away. I have a shoot for Super Street this weekend too and it’ll be my first time shooting this type of car for print so I’m actually pretty excited about it. The car isn’t a Honda but the owner actually knows of this site and follows it regularly, which is pretty cool. There really hasn’t been much Honda news lately or any major events for me to post up coverage of so I’ve been spending my time helping out Tony from ItsJDMYo!!!. He’s had some time off work recently as well because he was recovering from back surgery but he’s really been trying to get his site moving again since he’s been able to walk around without any pain. He’s got a huge 1-year anniversary meet planned and he wanted to get some cars together so that his photographer Gilbert could take some shots to possibly use for the event flyer. He’s also been wanting to shoot my Q45 for the longest time for his site as well but we just haven’t been able to get around to it. Tony knows a guy over at Power Toyota in Cerritos and he convinced them to let us use their warehouse to shoot inside. The warehouse is also where his event will take place so having Gilbert shoot the flyer shots there made perfect sense. He asked that I bring my car over so that it could be a part of the flyer and since we had access to the warehouse, it was an opportune time to shoot just my car as well.
Tony was pretty happy with my shots of Amy Fay and the Spirit Rei/Mastermind Odyvia so he asked that I shoot my own car for the site as well as for a possible poster. He was model scouting at one of the cafes a couple months back and he spotted our model today, Sheila, and asked her if she was interested in possibly doing some work for his site. She was cool with it so he decided that he would use her for the shoot with my car and here we are today. She had never done any kind of “import modeling” before, which made her really nervous during the shoot, but we made it work. I just do the work behind the camera so all the posing and what not and conversing with the model was left up to Tony. I think we ended up with some pretty good photos. It’s weird shooting my own car but I guess it’s finally nice to get some decent shots of it for my own collection. Tony has already posted up is flyer for his meet and I’ll probably post details up of it on here if you guys haven’t already seen the flyer floating around on Facebook as well as other parts of the web. Noel and Bert from Phaze2 were there as well that day and I already posted the shot of Bert’s STI a couple days back. You can go back a couple posts and read about why there was only one shot of his car and how much of a shitty day he was having. Noel however, is a photographer for Canibeat and was on hand to help me out with setting up. Big Mike is usually the guy that helps me but he was too busy talking to Sheila that day so he was no help, haha. That and he was responsible for driving DPK David’s Civic to the shoot that day and he was mad that David’s coupe wasn’t starting for whatever reason. The first shots are of my car and Sheila, wearing a dress provided by Lalaboutique and at the end I’ve included some shots of Noel’s Corolla with Sheila again, wearing a different outfit. Sheila works at Cafe Temptation if you guys ever want to stop by there and chill. She’s a cool chick…and I think she did a good job her first time doing some modeling. Anyways, check out the photos…same rules apply as usual. Click on the links below for larger images…
Both Tony and I usually like to get a group shot during the shoots. Ryan from Rywire showed up that day to hang out with us as well so that’s why he’s in the shot. The Barnum brothers didn’t want to be in the picture because they’re either scared of girls and/or larger sized asian dudes…
It was a good experience overall. I always enjoy helping Tony out and doing shoots with him because it’s genuinely just a good time. I really want his site to grow and get better so I’m always down to help him out…thanks for looking. That’s a wrap for today…
Moving progressively…
What up everyone, I’m spending the rest of my day enjoying the NBA Playoffs on TV as well as devoting most of the night to finishing up my write-up and interview for Speedhunters.com. The interview should be a pretty interesting read. I don’t know how the general audience is over there but you guys who follow this site closely already know how I feel about certain things and I’ve made no mistake about voicing my opinion on important topics that are relative to the Honda community. I’ve noticed that there is a pretty broad audience over there on that site and I’ve noticed that there also seems to be quite a bit of ignorance just from reading people’s comments after certain posts. I don’t know if it has to do with the age range being large and mostly younger kids commenting or what, but it’ll be interesting to see what people say once they throw up the interview that I wrote. I’m gonna take it with a grain of salt though and just let those people speak their minds, no matter how crazy or naive it’ll sound…
With that said I just got a couple more things to show you guys today…
I absolutely love Bert’s STI…he’s one of the latest additions to the Phaze2 family and his STI looks great on the white BBS wheels. When I found out that he and his brother Noel were heading out to the shoot that I was at last week, I was pretty excited because it meant that I could get a couple shots of it for everyone and put them on the site. It’s also a very easy car to shoot as well so it would take me little to no time to snap some shots of it inside the Power Toyota of Cerritos warehouse. Tony needed a couple of cars to show up for the shoot because we needed shots for his 1-year anniversary event flyer and some individuals ended up not being able to make it so the Barnum brothers came through for us. Everything was going smoothly until Bert decided to have the worst day ever. I ended up only getting the photo you see above of Bert’s STI because he managed to somehow curb his wheels at the gas station just moments before he arrived at the shoot. Some of you might be thinking that it’s an easy photoshop fix to remove the curb marks but he hit this concrete island at the gas station so hard that he managed to not only curb his wheels but also took a pretty huge chunk out of the rear wheel. It was pretty bad, I’m not even going to try to sugar coat it. The fucking wheel bent in the back. Shit was horrible. The front was nearly as bad but it was still curbed pretty hard. I didn’t even want to attempt to take a pic of the car because it would be a pain in the ass trying to photoshop the curb marks out. If that wasn’t bad enough, Bert decided to be a cool guy and try to skateboard while I was shooting, using Daizo from ItsJDMYo!!!’s skateboard, and he totally fucking ate it. My eye was on the viewfinder on my camera and I looked up because it sounded like he broke his fucking legs or something, haha. It was not a good day for Bert…at all. And all we have to show for it is this one picture…*sigh*… Great looking car though…hopefully the next time we meet up we can yield some better results…
Another reason why I was at the Power Toyota warehouse was to shoot some pictures of my car for Tony. He’s been wanting to do a little feature on it for his site for awhile now but we just never got around to doing it. It’s one of those things like last week’s post featuring Amy Fay where we wanted to do some posters for future use and Tony thought my car would make a good poster. Who better to shoot my car then, well…myself. I already had all the equipment and I don’t live too far away from Tony so it just worked out. He invited a girl he met recently at Temptation Cafe and wanted to get her to try to do some modeling for the poster. She had never done any sort of “import modeling” before so we could all tell that she was pretty nervous. I haven’t really had a chance to go through the photos yet but below is a real quick edit of a couple photos and outtakes mashed together into one shot. Overall I think we got some good shots out of the night but we will all have to wait and see until I go through all of them. I’ll also throw up some more information on the ItsJDMYo!!! 1-Year Anniversary event when I found out from Tony. We’ve been talking about the meet a lot and trying to plan things out but now we might have some issues with the location. He’s supposed to be having a meeting with Power Toyota later this week and when I get word of any news, I’ll post it up. He’s already got a bunch of people/companies/models involved so it should be a huge event. Stay tuned…
“It’s The Chronicles of a Mastermind…Yo!!!”…featuring Amy Fay and Chaba…
Alright, so I got a call maybe a week and a half ago from my boy Tony Lee over at It’s JDM Yo!!! about an offer to shoot the twin Spirit Rei Odyvias over at Mastermind. One of the Odyvias (the silver one) was set to return to Japan a couple days later so the guys over at Mastermind really wanted to get some shots of the car before it left. I had mentioned to Tony a while back that I really wanted to shoot the cars but it was locked down by some other websites/mags/etc. so it just wasn’t going to happen. Tony came through though and called me as soon as he got the word that the guys at Mastermind where down. Tony wanted to print out some new posters with these cars to give out at various events for promotional purposes. If you guys have ever come by The Chronicles booth then you will probably remember the posters that we usually give out to people. Those posters came courtesy of Tony of course and featured Phaze2 Tony’s NSX and model Chaba. The posters were a hit so Tony really wanted to get some new ones out before the show season in 2011 hit full force. One of his other photographers that shot the poster the first time around, Keith aka Keychain, couldn’t make it to the shoot so Tony asked if I could go down there and assist him since I wanted to get some shots of the Odyvias anyways. Tony has done probably a million things for me in the nearly ten years that I’ve known him so I wasn’t gonna just turn down the offer, even though I was pretty busy that week. An added incentive was that the Mastermind facilities were really close to me so it wasn’t a problem for me to get over there…
To set-up the shoot, Tony once again invited two of his favorite models, the lovely Miss Amy Fay and Chaba. These girls have always been down to support Tony and his site so even though it was short notice, they came out to shoot. Tony’s resident model photographer, Gilbert was on hand to do all the shots for his site and his videographer, Daizo, was also there to capture video of the whole day. There stuff should go up soon as well but today, we’re going to take a look at the shots I got that day. Before we begin, you should be well informed that this post is probably not safe for your viewing pleasure at work. The girls aren’t like all naked or anything or even remotely implied. I just don’t know how your boss feels about you staring at photos of females at your job on a site called “Stickydiljoe.com”, if you know what I mean…haha. You should also know that I am no model photographer. All you import model fanatics should be familiar with guys like Steve Bitanga or Rey Trajano or whoever…I am not any of those dudes. If anything I should be in front of the camera because of my boyish good looks and charming personality, haha. I just merely went out there to help out Tony and to capture some shots of my own for the site. I brought out all kinds of lighting equipment that I usually use for shoots of cars for the guys to use but Gilbert had his own equipment that he was pretty set on using so I just used my own equipment. Of course Big Mike was out there to be my assistant as usual and to chat it up with the girls…
The Mastermind guys were more than a pleasure to work with as well. Those guys over there are very generous and even bought food and everything to feed everybody. I’ve dealt with Mastermind before when I first ordered my JDM Nissan Cima front bumper from them, which unfortunately, was lost in the Midnight Garage fire. Even back then when they had no idea who I was, they were incredibly helpful and I couldn’t ask for better service. Big shout out to those guys for their courtesy and allowing us to move all kinds of things around in their facility so that we could shoot. It was a tight space but we managed to make it work. Even after the shoot we were all just chillin’ and chatting it up with them about cars and the industry and what not. If you guys need anything imported from Japan, whether it be something you saw on Yahoo! Auctions or Upgarage, be sure to hit them up. They can get stuff fast and they can basically get anything from overseas….
Check out the Mastermind website here…
I have to thank Tony of course for inviting me out there to experience the whole thing. I like working with Tony because he gives me a lot of freedom to do whatever I want at shoots and whenever we have collaborations with one another, things usually go very smoothly…
Can’t forget to thank the girls as well, they were extremely easy to work with and very professional. There were moments in the beginning of the shoot when it was a giant clusterfuck and we couldn’t decide what went where and how the lighting worked out but they were so patient and willing to wait until we got everything set. Amy was on a bit of a tight schedule because she had to go to a Laker game later that day which we all found out later that whoever took her to the game tricked her because she ended up at a Clippers game but it’s all good, everybody knows that the Clippers were more exciting to watch then the Lakers anyways…haha…Anyways, Amy was easy to shoot because I have the terrible shakes and can’t take any photos without a tripod so I just set it on a timer and walked around while she did her thing. I don’t have that many shots of Chaba because Gilbert did most of the shots for her and I was still trying to figure out my equipment while she was getting shot…
The shots are pretty random actually. I ended up only getting some shots of the car and most of the shots were of Amy. The majority of the car shots as well as the video were all done by the guys over at It’s JDM Yo!!! so consider this post more of a “behind-the-scenes” type of deal. The majority of the shots where just test shots and I’ve never really shot people outside of a candid setting so don’t expect anything great. There are also various other shots after the shoot when the Mastermind guys had some fun with one of the Odyvias in the back of their closed lot…
Enjoy, and make sure to look out for links to larger versions of the pics below. Not all of them have larger versions but many do. The ones with my usual watermark are just regular sizes. At the end I’ve also included some like “alternate” edits of various shots just because I was playing around with them in Photoshop one night when I was half asleep and they actually came out pretty good…alright, enough talking…on with the pics…
This Odyvia belongs to Mastermind and has a 500+hp LS6 motor in it, unlike the silver one, which is from Japan and has a carb’d Nissan L28 motor…
Amy Fay of course…Larger Version (933×1400)
I think this one might actually end up being the poster shot… Larger Version (1400×933)
Chaba with Amy Fay…. Larger Version (933×1400)
Rockin’ the Mastermind tees…
Group shot of everyone that was there that day at Tony’s request. The Mastermind crew with Big Mike and I and the It’s JDM Yo!!! crew. Ross from Midnight Garage was there because he likes to stare at models…haha… Larger Version (1400×933)
…and a shot with the girls and the Mastermind staff… Larger Version (1400×933)
Okay, so at one point during the beginning of the shoot, Tony pulls Gilbert aside for some secret meeting. I was wondering what they were up to but it turns out that Tony was trying to get a particular shot for the poster that he wanted. He didn’t know how to describe it to Gilbert so he took a marker and attempted to draw the shot that he wanted…the picture that he drew resulted in even more confusion. I took the liberty of taking the marker and adding hair but this is what he came up with…
…I was eating a slice of pizza when I saw this and was like “what the fuck is this?” I couldn’t possibly end the day without getting Chaba to do that exact pose though to make Tony happy…
…and this is shot that we got, down to the hair and all…haha…You can see how terrible of an artist Tony is because his drawing of the Odyvia looks like an angry train…
Now for some stuff that I got after the shoot. This was when Gilbert was getting more shots of the cars and Daizo was doing his video stuff…
Vertex steering wheel, and a MSD 6AL ignition box built into the Kenmari Skyline dashboard of the S13…
Uncommon L28 swap from an old Datsun Z…
Last shot of the car before it returns to Japan… Larger Version (1400×933)
Renderings of the Odyvia that hung on the wall of the Mastermind offices…
Test shot from my camera while Gilbert was shooting with his…
Amy Fay and Big Mike pinky-swear collabo…
Below are the alternate edits that I was talking about earlier in the post. Just some “artsy” I guess you can say, style of edits that I did while I was falling asleep. Came out pretty cool I think so I thought I’d share them with you…
Really liked this one… Larger Version (1400×933)
Candid… Larger Version (1400×933)
That’s all for today folks, thanks for looking and have a great weekend…
Oh Damn…
This is pretty cool…I got an email from Charles Kha, the editor-in-chief over at Speedhunters, and he wanted me to do something with them for the Speedhunters site since it’s Honda Month. So far there’s been some pretty decent Honda content over there from all over the world. Hopefully I can make it even better by contributing to their site. They sent me this questionnaire about the current state of the Honda community and my thoughts on the past and future of Hondas in the broader spectrum of things. I kinda tend to write more than I have to so I think it’ll be kind of difficult to narrow every question down to 1-2 sentences like they wanted but I’ll see what I can get away with. It’s cool because they also sent these questions to other industry guys like Stephan Papadakis, Katman, and Brandon Leung. For them to consider me important enough to contribute amongst guys like that is definitely an honor. Keep an eye out for that if you guys don’t follow Speedhunters regularly. I’ll be sure to post up the links here when I get the stuff completed and they post it up. They also wanted me to do like a guest blog entry too with images and what not. I’m still thinking about what to do for that but I’m sure it won’t be any different from what you’re used to seeing here….
Other than that, the Mastermind shoot pics are going live early tomorrow morning and I’m also knocking out the last of the orders before I send them all out. If you guys ordered something you will be receiving it very soon. Sorry for the delay, things as you know, have been a bit on the hectic side here. I also have to go to another shoot tonight with Tony and the ItsJDMYO!!! guys. Tony’s been wanting to shoot my car for the longest time and do some video on it so we decided that today would be the best time to do it since he locked down a location to shoot at…
Ok, anyways, I’m sure you guys have seen this post all over the web by now but the Scion FR-S concept (better known to the public as the Toyota FT-86 concept) was officially unveiled at the New York Auto Show yesterday and it looks fucking amazing. I rarely ever get excited for anything Toyota releases nowadays since they’re so geared towards the economy sedan/family car market but when this car was announced, I was pretty interested to see what they would come up with. Having it unveiled under the Scion brand was a bit out of left field but I guess it makes sense since the Scion name is directed more towards the younger market. There has been some minor tweaks to the car itself since it was first unveiled to the world as the FT-86 so that means that it’s getting closer and closer to production. Hopefully the production model looks nearly the same as this car because it would be a shame to see it “humanized” so-to-speak. It’s rare for concepts to reach production in the same state so I guess we will have to wait and see what they change in the future. I know the wheels will definitely not be the same in terms of sizing and for sure the side mirrors will have to go. Those scream “concept car” and will never make it into production like that. The mirrors would never past American safety standards and I doubt people will be willing to shell out high dollar for 20-inch tires or whatever is on the Scion FR-S now. This is supposed to be their entry-level rear-wheel drive sports car so they would have to cut out many things for it to equate to being a “economy sports coupe”. The pictures are great and the Scion FR-S looks great from every angle. I love it and can’t wait to see more of it… You can even download high-res versions of them here…
Broadened Horizons…
Okay, so things have been incredibly busy as of late but I have managed to complete all the orders that have been placed within the past month. I apologize for your items showing up a bit later than expected but I do everything in-house here in my apartment/work space/office/bedroom all at once so there are times when I may be preoccupied with other things. The orders have been completed though and sent out. There was a minor delay because I was waiting on some materials but that has been corrected and we are back in business….
I decided to dedicate this post on something totally unrelated to the usual stuff I talk about on here. I recently received an order from Japan for some Chronicles stickers and it’s always cool to see that I have fans outside of the states that enjoy the site. Usually my biggest customers are Takeshi from Type_K and Tetsuya Yamaguchi but there will be times when I have customers that order direct from Japan that I have never personally met before. While I was filling out the order, I went to fill out the address on the envelope and well, I came to realize that the address was completely in Japanese. I didn’t want to take a chance at writing down the Japanese incorrectly and having the package sent back to me so I decided to go on the website listed on the Paypal account to see if the site had an address that was in english so that I wouldn’t have to email the buyer. The risk of me emailing before I checked the website is that my email may not be translated correctly and thus would lead to a further delay as the two of us try to figure out what one another are saying. So when I finally hopped on the site listed, which was KC-Trading.net, I was surprised to see what popped up on the screen. The site and it’s owners may be Honda fans, but the cars they work on are totally not your typical Honda chassis. The site actually takes you to a business known as Blax Street Style Cruiser Equipment. Their “street cruisers” are actually Japanese work trucks, which apparently has a pretty big tuner following in Japan…
Cool right? It ain’t really my thing but these little trucks look pretty cool all done up. I really like that yellowish truck at the end with the round headlights. I went through the site to find a bigger shot of it but the pictures that are available are only in their online catalog and they tend to be very small. Here are some more pics of these trucks though and what these guys are all about…
I don’t know if these guys purchased Chronicles stickers for themselves or if they plan to resell them out there but I can honestly say that it’d be a pretty cool thing to see one of my stickers on these trucks. I’d rock one of these here in Socal but I’m pretty sure I would go 4 feet down the road without getting run over or me turning in one of them too fast and then them rolling over on it’s side….
Check out this one on TEs…
I know it doesn’t really fit the Honda demographic but it’s definitely interesting to see what enthusiasts in other countries are into…
That got me thinking about the RG-O site I was looking at earlier in the week so I started going through my Japanese Honda mag again to look for web addresses to look at. Surprisingly, most of the Japanese tuning companies have turned to blogging and a majority of the popular tuners now have their very own blogs. Spoon Sports, RG-O, ASM, etc., are all blogging now. You may have a difficult time trying to figure out what they’re saying but the pictures are always cool to look at…
Here are a couple of shots from the RG-O blog…
Love this shot…
While I was looking through that Honda Style mag, I spotted a really small snippet in there about this shop in Japan called CRaft A. I had never heard of them but from the small pic that I seen, their cars looks pretty cool. There was a webaddress printed on the page so I typed it in to see what they were all about….
Here’s the photo from the mag that got me interested in them. Of course they have a blog too so I clicked on the link and they had a blog post about a photographer coming by their shop to feature them in the Honda Style mag…
Here’s the photographer snapping that exact shot that you see above in the previous image…pretty cool…
Here’s a shot of the mag that they took and posted on their blog…
Their site actually has a shit-ton of photos from their daily adventures at their shop as well as when they hit up car shows and track events. I think I sat there for a good hour or two just sifting through their blog and I don’t even understand anything that they’re saying…I don’t know how deep the blog goes but it looks like they update it a lot. I think I was on the 65th page before I finally decided to rest my eyes…
Here are their two main shop cars…
CRaft A “Black Monster” Original Super Computer!…
A exterior shot of their relatively small shop…EJ1 coupe on some larger old school Volk IIIs…
I like their shop slogan…”MODIFY UR CAR LIKE U BRIGHTEN UR WIFE!”…haha…awesome…
Custom aero…
I like the “Best Friend or Worst Enemy” line…it’s not lost in translation like their other quote…
Two-tone bay action…
Another shot of the outside…
Hatchback on some Borbet wheels…
North America ain’t the only ones shaving and tuck bays anymore…
On display at a car show…
It’s always good to look outside of the norm and see what’s going on outside of the U.S…These guys are relatively small and I’m sure completely unknown over here so I hope you guys enjoyed seeing this stuff. If I find anything new or discover any more sites, I’ll be sure to post it up for you guys. Below is a video of that bright green EJ1 coupe on the track…
If you guys want to check out CRaft A for yourselves, click here to go to their site…
If you want to check out the CRaft A blog, click here to go to their blog…
Thanks for looking and have a great weekend…
BIRTHDAYxNWPxQ45…
Hontune coverage should be going up soon but I thought I’d take this time to throw up some pictures from the birthday celebration last week for Big Mike and I. We have birthdays that are a couple days apart and since everyone was busy catching up on things after coming back from Wekfest, we just decided to celebrate both birthdays all at once at Northwood Pizza (NWP). It wasn’t really like a huge planned thing and was pretty last minute but I was surprised by how many people came out and I was happy to see everyone that came out. It was pouring rain that night which made it even harder for some to make it, but we made a great night of it and just hung out to eat pizza and chill…
May went ahead and reserved the private room that they had at Northwood and it was a good idea because we were pretty loud and obnoxious…
The pizza is always really good there but I had eaten so much throughout the week that I just ended up ordering a sandwich and some wings…
A couple of the homies (ItsJDMYo Tony, Keychain, DPK David, and Ejay) checking out the latest issue of Honda Tuning that recently dropped….
May used her usual baking prowess to whip up a topless titty cake. The angle of the nipples made it kind of sketchy when we shoved the candle in one of the boobs and lit the candle…
About to blow out the candles…
Honestly, it was a little creepy when we removed the rice crispy treat-titties because it was a red velvet cake but the cake was delicous nonetheless. May actually went and did research to mix the proper ingredients to make the top layer like a flesh color. May is really into details so she went all out…
Titty-balls…
David and Tony sharing some boob…
Happy birthday to Big Mike…
May cutting up cake for everyone…
Overall, it was a great night. Thanks to everyone for coming out and celebrating and thanks to May for making a delicious headless, armless, torso red velvet cake with huge double D rice crispy treat titties…
On a side note, Ross from Midnight Garage recently finished painting and mounting my JDM Nissan Cima window visors so I decided to get some updated pictures of it. The car had just been washed a couple days before but I drove it to the M&M Donuts Sunday meets as well as to other random places so it got pretty dirty by the time I had a chance to take pics. It also rained like 5 minutes later so the shots aren’t the best. I’m usually all over the place covering Honda stuff so it was refreshing to finally get an opportunity to take pictures of my own car…
Thanks for looking…
Bits and pieces…
Damn, is it Tuesday already? Seems like Wekfest 2011 is fast approaching. With so much going on, it’s crazy to think that this huge event is less than 2 weeks away! I’ll make an official post about it tomorrow but today I’m just going to drop off some quick info for you guys…
The Chronicles Storefront: I’ve been frantically trying to get all my merchandise together in time for Wekfest in San Francisco. Whenever I have a free moment, it is spent cutting stickers for the event and making sure I have enough for the booth at the show. I’ve also finally had a chance to get the shirts made. I just dropped them off today to be printed and I should have plenty in time for the event. I would have had these done earlier but my normal t-shirt guy has for whatever reason, decided to fall off the face of the Earth and I’ve had to look for someone else who is good to print my shirts for me. I’m actually going to be closing up the store in the next couple days so that I have ample time to work on stuff for the show. All pending orders will be sent out in a large batch tomorrow morning so if you haven’t received your stuff yet, it’s coming. If you guys would like to purchase some things and have them by the show or by next week, you should probably do so now so that I have time to send those out to you. Once the store is closed, I won’t be re-opening it until probably after Wekfest.
Super Street magazine: One of the main reasons why my plate has been pretty full lately is because work has picked up over at Super Street and Honda Tuning. The start of the year is usually pretty hectic and I’m glad that I’ve been getting so much work. That means that you guys get to hear me ramble on in print and not just on The Chronicles, haha. This particular month, I did three stories for Super Street, all non-Honda related. One of them is about a pretty nice, purpose-built RX-7 from Australia of all places. The other is about the JGTC-style widebody AE86 Corolla that I talked about during SEMA of last year. It’s the red one that was built by none-other than Stephan Papadakis. It’s a cool build with a BEAM’S 3S-GE motor and individual throttle bodies. It’s unique in that it doesn’t look like your typical AE86-build and Papadakis and his crew went out of their way to do so purposely. The third story is about a Subaru WRX wagon from Norcal. It’s a Team Hybrid car and is one of the best looking wagons I’ve ever seen. Scott Dukes, auto photography extraordinaire, shot the car and as usual, the pics came out great. When I first heard of the car and started the story on it, I had no idea that it was painted by Sunny Wong at Franklin Autobody. Sunny of course, is one of the homies and does most of the paintwork for many of the ATS Garage guys. It’s cool to see his work outside of the regular Hondas that we’ve all come to know and you guys should definitely check it out when you get the chance. The magazine has been on newstands for over a week now so you should have no problem finding it. Thanks to all of you guys who continue to support print, because my ass needs to get paid! Haha..
Back tomorrow with some more stuff….
On a Sunday afternoon…
Well, I really wanted to take some time during this past weekend to really do some stuff for the site. The next big event, or any event for that matter, is the annual Wekfest show and that is a little over a month away. I wanted to make sure you guys still have your regular fix of Hondas that you’re used to coming on this site to see so I planned out the whole weekend to go shoot some cars just for fun and just for practice to see if I can improve at this whole photography thing. May was out of town for work in Las Vegas so it left me with some extra time to do car stuff. It was cool overall and I had fun just doing that and hanging out with the guys. The pictures will probably drop this week after I get through with some more work and after I go through the pictures themselves. On Saturday though, I woke up bright and early to take May to the airport and then I grabbed my Q45 and took it for a car wash. It’s been months since I’ve washed it since it’s been with Ross and Midnight Garage and with all this crazy ass rain we’ve been getting in Socal, the car looked like shit. I also wanted to wash it so that I could stop by this little VIP meet that was going on. I rarely go to any VIP meets or whatever because I don’t really know many of the guys and my circle consists mostly of Honda heads, but it’s always cool to see new things.
After a fresh wash I called up DPK David to see where he was at. He wanted to check out the VIP thing too but when I stopped by the Rywire facilities…
…they were busy working on DPK Henry’s hatchback. I had planned to get some shots of it early in the morning so they wanted to clean it up a bit and do little things here and there before the shoot.
I stayed for a little bit and it didn’t seem like they were gonna finish any time soon so I took off to the VIP meet. I hadn’t seen Tony from ItsJDMYo in a while and he called me up to see where I was at. I didn’t even know he was going to the meet but it’s always cool to catch up with him so that was more incentive to go. When I got there, there weren’t really that many cars there. Tony told me like 10-15 but I think it was more like 8 cars since the other cars there weren’t really “VIP” cars. Here’s some pics from the “meet”…
My Q at the meet…
I actually just spent the whole time hanging out with Tony and just shooting the shit until he had to go to dinner with his family. David and Ryan happened to be finished by that time so we met up for dinner. Not much else happened after that. We just hung out and did our usual bullshit since we had to get up early to shoot the next day.
Sunday…
I was supposed to wake up around 5:45am to get ready but as usual, I ended up being late. Big Mike dropped by after the Vintage Manifesto party in Hollywood the night before and stayed over at my pad since he wanted to come along. We met up with David and Henry like, almost an hour and a half later and headed downtown to get some shots…
Like I said earlier, I haven’t had time to go through the shots yet but here’s a behind the scenes look after we wrapped up. It took us a couple of hours and everyone was hungry so we drove down to Long Beach to eat at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. Pretty random, but we ran into Bisi and his girl Hedi there and Bisi even took care of our tab, which was really cool of him. I still had to meet up with Jared later at night to grab some shots of his S2000 so we headed back to David’s to wait until he got out of work. I had to change the oil on May’s Yaris too and being that I didn’t have a garage myself to do it in, I decided to mess up David’s driveway by spilling oil everywhere…
Ryan came by in his NSX after his lunch meeting to come hang out as well…
A shot of the guys hanging out on David’s porch…
It’s a pain in the ass to wash this big ass car but I’m pretty happy to see it clean finally. It’s been filthy for so long that I almost forgot what it looked like in a clean state….
It started to get dark, and I was getting tired so I headed back home for a bit to shower and change. On the way home though I got this pretty cool shot of Ryan’s NSX. It was totally random but the shot came out pretty interesting…I’ve attached a bigger link if you guys want to see it in a larger format..
Anyways, none of the guys had tried Five Guys Burgers before and there was one not too far from us so that ended up being the dinner spot. After that it was time to shoot…
Again, I still have yet to go through the shots but here is one random ass one of us just fucking around. Jared looks terribly disgruntled but apparently, that’s his tough guy face…
Check back to see the pics later this week. It shouldn’t take my long to go through them, I just haven’t had a whole lot of sleep the entire weekend and I have a plethora of other things to go through in the mean time. Thanks for looking and thanks to all of those that helped me knock out all this site content. As much as I like to think that I do all this on my own, I always have good people around me to lend a helping hand and I truly appreciate it. Peace out for today…
Exclusive Content…Unpublished Photos of Ka Wong’s F20C AE86…
Ahh, finally…Happy Monday folks. I’ve been waiting to put these up for awhile ever since Ka Wong’s feature came out in last month’s Super Street magazine. As you guys have probably heard me talk about a million times now, I shot this Corolla a couple months back and out of everything I’ve done since I started doing this photography thing, this is my current favorite. Just everything about the car was so easy to shoot and the car just popped. No matter what setting you put it in, this car absolutely shines. I couldn’t have been happier with the result and I think Ka Wong himself has been waiting to see these pics. You probably don’t know of him because he’s one of those guys that just keeps to himself. He has an EVO as well but he generally keeps to the same crowd. He may have an S2000 motor in his Corolla but Hondas aren’t really his flavor, if you know what I mean. It’s all good though because working for a magazine like Super Street has helped to expand my horizons and I’ve had the opportunity to meet all kinds of different people and see all kinds of different things. I first spotted this AE86 at Nisei Showoff as I watched it drive in and I absolutely fell in love with it. When Jonathan Wong assigned me to shoot it, I was stoked! I usually have an extra person with me like Big Mike to help me out during shoots but on this particular day, I was by myself and I even managed to give Ka the wrong directions and he called me and asked me why we were shooting in front of some guy’s house, haha. It’ll all worked out in the end though and other than one of the Alien Bee flashes getting smashed on the floor, it was an easy day. I have to thank Ka Wong for being super helpful that day too because he was helping me move things around since I didn’t have any help. He’s definitely a chill guy who’s way more nice than he has to be. He actually owns an L&L BBQ and even hooked me up with catering my BBQ I had a month ago. Anyways, enough talking, more with the pics. You know the routine, click the links below each picture if you want to see larger versions….thanks for looking…oh, and I included a 1080P sized wallpaper at the end…
Link to original Super Street article online
Here’s the widescreen 1080 wallpaper for you guys. Basically a different edit of one of the images and with clouds and shit added…
Super Street Online…
Ohh, just wanted to let you guys know that the feature that I recently shot and wrote for Super Street is now online for your reading pleasure over at the Super Street official site. This is good for those of you who are lazy as fuck, cheap as fuck, or from overseas and don’t have direct access to Super Street mag. It’s the story of the orange AE86 Toyota Corolla with the F20C S2000 swap. The story is pretty cool but the images are some of my favorites in terms of photography work I’ve done lately. I think I’m finally starting to get a good understanding of how it all works and the pictures represent that. I love the way they came out and along with the story, I couldn’t be happier overall with the final result. Ka Wong is a super nice dude too and it was a pleasure working with him. Check out his feature at the link below, thanks in advance for looking….In a couple of weeks I’ll put up the rest of the images that weren’t used. There’s a couple images on there that I really like so I can’t wait to get those up for you guys…until then, go to Super Street’s official site…
Oh one more thing, the online title of the article is incorrect, it’s actually “Loco Moco” like the Hawaiian dish and not “Coco Moco”. Guess whoever was in charge of putting it online couldn’t read the artsy font correctly on the page…Nonetheless…
F20C-powered AE86 Corolla Super Street Feature….
