“So You Think You Can STANCE?” Coverage…Part 2 of 2…
Back now with the second half of It’s JDM Yo!!’s “So You Think You Can STANCE” event coverage, brought to you by The Chronicles. When we last left off, the competition had just started and people were gathered along the street and driveway to check out all the “action”. By “action”, I mean cars going up driveways slowly…haha. I know an event like this usually has it’s fair share of supporters, and also it’s share of people that just think that it is out right stupid. To be fair, it’s totally okay to think that it’s completely retarded because there is a growing number of enthusiasts within our vast community that is starting to dislike this whole “stance” movement. Any time you mention anything about low offset wheels and aggressive fitment, you will have a number of people that will detest the idea and show their disappointment with where the scene has shifted. The whole stance/hellaflush/fitment scene has become it’s own subculture now within the community and it doesn’t look to be going anywhere any time soon. It just goes with different people liking different things. There’s no definitive right or wrong because people don’t always like the same thing or share the same ideas as others. Being in the magazine industry opens my eyes to a lot of different styles of tuning and I’ve learned to appreciate them. I don’t necessarily have to agree or like what some enthusiasts are doing nowadays, but I also don’t have to always be vocal about it. If you don’t like the “stance” movement, just take a gander at the photos, read some of my stupid comments, and move on. This site isn’t solely devoted to wheel fitment and if you’ve been around for a lengthy-amount of time on The Chronicles, you know that I like to bring you a variety of things. Now let’s just move on with the photos and knock out part 2 of the “So You Think You Can STANCE?” coverage…if you want to read my thoughts on the event as a whole, I invite you to take a look back at part 1…
Now when we last left off, Milt had just kicked off the competition and did his run through the driveway…
He didn’t look like he had very many issues getting up the driveway…
…but coming down proved to be a little more interesting…
As I said in part 1, I don’t know the criteria for judging or what they were looking for, but on that particular run…Milt Salamanca garnered a score of 27 out of a possible 40…I didn’t even bother catching score after this because I really didn’t know what was going on. We all basically stood there to watch people potentially fuck their shit up…
A TSX narrowly missing the pavement as he was barely angling out…You can see Holly Lee and Tony from It’s JDM Yo!! standing in the middle of the driveway because they were basically the markers used to cut the driveway in half….Guy in the photo with the 49ers gear on is either whistling his favorite tune or over exaggerating his shock…
A strawberry-faced S14 240SX on Leon Hardiritt Ordens getting set to make his run….I thought the competition was a little unfair in that guys with aero or front lips already in need of repair competed against guys whose cars were in better condition…I mean, in terms of willingness to take a chance of breaking something to win, wouldn’t you have less to lose if your shit was already messed up already?…Then again, I don’t know how it was judged or scored so I can’t really say anything, just raising an interesting point….
People gradually started to get more into the event as more cars made their runs…Even Holly Lee was using the camera and trying to get some action shots…Tony for whatever reason, was showing off his hella hyphy THIZZ face circa 2006…
A clean white S2000 on CCW wheels stood next in line to make his attempt…
Antonio from Motormavens.com didn’t seem too impressed….Big Mike on the far left was taking a standing nap…
While I was happy to see that this S2K owner’s fenders weren’t fucked-up, his front lip has probably seen better days after this event…
Next up was the RHD CR-X from Infinit Wheels…
The CR-X’s run was one of the more interesting ones because they chose to drive the car straight up the driveway without angling at all and when it came down, it struggled to get traction and created some tire smoke…
Thanks to drifting, enthusiasts these days are conditioned to cheer and go ape shits anytime there is tire smoke so Infinit Wheels got some dap for creating the smoke show…
Armand with the TRD widebody MR-2 decided to participate/fuck his shit up…If anyone had anything to lose in this competition, it was him. His car is in pretty good condition and I don’t think damaging that kit would really be a good idea but he went for it anyway. During a test run, he mysteriously broke the wing off that he had just recently not replaced EVER, so this will be day 837 of wingless widebody SW20…
It didn’t look too bad as he was making his way down…
…but the more angles he had to make to get out, the more stress it was on his front end…if you look closely, you can see his fender cracking where it meets the sideskirt….
Next up was this S2000 with a CR lip and what looks like F-Zero Blue Volk CE28s…
If you ever wanted to know what a CR front lip would look like if it was driven into the ground with the weight of the car on it, here you go…
If that wasn’t enough scraping for you, here is a BB6 Prelude that also participated…Good to know that he had that plastic lip under his bumper to give the driveway more contact patch…haha…
This EF was one of the more ridiculous competitors of the day…not only was he making sparks under his car as he was exciting the driveway, he also was sparking when the car was driving normally on flat pavement. The guy decided to lower his car so extreme to the point where his car would flip over if he ran into a dime. The owner was also very serious about this competition and constantly asked later if he made it into the later rounds. Being low and fucking up the bottom of the car is serious business…
Last time I checked, IS350s weren’t cheap and neither are the parts made for them…Tell that to this guy’s front lip…
After most of the cars had finished their runs, out of nowhere, people decided to start acting like dipshits and revving their cars or driving really fast as they were leaving the venue to show off and/or mow people down who were spectating. Tony and many of us started to get kind of iffy about keeping the competition on an open street, so Tony and crew told everyone to get back inside where the parking lot was. The highlight of douchebaggery was when a 15 year old kid smoking a cigarette driving an STI his parents bought for him pulled in front of a crowd and started revving. Instead of just waiting for people to disperse, he felt it was a better idea to rev his shitty car at people and ask them to move. He was also accompanied by his other douchebag 15 year old friends who think that mounting two 25mm spacers on each wheel qualifies as “aggressive fitment”. The runner-up for master of douchebaggery was some jackass who was sitting on the passenger side window, hanging out of his car while his friend peeled out and hauled ass down the street. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Apparently these kids thought that they were participating in an event called “So You Think Your Parents Will Want to Visit You In The Hospital When You Are A Brain Dead VEGETABLE?”…
People acting like complete idiots sort of put a damper on the event, even though a majority of it went very well and without any real issues. There was a break during the competition to tally up the scores and see who would advance to the later rounds, but I was pretty set on going home. I had just driven back earlier that morning from my trip to Las Vegas so I wanted to get home to get some much needed rest. Before that though, I made the rounds and finished up the rest of my coverage of cars that were at the event…
Michael Mao’s Acura NSX…
G35 on DPE wheels…
A couple more shots of the Amuse-inspired S2000 from DTM Autobody…
…as well as the KE70 Corolla wagon parked behind it…
JonJon’s supercharged IS350 from Vanguard Collective/It’s JDM Yo!!….
Y34 M45 on air…
Oh this was cool…It’s virtually impossible to see a modified Lexus ES300/Toyota Windom EVER so it was refreshing to see one at the event with a kit and old school Work Equip mesh wheels…These cars are terribly unpopular to modify, because they are basically fancy versions of Camrys, but I’ll always have a soft spot for this car because my parents owned one when I was growing up…The last time I saw one of these ES300s modded was back around the early 2000s when I would spot the same one always cruising through LA. It had a HKS turbo kit and everything, shit was crazy and way ahead of it’s time…
Ryan Delosreyes’ Scion xB on old school Work VS wheels…
The Kouki S14 from part 1 with the crooked intercooler…As a whole, this car wouldn’t look bad if it was all one color…
FC3S RX-7 from the most un-intimidating car crew name ever, Nuisance…
Acura TSX from Low’N Slow on gold-faced CCW Classics…
3rd generation Toyota Celica from Low’N Slow…
Armand’s MR-2, post cracked fender…Aspiring breezies in the background doing hoodrat stuff…so hood that the guy photographing them is standing on the train tracks…
The BB6 Prelude on white-faced Work Equips that competed earlier…front lip scuffed up, but still intact…
The most aggressive S2000 ever to park in front of a dumpster…
Real clean EK with a iridescent hood shield…
Hubert Barnum male modeling on the Ruckus he and his brother built…
One more shot of the 350Z from part one on the SSR Gartmaier wheels…
The Barnum brothers’ Ruckus…draped in orange jizzum…
The IS350 that competed earlier on SSR MS1 wheels…
The S14 that also competed earlier…
DPK David’s EJ1 coupe just before he left…
Keith aka Keychain’s Accord sedan on polished MB Battles…
That’s about it…after that I left so I didn’t really get a chance to see who won the whole thing. I believed after things calmed down for a bit, they went back and finished the competition on the driveway where it started. Overall, a pretty successful event I would have to say…It wasn’t really meant to be anything taken too serious and I think that’s what people left with. At the end of the day, it’s just a couple guys showing off how they get out of driveways in their lowered cars. The meet portion of the event was cool. The diversity was good and wasn’t only limited to just beat-up cars on aggressively-fitted wheels. Congrats to Tony and staff for putting together a good event….
Thanks for looking… Back tomorrow with other stuff…
Oh before I go, I had to post this up. It was on Facebook late last night but I figured I’d post it up here since a lot of you don’t have Facebook accounts…
Haha, the expression on this guy’s face just made it too easy…
“So You Think You Can STANCE?” Coverage…Part 1…
Well this was different…haha. I mean, in terms of just being “different”, this event takes the cake so far. When Tony first came up with the idea to do this whole “Stance” competition, I was really up in the air about it. The whole name is something that we’ve been throwing around as a joke for the last year or so now, but when he decided to dub his event “So You Think You Can Stance?”, trust me, it was met with a collective “what the fuck are you thinking”. Tony is a pretty smart guy though with some pretty innovative ideas…he’s a massive pervert, but still, he is a smart pervert. If you don’t know which Tony I am referring to, I am talking about Tony from It’s JDM Yo!!. He’s always been a great friend and a huge supporter of mine so whenever he comes up with an idea, no matter how out of the box or random it is, I will support him….
Michael Mao’s Acura NSX on Volk CE28 Genesis…
The whole idea behind this “So You Think You Can Stance” event was very basic in principal…almost too basic. We were to have a pretty aggressively sloped driveway, in which people would sign-up and attempt to show everyone how they could go in and out of the driveway with their slammed/lowered/stanced-out vehicles. The original driveway that was chosen for the competition was over by the Rywire facility. It’s got a pretty big slant to it, but it wasn’t impossible to get up and down. DPK David takes his Civic coupe to work on occasion and has little issues getting in and out and even my Q45 aired down to about 40-50psi with a big kit and get out pretty easily. There are a number of cars that come through the shop and I’ve never really seen anyone have any problems. Being that the venue was also good enough to host a small meet though, Tony decided to use it for the event. What he would do would cone off a large chunk of the driveway, and as the competition progressed, the driveway would become smaller and smaller…
Linda’s Toyota Matrix on VIP Modular wheels from Team Praxis…
How it would be judged would also prove to be pretty interesting…There would be a panel of three guys who would determine the winner…Keith aka Keychain from It’s JDM Yo!!, Noel Barnum from Canibeat, and Yogi from Fatlace. These guys know about all things low so they would be good judges. Yogi I don’t think has ever really had a car that low..his Accord never moved and now he drives a Nissan pick-up, but still, he works for Fatlace/Illest so he encounters his fair share of lowered vehicles. I don’t know what was a point of emphasis for judging, nor do I know what they were looking at…I really didn’t want to know because then I would wonder if they were judging it correctly and with this being a first-time competition, there are a lot of unknowns. Even after the event has come and gone, I still have no real idea of how they judged this. There were so many different types of cars and they all went about going up and down the driveway different…it’s one of those things that can have real open interpretation. In the end, I believe a 1st generation Lexus GS300 won so congrats to the owner. I believe Falken Tires was a co-sponsor of the event and the winner got a set of tires. The other co-sponsor was VIP Modular wheels, which offered a significant discount (20-30% I believe) on a new set of VIP Modular wheels…
350Z on SSR Gartmaier wheels fro Royal Origin…
On the days leading up to the event, Tony realized that there was a chance that the event would be bigger than originally anticipated. I guess he had more than enough responses on social media outlets where he believed the event might be larger than the Rywire parking lot could hold, so he changed the venue entirely. Instead of having it at Rywire, he moved the event over to the city of Santa Fe Springs, inside an industrial section of the city that was quiet and had plenty of space on a Sunday. Overall, I think the event worked out great. The whole idea of it on paper just sounds kind of silly, but man, people fucking love all things “stance”. You can literally throw the word “stance” into any event name or website and there’s a high possibility of it being successful. As much as people love to talk shit about stanced-out cars, it’s become a genre in our community that has become quite popular. I’m a fan of everything as long as it’s done right in my eyes or in moderation. There are some absolutely ridiculous looking cars that showed-up… as with every stance-related event, there are often times when people just try way too fucking hard to be cool and somehow totally fuck up their cars in the process…
VIP Modular booth on display…
If you want my honest opinion of this event, I would kind of relate it to like pro-wrestling and figure skating, but without the excitement of wrestling and without the grace of figure skating…haha, if that makes any sense… I didn’t think that many people would be into the competition side of the event but damn, people were on edge after the first couple cars did their driveway sessions. I think many of us were skeptical but eventually we were also into it and wanted to know who was going to win. I knew that the meet portion of this event would be good because Tony’s events always have good turn-outs. He can bring a good crowd in just by blasting the event on Facebook. The competition was cool, but like I said early on, there’s a lot that needs to go into judging criteria if Tony and crew decide to put another event like this on again in the future…
Lowered cars going up driveways is something that every enthusiast has to go through practically everyday…turning it into a competition just sounds totally absurd…but you know what? It just works…haha. Congrats to Tony and the It’s JDM Yo!! crew for putting on another successful event…
Standard Functions brought out a couple of really nicely-built Ruckus’ for display at the Fatlace booth…
I spotted my favorite car early on in the day…DPK David and I were walking around while I did coverage and stumbled upon an AE86 on HRE wheels…
HREs are not a typical wheel that you see on an AE86…this one might be the first one ever actually…You don’t see these wheels on Corollas of any kind because they are often times worth more than the cars themselves. It’s a high end wheel that belongs on more appropriately high-end automobiles. Anytime you see something like this though, it’s definitely a cool sight…
Turns out that this beautiful creation is actually owned by Mickey Andrade who works at HRE. David and I were a little shocked at first to see a perfectly fit set of HREs on a Corolla but after speaking to him, it all made sense. The car itself was built by John Russakoff from JSPFab in Vista, CA…
John Russakoff’s claim to fame, besides being a talented drifter in Formula D, is performing S2000 F20C swaps on older Toyotas like the AE86. He has a whole kit that is made just for the swap and even has this custom made F20C spark plug wire covers with the Toyota 1600 insignia on them…pretty cool stuff…
I’ve seen this EK with purple Work Meister S1s various times before online…I believe it’s from Northern Cali…
The It’s JDM Yo!! booth with an assortment of the latest It’s JDM Yo!! gear…
The Z33 from above on SSR Gartmaier wheels…
Jay Borcena’s Acura TL on VIP Modular wheels and Accuair suspension…
The guys having a moment…(From left to right: Jay Borcena, Big Mike, Noel Barnum, DPK David, and Noel’s girl Emily…)
Ms. Sheila working the NOS Energy booth…
3GS on Auto Couture wheels…
A good-looking wingless Mitsubishi Evo X on concave Volk TE37s…
JonJon Usaha’s Job Design Lexus IS300 representing It’s JDM Yo/Vanguard Collective…
S2000 from Infinit Wheels sitting on CCWs…
2GS on Work Eurolines, also representing Infinit Wheels…
WRX rolling through with some aggressive blue Work Meister S1s…
Powerhouse Amuse-inspired Honda S2000 on Enkei PF01 from DTM Autobody…
Clean Boso-style Corolla wagon on really clean old school Super Advan Racing wheels…I dig the red interior on this thing…
Keychain cruising up to the event fashionably late…
Noel Barnum taking a seat on his Ruckus to check out the event…
I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason why the intercooler on this S14 is cock-eyed…probably insert a “Because Drift Car” or something stupid here…
Antonio from Motormavens was in charge of MCing the event but also had his camera and massive lens on hand to do some coverage for his site…
This G35 on white-faced Work Meister S1 wheels was just stunning…Shows that you can have a clean set-up on aggressive wheels without making your shit look absurd with haggered fenders…
Yogi from Fatlace/Illest standing the in the middle of the street with a giant “Illest” flag…
A couple hours into the event, it was time to begin the competition and people got together by the driveway in anticipation…
Evo X on green Volk CE28s posted-up on the side of the street…
Here’s an incorrect way to be “stanced-out”….fake TEs, chewed up tires inside and out rocking two gigantic wheel spacers just to be “flush”…What is that shit, like 50mms wider now??…
Jimmy from Team Praxis rolling through before the competition started in his FJ Cruiser…
RHD CR-X from Infinit Wheels lined-up and ready to compete…
Milt from Low N Slow was the first car on hand to try his way up the driveway…he and his crew took the competition seriously and had their team flags and shit all up in Milt’s Z…
Milt’s license plate was a popular topic of mention at the event…
The judges and Antonio huddling-up and discussing the rules…
Milt and his Garson Deep Racing wheels ready to go…
…Judges ready…
…and….
…back tomorrow with part two of the “So You Think You Can Stance?” coverage!…
Stay tuned and thanks for looking!
Norm Reeves Honda 2011 Car Show/Toy Drive Coverage…Part 2 of 2…
Happy Thursday all…the holidays are fast approaching so I hope you can read this generic comment I have about Christmas and shopping and what not. Anyways, back now with part 2 of the annual Norm Reeves Honda Car Show/Toy Drive coverage. Just two parts to this series of coverage because there weren’t that many cars there and I think I covered most of the ones that caught my eye. One of you guys commented and asked where the del Sol coverage was and I apologize. Apparently I missed out on the del Sols so maybe I’ll catch you guys at the next event. The only del Sol that caught my eye was the one with the crazy Lambo doors and I try not to take too many photos of high-end exotics because they don’t fit my demographic so I didn’t photograph it. With that said, let’s get going with the second and final portion of the Norm Reeves coverage…
Let’s kick it off with some photos of the Bisimoto Engineering 2012 Honda Civic Si coupe…I hope you guys enjoy this build because you’ll be seeing a lot more of it on the cover of the upcoming issue of Super Street magazine…
Many of you won’t notice, a few of you will, but I’ve seen some comments on various forums where they raised the issue with the angle of how the turbocharger was mounted on the K24z7. Yes, Bisi was aware of the issue after the manifold was fabricated but with SEMA going on, he didn’t get a chance to assess the situation. Since SEMA, adjustments have been made with the manifold and now the angle of the turbo has been corrected…
Rywire Ryan’s NSX weekend toy on freshly powdercoated Regamaster EVOs…
After going through my photos from that day, I realized that I had not taken any photos of the exterior of ATS Anh’s Integra Type R….This is the only shot I have of anything related to the exterior aesthetics but trust me, it looks just about the same as it has the majority of the year. He did sell his Mugen Gen. II wing recently though so he’s been rocking the wingless ITR look. The car has been down at ASC Speed Metal for the last couple months getting some new additions to the bay and I’ll show you some pics of it right now…
An overview of the bay from both angles… you’ll notice right away that the teal-coated ITB horns are gone and there are a couple new additions. The front strut/shock tower bar has been re-done as well…
Custom engine breather unit made by ASC, color-matched to the same teal that exists in the bay…
Custom oil catch can also made by ASC…
ASC emblem on the strut bar…
Polished ITB horns…
…and a shot of Anh’s wheel and brake set-up…
A couple shots of DPK David’s EJ1 coupe…
After I finished walking around inside, I took a glance out the door and noticed that it had started to rain… People still stuck around though and didn’t let the downpour affect them…
I don’t really know what the deal with the blue tape on the corner of the bumpers was, but I really liked how this Honda Fit looked…The color and aero set-up just flowed really well with the wheels…
Volk TE37s have always been a popular choice among our crowd, but it’s not that often that you run into a set of TE37 Cup wheels…
Another shot of the JDM EF2 conversion on this white Civic 4-door…
Both CR-Zs stuck around even though it continued to rain…
Man, this is a blast from the past…Haven’t heard the name “Cyber Racing” in quite some time. If you don’t know, Cyber Racing is probably one of the original Honda car crews from back in the early 90s. I think it was around 1988 when it all started. Tony Fuchs and a couple others started that group and were drag racing before there were any corporate sponsors, internet forums, anything “online” in essence…Pretty wild to see that they are still being represented…They were known back in the day as one of the first “11-second” car clubs in our community…oh how times have changed…
I don’t know why, maybe because of the rain, but I decided to head back inside to take some more detail shots of Bisi’s 2012 Civic…
AEM’s high output ignition coils being represented on the Golden Eagle intake manifold of Bisi’s Civic…
Bisi’s Turbonetics 72mm mid-frame turbocharger….
I walked back outside and snapped another photo of the Bisimoto Honda Civic Wagon…
The crowd was by no means large, but there was definitely a steady group of enthusiasts walking around…
Michael Mao’s Taitec JGTC 2000-type front bumper…
His brother, Bay Mao’s Honda S2000 on custom Mugen M7…
A couple more of the Basis CR-Z on Spoon Sports CR93 wheels…
Umm… Jagged S2000 fender – 1, Nitto NT01 tire – 0….
Jerry-Built turbocharged FG2 Civic coupe…
Accord coupe with a massive Volk wheel and tire combo…
Acura RSX from Royal Origin…
Acura TSX with some Enkei RPF1s…
Saw this dude wiping his car down after the rain stopped and he mentioned that he drove all the way down from San Luis Obispo for the Norm Reeves meet…some real dedication right there…
Spotted this beauty parked across the street during the meet…owner was probably there to visit some of his friends from Japanese Nostalgic Car magazine, which had a booth at the show…
Oh I couldn’t end the coverage without displaying some of the more interesting Hondas at the meet….these guys took the saying “racks on racks on racks” to a whole new level…One dude had a motorcycle, the other a Gyno-chair, madness I tell you, madness….
That pretty much wraps it up for the coverage… after the raffle and awards for the show were announced, we gathered up our belongings and took off to go grab some lunch…
I don’t know if you guys are at all interested, but I included a desktop image for you guys….the shot was pretty random but I liked how it came out so I turned it into a 1080P-sized wallpaper…
Thanks for looking…
Autocon 2011 Coverage…Part 2….
Back now with part 2 of the Autocon 2011 coverage….today will be slightly different in that I plan to run more photos today than in part 1. I was in a bit of a rush yesterday so I didn’t get to put as many photos up as I planned but I’m about 95% finished with all the photos from the event and I have a better idea of how many I need to toss up per day to keep the different parts divided proportionally. The first half of it will continue to be like it was yesterday though and consist of random stuff that I observed during the day. I was hanging out at the booth with May and a couple others for a huge chunk of the day at Autocon 2011 and I didn’t plan on shooting until later on in the day. Reasoning behind this is because the sun was casting such a harsh light on the cars the whole day and everything would just look blown out in the coverage. Photos look better towards the end of the day when the sun is coming down anyway so if you’re looking for your car here, wait towards the end or wait until the following posts come. You’ll know when a majority of the car coverage is coming, believe me… Now, on with the photos from the first half of the day…
BEST. OPENING. PHOTO. EVER…Haha…while Autocon did feature some very well-built cars of all makes and models, there were a couple of these that were floating around…I mean, I’m not saying that “MUFASA 8″ is not built with the best of intentions and to the highest caliber, but it just doesn’t fit the style of the show, I guess you can say. The CR-X leaves a little bit more to be desired…especially considering the idea that the owner might be trying to fix his “Lambo” door and prevent it from slowly sliding downward and closing on it’s own…It’s just really odd to see him pull up with these other Dodge Chargers and what not…haha. It even had a Batman theme and the owner was wearing a Batman shirt… Imagine if every car had doors like this, Everybody would be opening their doors into each other and all their door dings would be on the bottom of the door, haha. That and if you tried to close your door at the same time as the guy next to you, the doors would like, scissor into each other and get stuck…
The only thing that’s really comparable to Batman is that they share similar facial expressions in this photo….haha…
Hot pink/magenta Infiniti G35 on gold-plated Leon Hardiritt Ordens from Import Fashion…
It’s JDM Yo!! had stacks on stacks on stacks of NOS Energy drinks to distribute, free of charge, to everyone at Autocon 2011…There were only two flavors available and not surprisingly, people complained about getting free shit and demanding other flavors…“Do you have the sugar free one?” No motherfucker, I don’t even know what flavors these are. I got purple and I got green, pick one. What do they taste like? Umm, it fucking taste purple and the other one tastes like GREEN…
Bryant Nguyen’s Acura TSX on SSR Professor SP3….
A pair of matching M3s on CCWs…
Really liked this yellow FD3s on bronze Volk Racing TE37s…Random but the owner that drives that Nissan Sentra next to him calls himself “The King”…He is the king of Nissan Sentras.
Mildly lowered Audi A3 on BBS CK wheels…sarcastic comment is sarcastic…
This MK2 VW Golf GTI had to be one of my favorite builds at Autocon 2011…I love the simplicity of it, the color, and the old school BBS mesh wheels…Also like the way he colored in the Falken logo on the tire. Great attention to minor details…
This isn’t supposed to be “Tiffany Blue” right?… Nicely assembled xB, I’m a fan, otherwise I wouldn’t have taken multiple photos of it…
A shot of JonJon’s WED’s Kranze Vishunu and his neo-chrome Endless brake calipers…
JonJon’s wheel invading his wheel well’s personal space…
What’s up copyright infringement? I actually attempted to go on “Hellaflushstuff.com” to see what it was all about and it wasn’t even a functioning site…that and this chick was lookin at me like I was crazy…Apparently when you’re hellaflushstuff, it means you need to have a Jumpman-style logo but the bitch ain’t dunking shit…She’s just flying through the air spread eagle…
Models from the model lounge section next to us were busy grabbing NOS drinks all day to give out to perverts…Somebody should tell this girl that she has a plexiglass sign with “It’s JDM Yo!!” stickers stuck to her head…
I was about to message Tony on Facebook to find out the name of this model for this caption, but when I got to his page, I saw her posting on his wall…Her name is Trinity Dang….I now know the purpose of Facebook…
My favorite Mercedes Benz from the SEMA 2011 show ended up coming down all the way from Norcal for this event and it ended up parking with us as well…I love everything about this build…
Big Mike, his beard, and Neil Tjin took a moment to exchange pleasantries….Meanwhile, horrified Batman can be heard screaming in the background: “They have an educational website about Urinary Tract Infections?!!”…
Big Mike’s new look featuring his Chargespeed front lip…We had a discussion about whether or not he should modify his bumpers in a way to delete the front turn signals and leave just an opening there…I said he shouldn’t but he seems pretty keen on the idea…
I am happy to see that he paint-matched his valve cover though…I normally don’t like color-matched valve covers, but in this case, it works…I don’t always drink beer either, but when I do, I drink Dos Equis…
Nitty Beat walking by the booth after grabbing some food from the food trucks outside…I’m sure that’s the same face he made later that night when he went home to SD to take a massive food truck dump…
The adult in me thinks that smoking is bad for you…the kid in me thinks that it’s funny that the tattoo on her arm says “Wang”…haha…her name is actually “Lily Zenna Wang” so the tat makes sense. I’m just giving her a shitty time because she didn’t have very nice things to say about the model lounge that Tony and crew set-up all morning and almost seemed demanding…
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to take a photo of Julie Mai at Autocon, but I did catch her tying this kid’s shoelace, which I and everyone around thought was pretty cool…it was cool until I seen this kid walking around to like 3-4 different models and getting them to tie his shoes…The dudes that this kid was with were walking around using him as a baiting chip to get girls to go over to their cars to take pictures…stay classy car enthusiast!..
OHH….are you guys ready to see Amy Fay like you’ve NEVER seen her before on the internet???? Well peep game…
Get ready because this is one of those rare, once-in-a-lifetime photo opportunities…
Here is the back of Amy Fay’s head. She’s on the right by the way…haha. Amy Fay was at the It’s JDM Yo!! booth with her signed posters and what not and she received quite the reception when she arrived… Guys were coming over left and right to take pictures of her. I am probably in a majority of them. I went to go get food at the Dogzilla food truck and when I got back, everyone was trying to get a picture of her. I on the other hand, wanted to enjoy my food so I just ate at the table behind her…So if you are looking at photos of her and you see an attractive asian dude eating a hot dog in the background, it’s me…
Another shot of Lily Zenna Wang…
Man, Autocon 2011 brought out a fine crop of creepy fucking perverts….This little guy was posted up in front of the model lounge area exactly how you see him in this photo for a good 20 minutes. He was doing his creepy thing and peeking over the table at the models and made the models super uncomfortable… Eventually, one of the models got so creeped out that she called one of the security guys to come over and they made him leave. He didn’t though and just stood up, walked to the other side of the lounge and stared at the girls some more…
On a lighter note, here’s some photos of Ela Pasion…
Here’s the same creepy pervert taking a picture with Ela…
Titla McBoob was in the house…good to see she’s getting work consistently at different events. I think she’s been at almost every major event this year…
Ms. Holly Lee doing her thing and who also later won the Autocon 2011 Spokesmodel Search Award…
Cara Skye, who I committed an epic photo bomb on at HIN, chuckin the deuce up for me in this photo…
Big Mike chatting with Robert Chew from Falken Tire and his girlfriend Yuri…Robert did not want to be photographed, haha…
Norman and Sloppy from AS1…
DPK David and Preston Dawson from Function&Form Autolife…
Pretty fucking random shot of Jamarri Whiteside’s purple SSR Professor SP3 wheel…Didn’t know it had stickers on the lip….
Gabby Jeanne modeling for Auto Concept Elite…
I liked this shot of DPK David’s front wheel…
…also liked his new Skunk2 low-profile valve cover hardware…
Christine Vu liked it so much she ripped the bottom half of her shirt off…
Thanks to Sunny from Franklin Autobody for providing heel-safe paint…
At this point, I hung out at the booth for a while and put my camera away. Maybe an hour or so passed when the sun was about to set and that’s when I set out on a mission to walk the entire show and get as many cars that caught my eye as I possibly could. It was a race against the sun but I’m happy with how the photos came out…
Bryant Nguyen’s Acura TSX once again, on SSR Professor SP3s….
Ly Say’s beautifully done Acura TSX on Work Meister S1Rs….
Lexus 2GS on some newly released Work VS-MS wheels…
Christian Ruvalcaba’s “El Smurf” Civic coupe…I didn’t name it that…
Jackson Wong from DTM Autobody’s S2000 on black Enkei PF01…
1GS from Platinum VIP with a Job Design kit that was originally meant for a Lexus LS I believe…
Love this LS430 on WED’s Kranze Bazreias…
Celica that came up all the way from Mexico…It has nothing to do with what geographic location he’s from but I don’t believe those are real Work Meister S1s…
370Z with Powerhouse Amuse kit from Ar-Kan…
Preston Olson’s 350Z on VIP Modular wheels…
Autofashion USA’s new 2GS project car…coming along nicely…
Scion tC also reppin’ Autofashion USA, on Leon Hardiritt Ordens…
It’s nice to see M45s done up nicely with proper wheel fitment…
Big Steve had his LS400 teleported from his mansion in Dubai to represent at Autocon 2011…this would have been a better photo if his camel wasn’t casting a shadow on his car…
Another 2GS, this one on polished Ordens…
Many of you probably don’t know or care, but I sold my AME Shallen AX wheels a couple months back and they ended up on this 3GS…looks good and I want to say I miss these wheels, but I haven’t even put my new wheels on yet so I’m not sure if I even like them, haha…
Closing it out for today with this Dodge Challenger, designed, built, and owned by none other than Jon Sibal…check out his blog here since I still get consistent hits from his site to this very day…We have a lot in common. He’s a artist like me…the only difference is that he’s actually good at what he does and gets paid for it, while I’m busy occupying my time by having delusions of grandeur…
That’s all for today…back with more tomorrow…now off to Rywire to gawk at his Integra…
Autocon 2011 Coverage…Part 1….
Damn…I took a lot of photos at this event. I’d hope to be done going through all of them by now but there’s still a gigantic chunk of it in my memory card that I have yet to touch. I know many of you have come on here the last couple days since the event to see coverage so let’s just go ahead and kick it off today. I’m going into this not really knowing how many parts there will be, but it’ll definitely be more than just 2-3 parts. How I ended up taking that many photos I don’t know, but I think I did a pretty good job of covering the event. Obviously there is some stuff I missed but seeing as how I had a booth at this show, I think you will get a pretty good idea of how this show was…
Now my thoughts on the event…Hmm…I know many of you have already heard about the lack of organization and how the roll-in process was anything less than “hassle-free”. It probably was, I don’t really know because I got there early and set-up right away. A lot of people came by to the booth and brought it up to me, probably in hopes that I would mention it when I posted up the coverage. For all intents and purposes, shit, I have to say right now that it was a great event. I didn’t go last year because I made other plans, but I don’t think missing out on the 2010 Autocon show had any effect on how I felt about this year’s. Foot traffic was great, there was a diverse crowd of cars,…I don’t know, it looked to me as if it went well. If this was an event that I was putting on I’d be pretty happy with it. Okay, roll-in was probably a pain and I did notice how it was kind of unorganized, but you almost have to expect it with guys that are fairly new to putting on events like these. It was definitely under-staffed, but that can be alleviated pretty easily by just hiring more people. Organization just comes with better planning, and as time progresses, I think Justin Fong and staff will get better at it with time. It’s okay to bitch about it as long as you understand that it’s not something that can’t be fixed. I had a good time and it seemed as if everyone else did too.
There were some pretty beat ass looking cars that I don’t think should have been there but I don’t believe there was a screening process so it’s not like you can prevent people from PAYING YOU to show up, you know what I mean? Autocon is off to a good start….will it continue to get better? I would certainly hope so. Will they ever be as big as Wekfest and the other top tier shows of this current generation? Ehh, I don’t know if I want that to happen. I’m cool with the success and all but isn’t this show designed to be for a good cause? Justin originally put on this event as a simultaneously running toy drive. People bring in toys and gifts for children that are less fortunate during the holiday season. If this does turn into a major event, do they just continue to do toy drives at every location they go to, even if it’s not during the holidays? And if they don’t do they just move on as a major car show, leaving behind the original intent of the show itself? It’s kind of a grey area… I mean, if they abandon the whole Toys for Tots things, it would seem as if they used it as a stepping stone to move on and expand the Autocon name, and that doesn’t seem right at all…I don’t know….For now, I think we should all just be happy that this event was a success and everyone there enjoyed it. I also liked the idea of having all the food trucks outside the whole day. That I know for sure took some careful planning and it helped that people didn’t have to be there all day without food or eating some crappy, dry, convention center food…
Anyways, let’s move onto the coverage. Today we will be taking a look at the roll-in early that Saturday. I wouldn’t know about how painful roll-in was because I got there early and went in with It’s JDM Yo!!! Tony. If anything, if it was pain-free for me because I didn’t have to wait long and I took the spare time I had and shot photos…There are a lot of random photos mixed in with the cars because I had a booth and I tried not to leave it after it was set-up. Everything that you are seeing in the first couple parts are just things that happened around me and stuff I could capture from a distance….Enjoy… If you don’t like it, go log onto some other blog where they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about and have no comprehension of sentence structure…
We rolled out early in the morning and got there around 7:30am. I had no idea where It’s JDM Yo!! Tony was so I just pulled my camera out and started shooting until he came and got us…This yellow BMW M5 on HREs was one of the first cars I spotted…
First generation Toyota Celica waiting in line to roll-in…
You can see here how the R35 GT-R dwarfs the original Mini Cooper….
Evo X on CCW Classics…
I’m a big fan of the Powerhouse Amuse kit on the 370Zs…I liked how this owner added the black on the sideskirts to add some contrast and also to match the black lines of the front…
BMW E46 M3 on CCW Classics…I’m not gonna lie, Autocon 2011 was probably the only show other than Import Alliance this year where I saw this many sets of CCWs…Most of them were found on BMWs too, which was really interesting because I never thought CCWs were that popular in the BMW community….
Big Mike used Autocon 2011 as a platform to officially debut his new look…You haven’t seen his car at various meets/shows lately because he’s been busy getting his Chargespeed lip molded to his front bumper, color-matching his mirrors, and getting his wheels powdercoated a high gloss black…
I eventually found Tony…he was busy going over the floorplan with one of the Autocon staffers with Freddie from Autofashion and we rolled into the venue soon-after…
Once we got inside, we waited to see where they wanted our booths to be set-up so I continued shooting…
Ryan Deguzman’s FD3s RX-7 cruising in…
DPK David posted up next to my crappy 4Runner…
The guns and DTA theme I get…what I don’t understand is why you would put crappy Varrstoen wheels on a Porsche…and I don’t really give a shit about the sponsorship argument either…
Buddy Club Honda Fit show/sometimes track car…
Andrew Lim’s DPE S20 wheels on his gold Toyota Supra…
Matte red BMW 5-series wagon from VIP Modular wheels…
S2000 on teal BBS LMs…
TSX on mag blue Volk Racing RE30s…
Another shot of the BMW wagon next to Team Praxis Jimmy’s FJ Cruiser…
Nimbus Grey BMW on custom bronze BBS LM…
We checked the weather forecast early that morning before we left and it showed that it was going to be a pretty cold day… May was all dressed in her winter gear but then we arrived to the venue and the sun started to beat down and it was actually getting pretty warm…
VIP Y34 Infiniti M45…
Another shot of the M3 on Classics…the one parked directly next to it looked almost identical to this one…
Stanced-out DB Integra on some black steel wheels…
Ly Say’s Acura TSX on Work S1R…
Jamarri Whiteside’s award-winning Subaru STI from Auto Concept Elite… This build just won “Best of Show” at Hot Import Nights just a week prior to Autocon 2011…
Auto Concept Elite’s ENEOS-themed widebody R35 GT-R…
Big Mike’s Scion xB…haha…just playing, but they share a similar tone…
Justin and Autocon had advertised that there were free hot-air balloon rides that day and sure enough, there was…
Man, I fucking loved this Toyota Tundra on Volk TE37s…That truck couldn’t look any better…
Scion xB on air and BBS wheels…
Big Mike prepping his Prelude…
Slammed Lexus SC300 from Royal Origin (I think…)….
Chivas rolled out from Vegas with his orange EM1…I just recently finished a story on this coupe for a future Honda Tuning feature so keep an eye out for that…
Gerald’s DC2 Integra on Work Equip 03s….also from Las Vegas…
DPK David all set-up and ready for the show…
JonJon was still busy prepping his IS300…
Step-lipped multi-piece Mugen M7s…
Jamarri Whiteside cleaning the door jams on his STI…check out the door panels on this thing…
Gonna close it out today with a couple shots of Michael Mao’s Acura NSX on aggressive Volk TE37s…
Back with much more tomorrow!! Gotta run for now…
Thanks for looking…
SEMA Show 2011 Coverage…Part 6…The Finale…
Ahhh…we are finally at the conclusion to our 6-part miniseries of SEMA 2011 coverage… It was a great trip and always something I look forward to every year. In terms of major events, SEMA is always a landmark on the calender and I’m already excited to go back in 2012. Today, we are going to check out the final day of SEMA that I went to. I went every single day last year but this year I skipped the last day, which was Friday. I felt that I had already seen a majority of what I wanted to see and the stuff I really liked, I went back and looked two or three times more. Skipping Friday also gave me an opportunity to spend some more time with May and hang out with the homies that were there. A lot of the guys from out east and midwest were out in Vegas too but I just didn’t have time to really hang out with them. The entire week was filled with walking around the show and when we were not at the show, we were either eating or at an industry party. The parties would have been a good place to meet up but a couple of the guys didn’t get there until Wednesday and if they did go to a party, they ended up at another one that we weren’t at. The partying wasn’t particularly for everyone either and a lot of the guys just wanted to hang out and gamble, which was cool with me. I don’t do much gambling except for messing around with some slot machines so I’d rather go to the industry parties to mingle…
The Pro-Motion/Falken Tire party was the big industry party to close out the week and everyone decided that they would go so we could have everyone in one place at least once during SEMA week. As you read in Part 5 of our coverage, we had partied a little too hard the night before so we just made the decision to take it easy at the Falken party. I think a lot of people who were there for SEMA were also kind of over the whole partying thing by Thursday night as well because I saw a lot of people just chillin’ that night at the party. It’s all good though…many of us are at the age now where we have already been there and done all that partying shit when we were younger so there wouldn’t be any added incentive of going on a rager three nights in a row, especially considering the amount of walking around we did throughout the week…
I have photos from that party as well but before we get to those, let’s take a look at my final day at SEMA…
When we last left off, we had just exited the wheel/tire hall and made our way back to the outside of the show to take a look at some cars we might have missed. After hanging out outside for awhile, we walked back towards the manufacturer’s hall one more time to show some of our other friends who hadn’t been there yet, what the North Hall had to offer…
On our way to the manufacturer’s hall, I spotted Mannie Fresh and our buddy Hoonie wanted to take a picture with him. He was walking around by himself and seemed busy, so it was mighty nice of him to stop what he was doing to be in the photo. If you guys don’t know Mannie Fresh, he’s a rapper and hip-hop producer for Def Jam South. You’ve probably seen him or recognize him more for being one of the Big Tymers with Birdman and Cash Money…
After that, we walked over to check out this 1960 Ford F100 pick-up which was built by Two Brothers Customs. The owner came up to us and introduced himself before giving us full details on the truck. He said that the truck came together in less than two months time and even showed me what the truck looked like the day he started the project in September. It was just a beat up old frame then so it’s amazing to see the final result. I asked him how it ran and he said that he hadn’t even had a chance to start the truck yet after finishing it. I’d love to give you guys more details on it but you can actually read more about it here…
I couldn’t leave SEMA 2011 without stopping by the Lexus section to see the 5Axis GS F-Sport one more time…
It’s just a beautiful car overall…5Axis really knows what they are doing with their body components and I can’t get over how great this GS F-Sport looks…
We walked over to the Honda section to see if anyone was over there but there wasn’t so I just snapped another pic of the HPD-prepped bare 2012 Civic Si coupe chassis…
…also snapped this photo of the HPD supercharged Honda CR-Z motor…
Custom 1963 Mercury Comet built by Troy Ladd of Hollywood Hot Rods….
Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima’s Pikes Peak record-holding Suzuki SX4 “Hill Climb Special” inside the Go-Pro section…
Big Foot making even Hoonie look small…
One more look at the Auto Concept Elite/High End widebody R35 GT-R…
Hoonigan Inc. Rauh Welt Begriff Porsche 965…stool and lady still blocking view of it, haha…
Loved this custom Chrysler Le Baron…
Honda CB836F cafe racer…
Supercharged Factory Five ’33 Ford hot rod coupe…
Check out the seats on this thing…
I still remember back in the day when I used to always pass by this Jeep/AMC dealership while sitting in the backseat of my parent’s car. I was just a kid then but was already very interested in cars so I just looked at any and every car that existed. One thing I always remembered about AMC (American Motors Corporation) was how hideous all their vehicles were. In the late 80s-90s they had the AMC Eagle Premier, AMC Eagle Wagon, and they even sold those crappy Renault convertibles under their name. The cars were just fucking weird looking and super boxy. The best thing to come out of American Motors were the Jeeps and those were eventually sold off to Chrysler, who have been making Jeeps ever since…The 70s were even worse…remember the Gremling and Pacer? Guess what? Those were crappy AMC cars…The 60s were a little better, but all cars during the 60s had roughly the same look and design. Above is an AMC AMX (American Motors eXperimental)….it was marketed back then as a muscle car like the Mustang and Camaro but it was unique in that it had a short wheelbase. That’s why it looks kinda odd because it has a long body still but the with the wheelbase shorter. I don’t know whose idea it was to make all these fucking weird ass cars but they aren’t around anymore so I guess it didn’t work out too well for them. What’s stranger is that I know so much about these things…man, I need to get out more…The AMX above is pretty unique though because you just don’t see these cars around anymore, especially at a SEMA show,…
…you’d also be hard-pressed to find an AMC AMC with a GM LSx swap in it…
Drag Civic coupe sitting at the Exospeed booth…
My first time seeing a BMW 1M in person…If you guys don’t know what a 1M is, just imagine an M3, but compressed into a BMW 1-series chassis. If there is an M version of a 3-series BMW and it’s called an “M3″, and likewise for the 5-series “M5″, then why isn’t the 1-series an “M1″ you ask?…well…that’s because there already is an M1 in the BMW family lineage and it’s probably one of the most influential sports cars of the 1970s. It was actually designed and built by Giorgetto Giugiaro and Lamborghini but sold under the BMW name. It had a straight six engine with 6 individual throttle bodies and made around 277 horsepower. It’s also the only mid-engine sports car BMW has ever sold and a couple years ago, there was a concept car built in homage to the M1. If you’re interested in knowing what the BMW M1 looked like, simply google “BMW M1″…it’s pretty well known…I remember when I used to go to elementary school and I had a folder that my parents bought for me that had a BMW M1 on it…pretty cool because my parents were the reason I was so interested in cars as a child…
BMW M3 race car sitting next to the 1M inside the H&R booth…
I believe this is model Janelle Ha…
Do-Luck Aero Wivern-equipped R34 Skyline… I saw this car in passing a couple times during the week but the wheels threw me off and made me not really want to look at it…haha…It’s rare to see R34 Skylines these days that aren’t sitting on some government-owned impound lot, especially with full Do-Luck aero, so I stopped to check it out…
Carbon kevlar front fenders…you can actually see a hint of the kevlar next to the mesh opening in the fender…
Do-Luck Aero Wivern insignia…
Even has the low-profile D0-Luck rear spoiler… I actually went through the SEMA website to find more information on this car and it’s actually from Chicago…
A couple other guys we were walking around with ended up getting stuck behind because they were busy looking at other cars so David and I stopped by this Benz one more time while we waited for them to catch up. It was one of the first cars that caught my eye on the first day of SEMA so it’s only fitting that I close out the week by getting a closer look at it…
I really like that this E350 Benz sticks to two central themes: The full catalog of Carlsson products…
…and the custom BBS LM wheels built by Memoryfab. The car remains very subtle to the casual onlooker but once you stop to study the car, you realize that there is so much more to it…
Full Carlsson aero with L.E.D. daytime running lights and all as well as the carbon fiber chin spoiler that is tucked neatly under the front bumper…
The entire chassis is adorned in Carlsson gear and the BBS wheels receive a similar amount of detail…I really like the red BBS lug nuts that match the LM center cap…
Matching BBS valve stem caps as well….very well executed along with the custom bronze finish…
Great fitment…fitment meaning that the wheels fucking FIT on the car and doesn’t have all that ridiculous poke with a 1/3 of the wheel sticking out past the fenders…The wheels actually look like they belong on the car and don’t look like they are trying to escape…
Appropriate plate and frame combo for this build…
Speaking of fitment…this Scion tC is doing is wrong. What better way to represent your tire sponsor by getting tires that don’t fit your fucking car…*sigh*….
Oh while we’re on the topic of fitment, I spotted Neil Tjin’s Chevy Cruz just a couple steps away from the Carlsson E350…Neil not only has good fitment with his custom Rotiform wheels, but also wins the award for…
….aggressive trunk fitment. Neil really wanted to show off the trunk space in his Cruz by shoving as much shit as he could into it….
Neil did show me this cool award he got from some German publication though…I think it was for best customized wheel or something, I can’t really recall. What’s cool about the award is that it’s a true 2-piece wheel. I mean, you can’t really drive on it or anything because it’s only like 8-inches in diameter but the construction of it is very much like a real rim…neat….
A shot of one of the Factory Five ’33 Fords as we were walking out…
That pretty much wraps the actual SEMA show coverage…On the way back to the parking lot we parked in…
…I spotted this Vette…Kinda random for it to just be parked in a hotel parking lot but cool nonetheless…
DPK David had to meet up with one of his aunt’s that lived out in Vegas for dinner so we went back to the hotel and parted ways for a couple hours. May, Jared, and I went to go grab some buffet over at the Wicked Spoon inside the Cosmopolitan and we regrouped back at the hotel so that we could get dressed for the Pro-Motion/Falken Tire party. We pre-gamed a little bit and drank, then headed out to Paris hotel & casino to hit up Chateau club. The party was crackin’ by the time we got there already so we walked in, got our Falken Tire VIP wristbands and headed up the elevator to a completely separate party upstairs on the balcony. The view was stunning… You overlook the strip and party directly under the Eiffel Tower. I’d never seen anything like it…
We all made sure that we were at the same party on this night, just to close out the week with everyone. S2K Jay from Atlanta was there, along with some of the other PG+K guys and also my good buddy Chris “Blizzard Man” Sullivan aka CRS Foto…It was good to finally hang out with these guys for a change after trying to chase each other down over the phone throughout the week…
There wasn’t too much craziness like the other two parties. We just wanted to chill and chat with the homies since we don’t always get the opportunity to do that because we are so far apart…
Downstar/Bolt Boys Frank and DPK David in a rare photo together…
Rywire Ryan and DPK Jared, leaders of the Seinfeld fan club cheesing it up….
One of the great things about the Chauteau club was that it kept with the whole “French” theme…The girls working that night as servers had full on French Maid outfits and their maid skirts left very little to the imagination. Like if they sneezed you’d get hit with some vag action…. Both Rom and I sat back and enjoyed the view of some French clam, haha….
Not concerned with French maids, Christ (Pronouced “Steve”) from PG+K, was busy giving a seductive lap dance to his girl Christina….He’s from Georgia so he was getting down… At one point he even turned upside down and made his ass clap…
One person who was unimpressed and outright confused by the ass-clapping was Ryan from Eibach Springs… When you work at Eibach, apparently you get all kinds of special treatment. We had exclusive wristbands just to get upstairs already but Ryan had like 6 different VIP wristbands, one for every level of VIP. The blue one was for regular Falken VIP, then came Super VIP, double-stuffed VIP, VIP’s cooler older brother, VIP the crappy TV show starring Pamela Anderson, VIP Chinese Buffet, and even a VIP wristband that travels to the future so you can see what you’re doing later on in the party in the VIP section…shit was out of control…
A photo of me with Frank and Oscar aka “Pancakes”…
Natalie and Nick from SEEN IT! traveled all the way from Chicago for SEMA…. Nick does this crazy dance that looks like he’s stomping out a hoard of fire ants, it’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen…
Thanks to Christ (Pronounced “Car-los”) for buying us shots at the club…
Nick Caster taking a moment to enjoy his own company and have a drink with himself…
Ryan and Natalie playing rock, paper, scissors….nobody won…
S2K Jay from PG+K and I…I was probably holding in a fart in this photo…Chateau club was a fancy place so I chose to reserve my farts for a later time…
One unique item that they had at this party was a photo booth type thing. It was basically just a webcam with LED flash but it was cool because you could instantly upload the photo to your email or to Facebook… I realized later on when I got back home to LA that you could actually go back and view all the photos that were taken that night. I’m going to be honest, I was trying to find a photo with some drunk chick flashing but that just didn’t pan out so I’ve included some of the photos that we took at the booth…
Ryan, May, and Nick…you can see in these photos our view of the Vegas strip from where we were…
From left to right, DPK David’s shoulder, May, Christ, Nick Weir, me, and CRS Foto aka “My Ass is Haunted”…
No idea who these breezies were but I enjoyed the photo so I included it…haha…does any still use the term “breezies” by the way?….
JDM Mike, sad-face Jay, and Frank, who was trying to look as sexy as possible… I guess this wasn’t his first time in front of a webcam…
Totally random but I also found this photo of some random white guy in the background with Kevin from Autofashion USA and Julie Mai…
Not much else happened at the party….It was just a chill night overall to be with good company. There was an old man who was dancing like the world was going to end the next day but I guess that just goes with being at an industry party during Vegas….After the club shut down, we all headed over to our favorite Vegas food spot, Earl of Sandwich, for a late night sang-wich…
It was Chris’ first time at Earl of Sandwich after hearing about it all these years from our Vegas trips…
One more sandwich for these guys before they headed back to their respective homes the next day…
Not much else happened after on that particular night. We actually got a good amount of sleep since we didn’t have to worry about heading back to the SEMA show on Friday. We woke up around noon or so and David, Jared, May, and I went to grab some lunch at Cabo Wabo before David and Jared went back to L.A. I spent the rest of the afternoon having some alone time with May and we gambled and walked around for awhile before heading back to the room to relax. Ryan wanted to have dinner so we met up later on in the evening to grab some all-you-can-eat sushi. It wasn’t terribly exciting so I didn’t have any photos of that…
Oh, I almost forgot this…remember how I mentioned that I always manage to miss out on some cars at the SEMA show? Well, I actually spotted a car from SEMA that I didn’t see at the show parked at Planet Hollywood when we were hanging out there…
This is probably the first new Infiniti FX that I have seen modded and it’s not a bad look…I personally think these crossover SUVS look a little odd but they don’t look half bad with some work done to them. I can imagine how aggressive it would look if it was on air and slammed to the parking lot floor…
We headed home early Saturday afternoon and passed by the Autofashion guys along the way…That Sunday was the VIP Festival which you saw coverage of before the SEMA posts began…
That concludes the 6-part SEMA 2011 coverage. I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did. I know many of you don’t have the opportunity to go because you aren’t a part of the industry and don’t know people that can get you in but this is basically how the entire week is, at least for guys like us anyway. I’m sure there are more people who party harder, spend more time at the actual show, and do more baller shit like eat at fancy restaurants or whatever, but I think I’ve given you guys a good glimpse of SEMA life. I try to put into words what happened through my eyes and hopefully it has translated well to you guys. Obviously some of the more crazier things that happened during the parties were fabricated but it makes for a more entertaining side of the story. It’s more exciting then me just telling you that we stood around and drank with a bunch of dudes standing around us and breathing down our necks. I mean, how fucking fun does that sound? Haha. That’s just how it is at SEMA…it’s a good time but you have to take it for what it is. You don’t go out there to meet your next fuck friend or even your next significant other, it’s not realistic to think that it would even be remotely possible. The SEMA show itself is basically the same every year but just with a different cast of characters and new builds. That will just never change… Anyways, I have thoroughly enjoyed painting the SEMA picture for you guys. I appreciate that you took your time to go through it…
Thanks for looking….
Fin.
SEMA Show 2011 Coverage…Part 5…
When we last left off, we had concluded day 2 of the SEMA 2011 show and were headed back to the hotel. It was early in the evening already so we decided to grab some dinner before heading out to a local meet later that night. I guess they do these meets in Vegas every now and then but since Freddie and the Autofashion crew were in town, everyone decided to meet up at the Callaway Golf course to hang out. It was a VIP car meet but it didn’t really stop other cars from showing up. I had been exchanging emails with the guys from Tactical Art Japan off and on the weeks leading up to the week of SEMA and we thought it would be cool to meet up. I mean, realistically, how often would we have the opportunity to meet, being that we are usually in different continents? SEMA was the perfect meeting place for us but the only problem was that they couldn’t meet during the day time. Reason behind that is simple: the guys from Tactical Art don’t speak English, and they needed a translator but the translator they had with them worked the SEMA show for HKS. I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to meet these guys so I told them to come by the meet. That way they could not only meet us, but also have the chance to see some more U.S. builds while they were here…
If you’re not familiar with who Tactical Art is or if by chance you just missed out on the post, read more about our Japanese friends here….
We grabbed some dinner over at the Steak n’ Shake inside Southpoint Hotel & Casino, got ready for the industry party later that night, and headed out to Callaway Golf Course for the meet. We arrived a little late, as usual, and the meet was going full force. There were all kinds of VIP cars everywhere but it was a little hard to see because the lighting there was very poor. I grabbed my cell and called up the translator for the Tactical Art guys, and they were already there looking at cars…
The Tactical Art guys were very friendly and I really appreciated the translator taking the time to come out and help us break down the language barrier. They wanted to take a photo with us right away so the translator grabbed their camera to capture the image while May stood off to the side and snapped this photo of us….
They have a blog (online diary) as well were they documented this event, so if you’re interested, you can check it out here. You probably need to understand Japanese though, otherwise you’re just looking at pictures….
This is the resulting photo directly from the Tactical Art blog…Of course you already know the cast of characters up top, but the guys below are (left to right) Yasutaka Shimomukai from Tactical Art, Keisuke Morita who is a Sales Engineer from HKS Japan, and Atuki Tubouti, who is the head of Tactical Art… Taku Kusugami, who owns the brown EK on black Work S1s, was also in town but couldn’t make it to the meet…
Even though it was hard to really speak to one another, I could understand how much they appreciated me doing a spotlight on their shop and cars on The Chronicles. They were asking me how long it took me to put the post together because it was really detailed, not knowing that I am a writer by trade and can whip up some good content pretty easily, haha. It was a great experience meeting those guys though. It’s cool to meet enthusiasts from other countries because they have a different outlook on things. When they were at the meet, I could see their enthusiasm and how surprised they were to see VIP cars in the U.S….
I kinda fucked up by not bringing any Chronicles stickers to Vegas, knowing that I would probably meet up with them down the line, and I felt even worse when they gave me a giant stack of Tactical Art stickers….
…and I mean, it was a pretty large stack. These guys were more than generous and I’ve been putting together a package of merchandise for them to mail out to Japan. I got so many of these that I’ll probably throw a couple of these in there with some big orders when I re-open The Chronicles Storefront. Keep an eye out for that if you’re interested in some pretty rare stickers straight from Japan…
Here’s one of the VIP Q45s at the meet…
Gerald from Royal Origin and his DC2 were at the meet…
…as well as Chivas’ orange coupe. The Tactical Art guys are huge Honda heads so they spent quite a bit of time looking over Chivas’ car and were surprised to see his purple color-shifting engine bay…
S2000 from “Jock Me” with Alexisthemovie’s old glow-in-the-dark Work Rezax wheels…
Ronzilla’s Scion xB… I still remember this car from the 2009 SEMA show when it was still white…
We hung out for a little while longer but it was getting late and we had to get to the Scion industry party over at the Aria so I snapped one more photo with them, said our goodbyes, and headed out with Freddie and the Autofashion guys…
We arrived at Haze nightclub inside Aria around 11 and walked right in to get some drinks. I had been to Haze before and it was a pretty nice club. I remember going there one year for Phaze2 Tony’s birthday and the club was absolutely packed with people. They had like this Geisha Girl show on the stage then with chicks in all kinds of thongs and shit and it was a blast. For the Scion party, uhhh…it was a little different. No geisha girls, and definitely just lacking in general when it came to girls, as expected, but fuck it, we had a good time…
Drinks weren’t exactly cheap at the clubs, but that was expected. With little women around and plenty of industry folks walking around trying to have a good time, their only release was throwing down some alcohol. It’s also not as crowded as it usually would be on say, a regular weekend, so the clubs mark up the prices a bit to make some money off these guys. Luckily for us, our buddy Fat Kid from Ballade Sports had the super duper Scion VIP wristband, which allowed him to have access to an open bar all night. This guy right here, standing next to DPK David, literally made our night because he would just go back and forth and bring us whatever drinks we wanted. He was basically our liaison to an open bar with free drinks and he did not hesitate to keep bringing the drinks over….
Our buddy Nick Caster flew out from Roseville, CA and made it just in time for the party, while our other friend Hoonie (scary giant to the right), drove out from Orange County to join the festivities…Here they are partying it up with Rywire Ryan and Fat Kid…
With few women in sight, Ryan enlisted the help of a Peter North video while he pounded down two drinks…Ryan could be heard saying “…Damn that dude must eat a lot of egg whites…”…
While Ryan was busy enjoying some fuck faces, I ran into one of the Tjin brothers. Gene is always willing to experiment with fashion so he showed up to the club rocking a fucking Nintendo Power Glove…If you don’t know what these are, then you were probably born in the 90s or later. Never fear though, because the Tjin brothers are now sponsored by some Vietnamese hole-in-the-wall video game store in Garden Grove, CA and will be releasing the “Tjin Edition” Power Glove. They will come in a new brushed metal wrap that will still come with the timeless ability to make it difficult to pick up anything while trying to get this glove to work with Shaq-Fu the video game… I was overjoyed by this news and asked Gene if they had a brand-new in-box Virtual Boy, which he replied “Yes, but the only game that works on it is called ‘a headache’…”….
Jared was looking mighty pimped-out in his velour blazer posing alongside May….The jacket would later be found on the kitchen counter where Jared was busy unearthing his demons into the sink…
Somewhere later on in the night, Fat Kid had given us waaaaayyy too many free drinks and we started doing all kinds of dumb shit…I don’t know who that girl is and Wolverine seemed awfully douchey, but it didn’t stop me from dancing like an asshole with my glow stick out…
The rest of the night just kind of seemed like a utter blur after that… I didn’t know what the fuck was going on… I totally forgot Rom was there partying with us until he emerged from this cloud of smoke…. Shit looked like a fucking Prince video…
When the club shut down, we headed out once again to go grab some food…I think…the night was pretty hazy (no pun intended, you know cuz we were partying at “Haze” and because of the last photo..no pun though I swear).. We got back to the hotel room and listened to Jared re-enact the scene from The Exorcist and went to bed…
I thought I went to bed fine and dandy, but around 6am, I woke up with a sudden urge to take a shit. I walked over to the bathroom, sat down, looked through Facebook with one eye open, and then got up…and fucking threw up all over the toilet. I guess I had drank more than I had remembered, and broke my consecutive non-yack streak of 4+ years. If that wasn’t bad enough, I actually still had to take a shit too so I sat down to poop, probably all the while sitting on my own yack….I did my business, hopped in the shower, cleaned the toilet, all the while with just one eye open, and then hopped back into bed and kiss May goodnight, haha…
The next day was kind of rough. I really wanted to hit up the SEMA show early because I wanted to see whatever was left that I had missed. It didn’t help that we woke up super late and didn’t get to the show until about 1pm…
I really liked this VW MK1 Golf from the United Kingdom that was sitting in the Meguiar’s Car Crazy Showcase…
I don’t know enough about Volkswagens to tell you what swap is in here…pretend I did though and act like I have endless amount of knowledge… Fucking R32 motor or something, yeah that sounds about right…
Right hand drive with an absolutely immaculate interior….
Refinished Ronal Turbo wheels in a wrinkle black finish…
Had to get a shot of this as I passed by the Meguiar’s stage…
Our buddy Hoonie tagged along with us to check out the show and here he is pointing at the 50-inch wheel he was planning to put on his Chevy pick-up…the A/C isn’t working but if the truck is sitting in the sky with these big ass wheels, he won’t have to worry about getting hot…It’s a wire wheel though so he’d have to stop the car every 10 miles and re-tighten all the spokes…
Seibon’s Honda CR-Z in the Hankook booth with some baby ass TE37SLs…That’s like a TE37SL fetus that hasn’t developed into a full grown wheel…
These girls were happy to see me, although I am still unsure if the girl on the right is still capable of smiling…
Three things are very obvious in this photo, one of them being that I should have framed this photo better…the other two are bursting out of that girl’s dress…
I tried to think of what to say to her and the only words that came out of my mouth were “Tiiiiiits…” which she responded to with a smile…she probably gets that a lot…
Pretty model and a company with some unattractive wheels…
SLS McLaren inside the Forgiato booth…
Murcielago from Japan with Liberty Walk aero, air suspension, and Forgiato GTR wheels…
I guess there was some controversy online as to whether or not this was actually a real CLS 63 AMG or not…turns out that this was a regular CLS550 and the brakes ended up being the dead giveaway. One eye witness who was at the show even stated clearly that one front brake caliper said “AMG” on it and the other side didn’t….weird, either way it’s still a CLS with a Wald Black Bison kit on it. The aero isn’t for everyone, especially when it comes to the typical demographic of CLS owners but companies don’t take risks and make these aggressive kits to please everyone…It’s an interesting look in my opinion but I’ve also seen photos of it online where it’s just black and not this bright matte orange color…Either way, it’s not something I really care too much about cuz it’s out of my price range anyway, haha…
Oh man, this was crazy. We were at the back half of the wheel/tire hall when I thought I spotted the HRE section. When I looked closer, it turns out that this wasn’t HRE, but a Taiwanese company called BC Wheels that literally took EVERY SINGLE wheel from HRE and made copies of it! Fucking nuts…I mean, they made no attempt to even hide the fact that they are ripping off HRE wheels. Even their center cap design was close to the HRE center cap. Apparently they are forged too, but who knows….
I mean, seriously…a copy of every HRE wheel…shits crazy….Even if you were a casual car enthusiast you would probably recognize these wheels as being HREs…I just had to snap some photos because nobody would believe me. I know I usually get some photos of the Rota booth but nothing is really different this year other than the fact that they have already made a copy of the Work CR-01 wheel. Oh speaking of which, FUCK XXR wheels. Every year at SEMA they prevent people from taking photos of their booth. They even have signs posted everywhere that they don’t allow photography. As soon as they see that you have a camera they already have a rep stand up and hover over you and shit, it’s bullshit. Lame ass company…It’s sad how dirty they are and how they are afraid that people will take photos of wheels that are blatant copies…Rota doesn’t give a shit and will even give you a fucking free baseball cap. XXR tries to pretend like they aren’t doing anything wrong, when everyone already knows what they are all about….
Ever wonder what a blank 20×8.5in wheel looks like before a design has been cut into it?…(Totally unrelated to the company above by the way…)
Ever wonder what a Chrysler 300 would look like if it crashed into a brick of government cheese?… Haha, I think this rolling travesty was once a Chevy S10 pick-up that transformed itself into a giant brick of crusty government cheese. Don’t know what government cheese is? Well look it up, because you’re lucky to be financially stable and never had to encounter government assisted foods…Usually when that old crusty brick of cheese has been left in the fridge too long and gets old, it starts cracking and flaking and looks a lot like this truck. If somehow there were ever an accident where a Chrysler 300 crashed into a Best Buy the same exact moment when a Chevy S10 carrying a truck-bed load of government cheese crashed into it, this would be the result… And they say miracles don’t happen…
One of the best comments I’ve seen online about this thing is that it’s fitting how the truck was built by a collision center because it’s meant to resemble an accident, haha…Seriously though, why the fuck does a hood need to open like that? Unless it’s like a trap door that opens to a world filled with giant tittys and free hamburgers, it’s awfully unnecessary. And then whoever built this thing is trying to fool me into liking this truck by throwing some fucking sideways TVs inside the doors. Motherfucker, I can’t even watch TV like that….
Anyways, moving on…
Now let’s take a look at a build that is much more pleasing to the senses….This is John Fortuno’s Chrysler 300, which is dubbed “Fatchance 2.0″. We had actually walked through the Dodge/Mopar section earlier but we ran into some of the guys from out east and totally missed this car. On the way over to the Falken Tire section, David and I spotted this thing walking up the stairs and decided to go take a look at it. When I started looking at the bay, the owner John Fortuno came out from the back seat and decided to give us a tour of the car…
We talked with him for quite a bit actually and even found out that he’s from Huntington Beach, CA, which isn’t too far away from us. Fortuno has a 426 HEMI engine swap with custom fuel set-up, tucked harness, and white powdercoated intake manifold….
I love the front end on these new 300s because it finally has a look of it’s own and not anything resembling a Rolls Royce…
The trim pieces, grille, etc. were all removed and redone to have this brushed metal finish…John tells us that he took the pieces, sanded them down to a dull finish and then powdercoated it in black chrome to produce this look…
Full custom interior…You can see the brushed elements also appear inside…
Custom trunk enclosure with dual air compressors for the air suspension and Accuair digital leveling system…
Fatchance 2.0 also features aero from Xenon and 22-inch forged USW Uprise wheels… Overall a great build and another one of my favorites. It was a pleasure talking to John Fortuno as well and I appreciated the fact that he took the time to tell us all about Fatchance 2.0. You can actually find quite a bit of information on this 300 if you’re really interested in it. Just google “Fatchance 2.0″. This build is quite famous in the Mopar world and is considered the first heavily modified 2011 Chrysler 300. John even worked closely with Chysler to put this car together after the success of his first 300 build, Fatchance 1.0….
Once we finished speaking to Mr. Fortuno, we made our way to the Falken Tire area…
We walked by the Toyo Tires booth along the way where I spotted UFC lightweight Anthony “Showtime” Pettis…There were a bunch of UFC fighters on hand during SEMA and a couple of them made appearances in the Toyo section inside this make-shift cage display. The first day featured Rampage Jackson and Strikeforce Woman’s Champion Miesha Tate. I think the next day it was Brandon Vera and then Anthony Pettis… While walking around, I also spotted Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone and Leonard Garcia. I don’t know if you guys recognize any of those names but I’m a huge MMA fan so it was cool to see these guys just walking around and enjoying cars….
One more look at the widebody Cadillac CTS-V coupe from D3 Group….the car features an APR rear wing, matte body wrap, and D3 hood, sideskirts, chin spoiler, and widebody kit…
Motor is powered by a D3 Stage 3 supercharger, D3 1000HP axles, and Art Carr transmission…
Speaking of widebody, I also spotted this Ford Mustang from Galpin Auto Sports. The front looks good but the side and rear are not really all that pleasing to the eyes…
I don’t know what Kenda Tires are but they had this S13 hatchback with Kouki S14 front end…
GM Performance LS3 crate motor and Sikky engine mounts….
Finally got to the Falken Tire section to grab some free Falken gear and so that some of the others could see the RWB Porsche…I had already seen all the cars here so I just hung out and snapped some photos of the Falken ladies…
Falken Tire model Randyl Dawn…who was giving out some free Falken carabiners and referred to me as “Hey you cameraman”…
Falken Tire model Melanie Tillbrook…
Falken Tire models Julie Galindo and Myra…
We left the wheel/tire hall after that and walked back outside to try and find some cars that we missed…
The new Camaros are all the rage these days, especially at SEMA 2011, so it was refreshing to see this 80s-90s era Camaro completely race-ready and in great shape…All caged-up with lexan glass front and back…crazy…
Widebody Subaru WRX wagon parked next to some railing…this is a perfect example of a nice build that might have been missed because of where it was placed…
I was finally able to get some better shots of this matte red E61 BMW 5-series wagon on VIP Modular wheels….
Love this brown Ford truck…
Gonna close it out for today with this 1960 Cadillac DeVille aka “Cruella DeVille”, owned by Justin Carillo….
That’s all for today folks, hope you enjoyed the read. Thanks for looking, back with whatever is left of the SEMA 2011 coverage later….
SEMA Show 2011 Coverage…Part 4…
Let’s jump right back into the ongoing SEMA 2011 coverage by your’s truly, Stickydiljoe and The Chronicles. I’m glad you guys have enjoyed it so far and even liked the photos from the first industry party we attended. There’s so much more and photos from two more parties as well, along with some photos from a local meet we went to where I met the Tactical Art guys. I finally finished going through all of the actual show coverage from the memory card today and there isn’t that much more. I think maybe we are looking at 3 more parts possibly? I’ll have to double check. As far as the show pics go, it’s only a couple more sets but when I throw the party and other random stuff in there, the number of photos grows a bit…
When we last left off, we had started day 2 of the SEMA show, which was a Wednesday. May and stayed behind to get some work done for her job and it was just DPK David and Jared that cruised back to the show with me. There were a couple more sections that we missed along the way and two of the things that we wanted to make sure and see was Bisimoto’s 997-swappped Porsche and the Scion booth. The Scion section is always good because they select a couple of individuals in the industry every year to participate in their Scion Tuner Challenge. For 2011, Scion rolled out their new 2012 Scion iQ and wanted to see what tuners like Jon Sibal and Evasive Motorsports could do with them…I want to mention in advance that I had more photos of Jon Sibal’s iQ, which ultimately won the competition, but they came out shitty and blurry so I didn’t want to post them up. Jon’s and the Evasive iQ, in my opinion, were the only ones that were notable in the competition anyway so if you want to see the other competitors, you’re going to have to look elsewhere. One of them had like, low offset XXR wheels or some shit and an exhaust coming out of the trunk, it wasn’t a good look at all so I didn’t even bother with it…sorry if I sound like an asshole for saying that but realistically, I knew I would have close to a 1000 photos to go through and if it didn’t peak my interest, I wasn’t going to try and fuck with it…Anyways, on with the photos…
This is the Scion “iQ-RS” that was built by Evasive Motorsports. It was completely race-inspired and had a lot of cool parts on it. Jon Sibal’s was more catered to a broader audience and that’s why I felt like it deserved to win the challenge, but it didn’t mean that the Evasive car wasn’t equally as deserving of recognition…
Voltex aero and the newly released Advan Racing RT wheels…
Interior even had a six-point cage and a number of custom interior pieces…
Love the custom Stack tachometer….
The Scion “iQ-RX” by Jon Sibal…Jon’s iQ featured HRE wheels, VeilSide aero, and Airrunner suspension…
Scion FR-S Concept…I was pretty excited to see this thing in person finally…
The “Pit Boss Cartel iQ”…
After checking out the Scion section, we headed back to the North Hall, which was the hall that I wasn’t really all that excited about because there normally isn’t anything to look at. It’s the hall that has all the new tools, seat covers and shit, just a bunch of random stuff and sometimes they will have a nice car here and there…We decided to head in with low expectations. I remember from previous years that I usually only go to the North Hall to see the Mazda sections. I don’t know why they are stuck in that hall every year but it never fails, I walked inside and instantly found them…
Mazdaspeed Turbo2…
Mazdaspeed MX-5 Spyder… really like what they did with the fabric convertible top…
Original Mazda Cosmo Sport…The Cosmo Sport is actually the first 2-rotor rotary-engine powered vehicle to be produced in Mazda’s family lineage… The last generation Eunos Cosmo from the 90s was the first Mazda to be powered by the 3-rotor 20B rotary engine that you see now being swapped into RX-7s…
Models from the Mazdaspeed booth…I realized later that the girl on the right is Amanda Gift, who has been in a couple issues of Super Street magazine in the past. You might recognize her more for looking like this…
Jared, hungover still from the night before and wearing sunglasses indoors, posing with a model from some booth I’ve never heard of…
After realizing that we were correct in our assumption that there was nothing to look at in this hall, we decided to hop back to the other hall to check out some more cars…
This lime green widebody R35 GT-R from Jotech Motorsports was pretty sick…It was stuffed in the corner and was probably over looked by many because I haven’t really seen any other photos of it floating around online…
Liked this E-Class Benzo that was inside the Injen booth…
Teal-wrapped Lancer Sportback also in the Injen booth….
A lovely model from the Spyder Auto booth…This booth was stocked with models the entire week and up until this very moment in time, I am still unaware of what they do or what products they sell…
Another great build from Ringbrothers…
Nice chop top action on this street rod…
A heavily-modified ’69 Plymouth Roadrunner built by Spitzer Concepts dubbed “The Roadrattler”… SEMA 2011 served as the grand unveiling for this build and the 528 cubic inch motor makes 790HP with a 500HP nitrous assist…
It took us awhile to find but we finally stumbled upon the NGK booth where the Bisimotowerks 997-swapped Porsche 911 was parked…
Custom sheet metal widebody and Bisimotowerks Eins Gramm wheels…
It was crazy to even see this car in this nearly-completed state considering how the build finished in the 11th hour before departing to SEMA….
Walked over to the Mackin Industries booth to see what was new from Volk Racing/Rays Engineering… The wheel above is the new Volk Racing G16 wheel…
The new Volk Racing TE37 Tokyo Time Attack wheel…
Volk Racing TE37Vs coming soon in sizes other than 15′s…
New Project Mu brakes available in other colors than their signature teal hue….
Over at the Advan Racing area, I stopped to take a look at one of my favorite wheels of all time, which coincidentally, were also one of the most copied wheels of the early 2000s; Advan AVS Model 5s, which I guess are being released as the AVS Model T5….
’56 Cadillac aka “Badillac”, owned by Pete Pettenon…
Anyone notice anything different about the Eibach Springs Honda CR-Z?…
A lot of casual passerby’s glanced and kept walking without even noticing that the CR-Z is now K24-swapped thanks to Brian from Hasport… It was also supposed to be supercharged but time just didn’t permit that from happening…
….And the winner for “Best of Show” at the 2011 SEMA show goes to…
The Ringbrothers 1965 Ford Mustang “Producer”….
Keith Craft 351/427 stroker V8 making 740HP…
Full custom interior featuring a one-off dashboard and chromoly roll cage…
A glimpse of the cage and it’s hard to tell from this photo but the entire body has also been widened 4-inches….
Sorry for the crappy shot of the rear…
Another one of my favorites from the 2011 SEMA show….Kevin Byrd’s GM LS-swapped 1990 BMW M3….
GM Performance Products LS3 motor making around 500HP…
Love the “LSM3″ represented on the valve covers…
E30 M3s have to be one of the best-looking cars ever built…boxy in design, yes, but the flared body of the M3 chassis has a timeless, always recognizable look…The BBS wheels, swap, and everything come together for a amazing build. The chassis has seen all sorts of reinforcement too from what we saw when the owner was detailing the car to another onlooker….
Hennessey Venom GT….1200HP via a twin-turbo GM LSx engine…
Chrome green painted Chevy Camaro sitting at the GM booth, representing Hot Wheels….
This year, GM was busy spotlighting their new Chevy Sonic, which looks a lot like a mini toy version of a Mitsubishi Evo X…
Tjin Edition Chevy Sonic…
Fatlace Chevy Sonic hatchback built by Mark Arcenal….
Really liked the chameleon color-shifting paint…
I didn’t even know that this Sonic was Fatlace’s until Gene Tjin told me…apparently the car is not even on air, and sits hammered to the floor on coilovers…The Rotiform wheels are nice and the center almost matches the interior, which I’m sure was intentional…
This year for SEMA, GM was celebrating “100 years of Chevrolet” so to commemorate that event, they had two 50-year old men laying on the floor next to an old Chevelle…
David was busy talking to Sunny over at the Airrex booth about his Honda Insight, so I walked over to the K-Sport section and snapped a photo of this model at their booth just as she was headed to the restroom….
She probably had to go pee real bad but it didn’t stop us from making Jared take a picture with her….
Another shot of Sunny’s Honda Insight from Franklin Autobody….
These two guys were taking the whole “human tripod” thing to a whole new level…If the dude on the bottom was laying down face up, I wouldn’t have take this photo and ran away quickly…
We stopped by the Honda area and ran into the Tjin brothers, so we chatted with them for a bit along with Preston from Function & Form…
We hung out there for a little bit before heading back to the hotel…it was the end to day two of the SEMA show and it was time to party once again…
Oh I also snapped this photo of this Imola Red E39 M5 aka “LoLa” on the way out…
That’s all for today…thanks for looking, back with more tomorrow….
SEMA Show 2011 Coverage…Part 3…
As promised, here is part 3 of the ongoing SEMA 2011 coverage… When we last left off, we had just exited the wheel/tire hall and were heading back to the car to grab dinner. It was just Tuesday of our week long stay in Vegas but we were itching to grab some good dinner and party it up at the first industry party later in the evening. Before we got back to the car though, we walked along the outside perimeter of the SEMA show where all kinds of different cars were posted up outside of each hall. The thing with having cars outside is that it’s very easy to miss some really good builds because everyone is so fascinated with what’s going on inside the different buildings. The builds posted up outside are usually good ones too, they just might be overlooked… I know from looking at SEMA coverage from other sites last year that there was all kinds of cars that I missed so I made sure we put effort into walking around outside. Did I catch everything that I wanted to see? Ehh..debatable… I’m satisifed with what I saw but I can almost guarantee you that I missed out on some good cars….In any case, let’s get going with the photos…
Seeing this was a real treat. I didn’t expect to ever see this car in person but I appreciate it even more than when I first saw this build in an issue of Option magazine a couple months back. Option is a popular automotive magazine in Japan that I try to check out whenever I can and this Z33 Fairlady (Japanese Nissan 350Z) was one of their cover cars…
The Porsche conversion and all the crazy bodywork definitely isn’t everyone’s taste but you have to respect the amount of work that was involved in this build…It’s a very well rounded car and the quality of work is top notch…
One of the unique aspects of this Z is how it’s born and built in Japan but it’s rocking two different sets of American VIP Modular wheels… I saw a lot of people hovering around this car trying to figure out what it was and the only real indication of it’s original form is in the door handles, which have remained original z33 pieces…
The interior has been completely re-wrapped and shares the same level of work as the exterior…
Seeing this thing in person reminds of last year’s SEMA when a Japanese tuning shop brought over their Camaro build. It’s just really cool to see stuff like this because you would only be able to be in the presence of these builds at the annual SEMA event…
The section where that Z was parked had all kinds of different cars parked there. There were lifted bro trucks, Euros, and even really clean lowriders like this one…
Big body Caddy that I spotted as I walked by the giant Meguiar’s area…
Another vehicles that was a part of Meguiar’s “Car Crazy Showcase” was this right-hand drive VeilSide Fortune FD3S RX-7…
20-inch Forgeline wheels…
Custom interior with the original instrument cluster removed and replaced with a number of different gauges…
Rear quarter shot of the VeilSide RX-7…
Meguiar’s also had another section devoted to different builds from all over the world… This 78 Ford Falcon XC GS was another one of my favorite cars of SEMA ’11 and it actually comes all the way from Australia…
Stroked 351 Cleveland motor with individual throttle bodies…
The interior is all custom as well with a fiberglass dash, bucket seats, and re-wrapped panels… As you can see from this photo, the doors of this Aussie Falcon opens suicide style…
The amount of fabrication on this car is insane. I actually did some more research on this car and it has a custom fabricated tube chassis, radiator panel and firewall, flared front fenders, custom bumper bars, and so much more. The door hinges for the suicide doors were also hand made and the door handles for this thing were incorporated into the front cowl between the hood and windshield…fucking crazy….Look at that trunk.
If you guys want to read more on Adam Lebrese’s Falcon coupe, click here….
This Celica is also a part of Meguiar’s world wide showcase of cars… If Spiderman ever decides to move to China, he won’t have to worry about not having transportation. Again, not my taste, but I can appreciate and admire the craftsmanship and work…. If you want to know more about Jordan Le Han’s Spidey Celica, click here…the people that did the story for this car even photoshopped an image of this car scaling the side of a building, haha…
May couldn’t resist and just had to get a photo of Jared doing the Spidey-pose…
Meanwhile, DPK David asked me if I could get a photo of him with one of his favorite trucks at SEMA…
At this point, we were getting pretty hungry…but there were just so many nice cars to see on our way out. This Subaru STI was another one of my favorites that I just had to get a closer look at. We found out a couple days later at an industry party that this Subaru belonged to a female enthusiast from Maryland by the name of Joy Abdalla…
Love the shaved and tucked engine bay. It’s rare to see these Subarus with engine bays that are this clean….
I also really liked the little details of Joy’s Subaru, like this exposed carbon section of the trunk that was left unpainted…
The paint, widebody, and aggressive TE37s look great…The vanity plate also makes more sense now after finding out who the owner was…
Just had to get another shot of this Carlsson Benz from Memoryfab before we left…
R34 GT-R on Rohana wheels…I know what wheels they are just based on assumption…
After snapping that pic, we finally left the Las Vegas Convention Center. We were all hungry so we went to go eat and then returned to our rooms to hang out for a bit before getting ready to party. There were two different industry parties going on that night so we had a little bit of a dilemma deciding which one to go to. Formula D was hosting a party at Pure night club, while 5Axis was throwing a party over at Club XS, which was inside of the Encore hotel and casino. We called a couple of the other homies that were out there for SEMA and everyone seemed to be going to one or the other, so we just decided to go check out the Formula D party first. If it sucked, we could just easily hop back in the car and head to Encore so we got dressed and headed out…
When we got to Caesar’s Palace to hit up Pure, it was a fucking mad house. I mean, we weren’t even inside the club yet… there were just so many people waiting outside and it seemed like forever until anyone was able to get inside the club. Plus they had like some Ebay party going on at the same time and it was just getting too hectic for us. We walked over to the bar across from the club and grabbed a drink, then decided it would be best for us to head on over to Encore to check out the 5Axis party. We rounded up the troops and off to Encore we went…
The scene there was drastically different. The party was going on already but it wasn’t ridiculously crowded outside. We showed our IDs and walked right inside without any hesitiation. If you guys have never been to SEMA or participated in any of the parties that go on during SEMA, you have to understand one thing: It is always going to be a fucking giant cauldron of sausages. It’s an industry party so it’s going to be dominated by people in the industry, who are predominantly male. You go to these parties just to socialize and mingle, and also to meet other contacts within the automotive industry. If you go to one of these parties thinking you’re going to meet all kinds of girls and bang like 3 chicks in one night, you’re setting yourself up for failure. The girls that are usually there either work there or they are already spoken for. Like I tell everyone every year, the only girls you’re going to meet and take back to your room while you’re there for SEMA are girls that you have to pay for..haha…sad, but true. I don’t give a shit about meeting girls at these parties, because I have a significant other and May is usually there with me at the parties anyways. I just go for fun and shoot the shit, possibly drink a little… I mean, it’s a good time. There are a lot of friends and acquaintances that I hardly get to see normally so being out there in Vegas with them is cool. We make the most of these parties anyways and it’s usually a good fucking time… The only thing we try to avoid is fighting with drunken idiots because there are dudes at these parties that just get absolutely shit-faced. Anyways, below are a couple of photos from Club XS and these photos will conclude day one of SEMA 2011…pretty crazy that we’ve gone three parts of the coverage already and it’s only the end of day one…May took the majority of these photos so thanks goes out to her for covering everything outside of the SEMA show…
One of the guys we didn’t see throughout the day that ended up coming out to party with us was Rodrez from Honda Tuning magazine…He was in some meetings earlier in the night so it was cool of him to come out and unwind…behind him is another familiar face, Ryan from Rywire, who showed up to the club with a free cut…
For being inside of a club that was 80% dudes, the go-go dancers working that night at XS were awfully friendly to us… Here Jared is asking one of the girls if they could re-enact a porn scene he had seen the night before he left for Vegas and asked her to spit in his mouth…Disgusting, yes, but that’s just how DPK Jared gets down…”Spit in my mouth Rihanna” said Jared…
Jared also did some questionable dancing, which made Rodrez feel awkward…
I could only imagine what these girls were thinking about when they were dancing over a sea of dudes…
Jonathan Wong from Super Street magazine showed up and promptly shoved a drink in my face…Mr. Wong is one of those asians that gets the “asian glow” when he drinks and turns bright red…in this photo, you can see that his ear is about to explode, haha….
Jared posing for a photo while chatting up one of the dancers…
DPK Darryl and his buddy trying to steal money from go-go dancer/import model Michelle Yee….
It had been a while since I had seen or talked to my buddy Travis, so we decided to chat while this couple dry-humped eachother next to us…
UFC fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson was at the SEMA show and the after parties….May caught this photo of him dancing with one of the go-go girls…
There are so many different things going on in this photo…the obvious one is me disguising myself as Rick Ross, but also take a look at the two creepy white dudes in the back and some random dude trying to check Michelle Yee’s oil…haha… “HUUHHHH” -Rick Ross
May wanted to get a picture with DPK Darryl and our friend Rom but Darryl looked bored and uninterested in the photo so I transformed him into Goro from Mortal Kombat…
Me in front of the camera for once, posing for a photo with DPK David and Jared… I think the same dude that was checking that go-go dancer’s oil earlier was also checking Jared’s in this pic…
I sealed off the night with a kiss…
…and a sandwich from my favorite sandwich spot of all time and then called it a night….
Good times were had by all….
DAY TWO (Wednesday)….
I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep that night because we were at the club until around 3am, but I really wanted to get to the show to cover as much of it as I possibly could. That way I could have more free time the rest of the week. I ate some leftovers from the previous night, and then David, Jared, and I set off once again to the SEMA show. May decided to stay behind and catch up on some work since she had taken the week off from her regular job and also went to get some groceries for our place in Vegas…
When we got to the convention center, we decided to see what else the outside had to offer before checking out one of the halls that we had yet to walk inside…
Clean silver Audi wagon on Rotiform wheels…I’m pretty confident in saying that probably 60% of the photos I took had a care with Rotiform wheels on it…these things were seriously EVERYWHERE. I wonder if/when Rota would start making copies of these wheels, judging by their recent rise in popularity. If they did, would they simply call them “Rota Forms”? haha….so stupid…
This Accord coupe was interesting/weird/not attractive/from 2001…
Turbo H22 under the hood…I don’t know if I would call this a shave and tuck so I shall call it…”shit covering everything”… The only person I could picture driving this car was the opera singer from the Fifth Element movie…haha…definitely a unique build but there is some stuff that was questionable like the painted engine block with all the bolts and everything also painted. It’s like they just masked shit off and sprayed everything blue…
SL65 AMG V12 Bi-turbo…I believe this is the same one from the VIP Festival coverage I posted up…
Always liked this Audi Nimbus Grey BMW 3-series sedan….sorry once again, for the bukkake shadow…
I also have always been a fan of this BMW M3 with a mix of euro and Japanese style….
This Lexus LS was definitely another one of my favorites at the SEMA show. I had first seen it online when Freddie from Autofashion posted a photo of it, so I was excited to finally see it in person…Love the Aimgain aero and WED’s Maverick wheels…I also like the fact that he didn’t try to go all crazy “hellaflush” poke with his suspensino and wheel set-up. This is true, traditional VIP styling and I will always be a fan of this look…
Diamond-stitched dashboard and interior…
Liked the contrasting red accents on the black. The red exhaust tips are a nice touch and definitely not something you see attempted everyday on other VIP builds…
The red pin-striping is also a very nice touch….
DPK David asked me what I liked about this car and I told him that it was just an overall great package in terms of VIP styling and execution. It just all comes together and works. It is the way traditional Japanese VIP builds should look. I know that these days, wild aero and custom vents and everything is all the rage in Japan but it’s good to see this simplistic style executed…Much props to Kyoei USA for putting this build together and showing that it’s not just all about wheels and being slammed and looking broken…
SL65 AMG which the owner dubbed “SL666″…get it? Because it’s red and blaaaaaack….
Infiniti M with Job Design aero and infinite amounts of negative camber in the rear….
VIP-styled Honda Odyssey from Team Sunworks…
If Big Mike’s Prelude and Mike G’s Tank had a bastard child, it would pretty much look like this…
1GS from Platinum VIP…
Subaru wagon with it’s rear door shaved…why it was done I will never know…
Bright green S2000 with Powerhouse Amuse or “Amuse style” widebody aero….
“Minty Fresh Z” from Vegas…This is the same Z that used to have the same wheels but in a chrome magenta/pinkish color…
That’s all for today…another 60 photos down with much more to come. Hope you guys enjoyed what you saw so far…back with more tomorrow…
SEMA Show 2011 Coverage…Part 2…
I apologize for the lack of updates the last couple days. I was fully prepared to start up part 2 of the SEMA coverage on Thursday but I ended up spending most of the day trying to finish up some magazine work as well as test fitting my new wheels on my Q45. The story took a little longer than I thought it would and then I ended up not even getting any sleep Thursday night. Come Friday, I had an early shoot that took most of the afternoon and whatever time I had I used it to nap. I guess the lack of sleep in combination with trying to do so many other things at once caused me to get sick and my Saturday was spent in bed just feeling completely shitty the whole day. In any case, we are finally getting to part 2 of the SEMA coverage now and we will for sure move on to part 3 on Monday…
Today we will be covering more of what was inside the central hall of the SEMA show, which consisted of the major manufacturers as well as stuff that was in the wheel and tire hall…
At this point of the show, we had spent a majority of the time exploring everything in the central hall before arriving at the Honda of America section where the 2012 Civic SEMA builds were parked…
The first car inside the Honda area that caught my attention right away was Bisimoto’s 2012 Civic. It was good to finally see this thing in it’s state of completion and sitting on the SEMA show floor. I had been at the Bisimoto facilities the last couple nights it was there watching it all come together in the last hours of the night so I honestly felt a sense of accomplishment seeing it at the show…
Engine bay of the Bisimoto Civic…
I loved the way this build came out and I’m happy that we were able to figure out a way to get those Eins Gramm wheels on there, especially considering how closely it came to not happening because of clearance issues with the suspension, body, and tire sizing…
Interior shot of the Bisimoto Civic with the Racepak display lit up…
Dyno sheet displaying the final horsepower output of the Bisimoto 2012 Civic… Unless you haven’t heard by now, yes, the turbo K24Z7 engine made 1003.6 horsepower….
Bisi Ezerioha and DPK David chatting it up and David giving his impressions of the build after finally seeing it in person for the first time…
The Tjin Edition 2012 Civic Si 4-door on Rotiform wheels… This year, Neil and Gene Tjin went with a more casual look. Nothing too over the top or crazy because they wanted to show that the ’12 Civic could be stylish in even it’s simplest form….
Fox Marketing’s widebody 2012 Honda Civic Si coupe with Full Race turbo kit and Vossen wheels…
With so much custom body work and time devoted to the exterior of the Civic, the engine bay definitely left a little bit more to be desired…
HPD 2011 Honda CR-Z “Hybrid R Concept” with aero and wheels by 5Axis Design…
2012 Civic SI coupe with HFP (Honda Factory Performance) full lip kit…
HPD ’12 Civic race car on Volk Racing TE37SL…
HPD-prepped 2012 Civic chassis which I guess is available for purchase in raw form like this…They had parts listings and part numbers for everything on this chassis because it can be purchased separately…
A trio of new Hyundai Veloster builds over at the Hyundai booth…I still don’t know how I feel about this car…The original concept car looked really cool but the production model obviously doesn’t look as good. It’s kind of like the girl at the club that isn’t really all that hot, but after a couple drinks, in that special moment in time, under the right light, she actually looks very decent…yeah that’s the correct way to describe the Veloster: “Very Decent”… The Veloster name is also a combination of the words “velocity” and “roadster”, which if you think about it, isn’t all that creative either. So since the Veloster is “very decent”, they should have just named the car the Hyundai Vecent…haha… I’d build the living shit out of one for SEMA though, that’s for sure. Send one our way and we can make this thing fucking amazing… We will call it the Hyundai “Fumazing” after that…throw a cheesy one-eyed wink after you read that last line too…
Z33 drift car at the K-Sport booth…We went back to this booth the next day and spotted the spokesmodel they had and she was fucking shredded…oh man, she was in such good shape that Jared went to go take a picture with her and her abs almost ripped Jared’s tiny little sweater off his body, haha…
I knew Sunny from Franklin Autobody was doing some stuff to his Insight for SEMA but when DPK David called me over to check it out, I was pretty shocked to see it’s transformation…He went from this VIP-themed luxury hybrid look to this race-inspired, very aggressive look…. It’s a very drastic change…
I believe this is a J’s Racing wing from an EK Civic…actually, I think this is Ryan Der’s old J’s wing off his white EK….
17×9.5 -/+0 offset Volk TE37s and Brembo brakes…
Sunny’s Insight got a lot of attention throughout the day. The moments I was there hanging out, I saw all kinds of people stop by to snap a photo and many of them I could tell weren’t even Honda/import guys…
You can tell how much the rear has been modified by seeing the edge where the quarter panel and rear door meet…Definitely a lot of time and work put into this Insight…
Enjuku Racing supercharged LS1-swapped Hyundai Genesis coupe in the BC Racing booth…
Nissan 370Z also from the BC Racing booth…
Widebody Nissan R35 GT-R from High End/Auto Concept Elite representing Eneos Sustina…
Stopped by the Vibrant Performance booth to chat with our friend Donavan Griffith. We only get to see Donovan once a year and it’s at the annual SEMA show. He and Vibrant Performance have always taken very good care of us so we just had to get a photo with him…
Passed by the HKS booth and saw this S2000 rocking one of their supercharger kits… Cool thing about stumbling upon the HKS booth was that one of the guys working that day for them ended up being the translator that was with the Tactical Art Japan guys when we met up with them in the evening. That was a long sentence…
Ken Suen’s Civic w/Mugen RR kit reppin’ Ultra Racing…
2nd generation Honda Fit with a Buddy Club livery…
1 of 2 Rauh Welt Begriff (RWB) USA Porsches on display at SEMA, this one from Hoonigan Inc. on fifteen52 3GS Tarmac Split wheels…People were going absolutely apeshits in anticipation of seeing these RWB Porsches at SEMA so it’s only fitting that they decided to put a fucking stool, podium, giant computer screen, and spokesmodel in front of it…
Here’s a shot of the wing because this was the only area where there wasn’t something obstructing view of the car…
After trying to get a good look at the Porsche for a couple minutes, we decided to head over to the wheel and tire hall. It was getting late and May wanted to get some freebies before days end and the tire hall usually had the best stuff…
Bentley GT at the Nexen tire booth…I don’t know anyone with a Bentley GT nor do I know any one with Nexen tires so this is unfamiliar territory for me… I also don’t know what aero kit is on the Bentley. I imagine it would be somewhere along the lines of “can’t buy it with stickydiljoe.com money”….
Widebody Cadillac CTS-V coupe in the Toyo Tires area…
I gotta give this model props for doing her job to the best of her ability. I actually waited for her to walk away so that I could get a full shot of this car. When I went to snap the photo as she was walking away, she fucking ran back all quick and got into position for this photo, even though I wasn’t really trying to get her in the shot…haha. I was honestly just trying to figure out what kind of car this was because the design of it was so unique. Turns out that this car is actually a “Fisker Karma”, which is an electric luxury vehicle that makes 401HP and 981lb-ft TQ…. It’s a good looking car for sure and way more impressive because it electric and eco-friendly…
Time attack S2000 from AFI turbo sitting in the Hankook booth…First time seeing this car with this particular front end…
BMW 5-series in the Forgestar/Iforged booth with an End CC front lip and diffuser… Wheels are Forgestar F15….
Lamborghini LP700-4 Aventador on Giovanna wheels…
Mansory Ferrari 458 Italia…
…with carbon fiber rear louvers…
Audi S5 in the Falken Tire section on red Rotiform wheels…
Lexus LF-A…
RWB Porsche 964 belonging to Mark Arcenal from Fatlace, dubbed “Pandora One”…
Sitting on aggressive Rotiform “RWB” wheels…
Rear quarter shot of Pandora One…
This was definitely one of the most talked-about builds leading up to SEMA and it’s debut definitely didn’t disappoint….
It was day one of SEMA so there were many photo-ops with Nakai-san from RWB…here he is posing for a photo with a RWB Thailand rep to his right and Mark Arcenal from Fatlace/Illest to his left…
DPK Jared is an S2000-owner but he also owns a Porsche and is a big fan of RWB and Porsches in general, so he leaped at the opportunity to get a photo with Nakai-san…As you can see from the photo, Nakai was also overjoyed to get a photo with Jared, haha…seriously though, dude just never smiles. I don’t recall a photo ever taken of him where he’s actually worn any sort of emotion on his face. Guess it goes with the whole RWB image and that’s just his style…
After taking a few moments to check out Mark Arcenal’s Porsche, we decided that it was time to start heading out since the show was coming to a close for the day…
Upon leaving the wheel/tire hall, we came upon some cars that we will never own in our lifetimes because we all decided one day to not sell drugs… The car above is a matte black Mansory Rolls Royce Phantom…if you thought a Rolls Royce Phantom was expensive, imagine one with a Mansory kit…
I loved the way this Premier4509 Bentley Continental GT looked…the wheels and aero are executed perfectly on this CGT. It’s a car I would definitely consider selling drugs for…the only thing stopping me is the fact that I already don’t have enough time in the day to do everything I want to do. If I were selling drugs on top of that, I would definitely have to start doing some yay to stay awake and I’m just way too good looking to fuck with drugs…my good friend Notorious B.I.G. already stated very clearly once that I should never get high on my own supply and I’m just one of those guys that likes to listen to their friend’s advice. Plus, my shitty apartment wouldn’t even give me another parking pass to park this Bentley inside my complex, so fuck that…I don’t want dirty fucking street cats jumping all over this car any way…
Alright, that’s all for today. I really should be getting some rest since I still feel like shit…back with more tomorrow…the next post is pretty funny, I mean, I haven’t written it out or anything yet but I have an active imagination and trust me, my brain tells me that it’s very funny…
Thanks for looking….
SEMA Show 2011 Coverage…Part 1…
Ahh…finally…time for the enormous batch of photos from the 2011 SEMA Show in Las Vegas. I have to say, this one was one of the best trips to Vegas yet. I’ve gone in years past and it’s always been good, but this year was definitely a memorable one. The show itself was probably the best one yet I feel in terms of variety and quality cars. I don’t know if it was just me but the show seemed more full this year and foot traffic seemed to be a lot better. I went every day but Friday and it was extremely busy all week at SEMA. I kept asking everyone what they thought there favorite car was of the show and now in hindsight, I understand why no one could give me a straight answer. There was just so much to see and so many different types of builds and styles of cars to even come close to a decision as to what a favorite would be. There are definitely cars that stood out though, that’s for sure. From the moment we walked into the show til the very last moments when we walked out for the last time, there was always something that captured our attention…
I know you guys have seen a bulk of what SEMA had to offer already from various internet sources, but I promise you, the coverage here will be unlike anything you have seen. I will take you from the show to the after parties and all the while, I will include all the cool random things that we encountered along the way. The photos won’t be in any particular order….I’m basically going to provide you with everything I saw in the order that it happened through my eyes. Unlike last year, I didn’t cover the drive there though because it was pretty uninteresting. Nobody took any cars this year to SEMA and we basically took our daily drivers and got there as fast as we can. I hope you enjoy indepth coverage because I covered everything that I could. I know this is a Honda-dedicated site, but there just wasn’t that much Honda content at SEMA this year. I love all kinds of cars so I captured whatever sparked my interest and if I saw something stupid or ridiculous going on, you better believe I covered it. I have to give a special shout-out to May because she took the time to cover all the shenanigans that occurred during the after parties we went to. Luckily we were taken care of every well at every party and didn’t have to stress out on getting in or getting VIP passes or any of that BS. I’m happy that we know good people that helped us out with that. With that said, let’s get started on day one of the SEMA Show 2011 Mini-Series…It’s going to be a good one…
One really cool thing that happened this year was having Halloween happen on the same week as SEMA. SEMA is always on the first week of November but this year, it just so happened that the 31st of October landed on the Monday of SEMA. I have been to Vegas in Halloween in the past and it was always a good time so we decided to head out there on Monday to check it out. It’s cool to see people dressed-up in costumes and just walking around on the strip and it always helps if there is a reason for women to dress like scantily-clad whores in Vegas, haha….you guys know what I mean. This year, I noticed a bit of a disturbing trend in Vegas though…instead of hoards of scantily-clad floozies, I saw an abundance of dudes dressed-up as women all over the strip…it was not a good look. It is what it is though so we decided to grab some dinner at Tacos El Gordo, and then put on our costumes and walk around the Las Vegas strip…
Here we are after dinner walking around the Palms… DPK Jared was dressed as Hipster Teen Wolf, I was Waldo, and DPK David was “The criminal from any reality television show about cops who doesn’t agree to sign the release to have their likeness displayed on TV”,…that’s why his face is blurred….or he could have been “What DPK David looks like to me if I didn’t have my contact lenses on”. Either costume works but I thought it was a novel idea. I gotta tell you one thing though, if you want to dress up as Waldo, be prepared for any and every one to randomly walk up to you and go “I FOUND YOUUUU!!!!” in the most obnoxious tone possible because IT WILL happen. I already knew it when I got the costume but my last costume was a complete Jesus outfit and that yielded even stranger responses from people….I’m sure if you are single and ready to meet annoying drunk girls the costume would work out great, but alas, I am neither single or drunk enough to talk to random girls in their drunken state…
After walking around for a bit, we decided to call it a night and head back to our hotel. On the way back, I asked David if he had ever been to the famous “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign before at the front of the strip and he said he hadn’t, so we stopped by for a quick photo….
We got back to our hotel shortly after, watched some television, and then knocked out to prepare for the first day of SEMA…
The next day, we grabbed some breakfast at a local deli and set off to the Las Vegas Convention Center. All the stupid traffic and detours from construction threw me off so we ended up getting lost and stuck in traffic for a bit before we eventually got to the show. We parked in our usual spot and made our way into the SEMA show…
DPK David was all smiles and enjoying the lovely scenery in Vegas…
The first car we saw upon arriving at the show was the Meguiar’s Lexus CT200H… Jon Sibal actually did the original rendering for this car and you can see more of it here….
The paint finish on the cars inside the Meguiar’s booth are always immaculate…absolutely love the way this pick-up looked…
Acura TL sporting a full wrap by Meguiar’s Wraptivo…
DynaSport 1932 Ford Roadster…Check out more build photos of it here….
Custom rat rod pick-up from Honest Charley Speed Shop…
Rotiform wheels were everywhere this year. It was the wheel of choice for many of the exhibiting cars in attendance…This particular set looks good on this white Camaro…
Really liked this red GS that I saw once before at the Team Praxis/VIP Modular meet a couple months back…I actually hit up the shop that put this car together to do a story on it for one of the mags I work for but never got a response…Guess they weren’t interested… 
…
F50 CIMA on VIP Modular wheels…
A pair of R35 GT-Rs built by Jotech Motorsports from Texas…
Linda’s TRD Supercharged Toyota Matrix representing Team Praxis…
Jay Borcena’s Acura TL sitting on 18-inch VIP Modular wheels and Accuair suspension, also from Team Praxis…
Joey’s VIP-styled Scion tC from Praxis…
Cool looking custom fire truck…
Factory Five ’33 hot rod…
A pair of lowriders from LIFESTYLE…
Troy Trepanier’s Chevy Nova aka “NOTORIOUS”…572 cubic inch big block Chevy equipped with a Procharger supercharger…
The moment I came upon this E-class, I instantly knew that it would be one of my favorite cars at SEMA… Carlsson everything sitting on custom bronze BBS LMs…
Such a good looking Benz…Turns out that Sunny from Franklin Autobody painted this car as well and I got a chance to meet and chat with the owner for a little bit…I got a lot more of this car but towards the end of the SEMA show. I liked it so much I went back and just hovered over it for a while…haha..
This literally looks like one of those toy die cast trucks you can buy at a department store…those big ass wheels are fucking ridiculous…
One popular trend that I noticed at the SEMA show was putting older front clips on new body-style domestic muscle…I don’t know how popular this trend is but it’s definitely not that great of a look…This particular covertible has an older Camaro front end on a current generation Camaro…That’s like taking a decent looking girl and putting old lady titties on her…haha, just fucking weird man…
Porsches were definitely at the 2011 SEMA show….this one is equipped with a Top Secret aero kit and SSR MS1s….
I’m unsure about how I feel about this G35. Overall, it doesn’t look bad but I just don’t understand why people put their car on air suspension and it looks all racked like this with the front end slammed and the rear sitting high…looks like the car is braking really hard at stand still…
We still hadn’t picked up our SEMA passes yet so Jared, May, and I walked up to the Media Center to grab our media passes. The nice old lady that was giving us our passes starting laughing when she read that the passes belonged to people from a site called “stickydiljoe.com”, haha….
One of the many perks of having a media pass was this special section that offered food and drinks to media members…Jared and May grabbed some coffee while I drank some ice tea/lemonade… DPK David was off looking for Rywire Ryan to get his pass from him so we decided to meet up downstairs…
While we were waiting for David to come back, we spotted Quinton “Rampage” Jackson from the UFC walk by…
This was random as hell, but while we were waiting, the side skirt on this Audi randomly just fell off the car, haha….
I didn’t believe it so I walked over there and the side skirt did indeed fall off the car…how embarassing, haha….Nobody was even standing near the car or anything, shit just fell off…
One of the more popular vehicles in this area was this Cadillac convertible…
Once David met up with us, we made our way inside one of the halls to check out the cars inside. This white R35 GT-R looked real good in the Rotora brakes area…
This blue Camaro convertible inside the Extreme Dimensions booth ended up winning one of the awards for best cars at SEMA I believe…I don’t know that much about it other than this crappy photo I took of it…haha…
I thought this was supposed to be a Firebird Trans Am-style kit designed for the new Camaros but it actually isn’t. It’s a Camaro known as “The Firebreather” and was built by Classic Design Concepts for an upcoming movie called “Jinn”. I don’t know shit about the movie or what it’s about but this car looks pretty cool and the guy that played Darth Maul in the Star Wars movie is set to star in it….
Loved this old Ford Bronco resto-mod in the Ford Motor Company section…
2012 Ford Mustang V6 from MRT Performance…
Really digging the new Ford Focus…this one had a matching green bike on the roof and HRE wheels…
This was also on a new Ford Focus but I snapped this photo because I thought it was a cool way to show off the brakes…
Tjin Edition Ford Explorer…
This 1970 Mustang was built by the Ring Brothers and is dubbed “The Dragon”…
Roush 427 IR crate motor…
This whole package is actually available for purchase through Ring Brothers and isn’t just a one-off, one-time build…
There was all kinds of crazy commotion and hoopla going on outside in the Lexus area so we decided to walk into their gigant tent set-up to see what it was all about… Turns out that they were unveiling the new Lexus GS F-Sport and also unveiled the 5Axis GS F-Sport along with it. 5Axis can never really do anything wrong in terms of styling and this GS F-Sport looks fucking amazing…There was such a huge crowd around it that it was hard to get photos of it but I managed to elbow my way in and get these shots. Easily one of my favorites at the SEMA 2011 event…
Here is the GS F-Sport in stock form…sorry for the somewhat blurry photo, I was mid-elbow during this shot…
Walked out of the tent to get some air and spotted this Lexus SUV “factory off-road racing” build…
Another perk of having a media pass was that you could get in line to get a ride in the new GS F-Sport…They had a nice course set-up for some “spirited driving”…
DPK David and Jared didn’t hesitate to go for a spin…
That’s all for today…back with part 2 tomorrow….
Thanks for looking!!
Year.Three Coverage…Part 2…
Sorry for the lack of an update yesterday. I didn’t take a day off or anything like that, I was just on the road and it took longer than expected to get home. It’s been a pretty busy week so far…I was expecting to take a break after all the Year.Three planning and the event itself but I’ve been all over the place non-stop either working or doing stuff for the site. Monday I woke up bright and early, rented a Chevy Cruz and drove all the way to San Luis Obispo to shoot a car for work. Then when I got home that night, I was up trying to finish up a couple stories as well, stayed up all night, and was actually planning on getting some sleep around 8-9am but then I got a call from Bisi Ezerioha. Bisi let me know that they were set to send their SEMA project off in the afternoon and wanted me to get some shots of it before it left. I never pass up an opportunity like that so I drank a energy drink, ate some Jack in the Box tacos and headed out to Ontario on no sleep. There’s plenty more to go with both those things I just told you, but I’ll save those for individual posts later on. You’re here to see Year.Three coverage so that’s what we’ll talk about today…
Umm, what should we talk about today as far as the meet….oh yes, the trash issue. Holy fuck, there was way more trash this year than last. Overall I think everyone was very respectful throughout the event as far as following rules go but along the sides and the rear of the Eibach building, trash was just fucking everywhere. I believe this is because the people that just showed up and parked along the free sections were people that didn’t know about the site and just showed up, or they were just outright disrespectful. I don’t know, either way, a couple of us spent the remaining hour or so picking up trash that was like, shoved into bushes, or thrown all over the side of the building. The stupid thing is that the area that had the most trash was an area in which there was a dumpster like a couple feet away, it’s ridiculous… In any case, it’s cool…next year maybe I’ll have to do something about the free parking area…
Parking as a whole just couldn’t have gone any better. It probably took about a team of 4 guys to get all the cars parked and everything went smoothly. Big shout-out to Leon Casino for manning the front gate and getting everyone situated. Also guys like Ly Say, and the other TSX owners that were hanging out at the front gate area were very helpful. Okay, now onto some more photos….Again, my bad for not following up with part 2 yesterday, with SEMA coming up, I’m all over the place…
There’s something about Ly Say’s TSX that I just love…I mean, I’m a big fan of nice, authentic Japanese wheels and Ly’s one of those guys that has a very good taste in wheels. Every wheel he’s had since he started working on this car has been a good look. Photo is blown out as all hell but trust me, it’s a good looking TSX… I almost gave him the “Stickydiljoe’s Personal Choice” award at Year.Three but the guy that ended up getting the award has a fucking sick build and I just couldn’t pass it up….
Work S1R on Ly’s TSX…Leave it to Work Wheels to take a wheel they already had, narrow the spokes, and release it as an entirely new wheel. I can’t blame them though, they look good and the Meister S1 has always been a classic wheel…
Alex Colon’s Civic has looking nice…correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t he used to have an SCM front bumper?…
This guy was literally the first person in line and got the first parking spot at Year.Three…not including some of the homies that came in earlier of course, because they didn’t have to wait…
My old homie Jeff Correa from San Diego’s 8th gen. Civic…
Randall Ang aka Sintype’s Civic coupe…
Lance Uchida’s Civic…Lance and some of his buddies also helped clean up at the end of the day, which was really nice of them…
Really liked this yellow right-hand drive Integra…another one that was up for contention for being one of my favorite cars there…
Just a stock LS motor under the hood but the bay has been cleaned-up and looks good…
Loved the kevlar/Recaro Tomcat/Wildcat-style door inserts…Nice touch with the matching Personal wheel with yellow stitching…Oh and also the teal shift knob to match the valve cover. Very minor details but details I can appreciate…
Nit’s S2000 reppin’ DudeBlvd…
Nitty Beat himself…looking kind of confused and disoriented…
DPK David showed up a couple hours late because he had a friend’s party to attend, luckily he has good friends that will save a spot right up front for him…
PlanB Mike’s Evo X…
All the credit in the world goes to this guy for making the 20+ hour drive down by himself from Washington to attend Year.Three. Cooper is a super nice kid and his Integra is very well built….
The engine bay is where this car is at…well done…
Interior with red Recaro seats and Spoon Sports goodies…
Nice EK with 949Racing 6ULs…
Angelo Arayata aka jdmpnoy89′s EF Civic…
ek9abe’s Civic…
Sam Ip’s Civic Si… I love everything about this car. He went all Spoon Sports the first time around but with this build, I believe he’s going the full J’s Racing route…
The engine bay, interior, and rear of Sam Ip’s Civic…
DAP EK on Volk Racing RE30s…
Teddy’s Civic with First Molding front lip…
Quan’s Integra on bronze Volk Racing SE37K…
Justin Fong’s widebody Civic. Tony from It’s JDM Yo!! told me that Justin actually got rolled on the way home from the meet and got a huge ticket for all kinds of shit…sucks but thanks for coming out…haha…
Ejay’s DA with his new “streetable” look… I miss the SSR Super Mesh and airbrushed hood, haha…
Brian Arias’ Habanero Red Pearl EK on BBR Comps…
Loving the way TGIJoseph aka Sloppy’s Fit is looking these days….this is probably his best look to date…
Not sure what was going on with the front end of this car but it’ll look so much better if it was all one color…
Interesting EF on old school Hoshino wheels…
White-on-white FA5 Civic on Work VS-XX wheels…
Indey’s del Sol…
Love this 4-door DB and also love that he has both the sticker from last year’s anniversary meet as well as Year.Three…
2nd Gen. Lexus IS from Royal Origin sitting on Junction Produce Scara wheels…
Closing it out today with a couple shots of RC’s K-turbo’d EG9…
That’s all for today. I have one more part of the coverage coming and I will put that up for sure tomorrow…thanks for looking…
“Race Day” at Racer’s Edge Indoor Karting Coverage…
While there was actual racing going on over in Fontana, CA. at the IDRC International Finals, I was over in the city of Burbank for “Race Day”. There was certainly racing going on over here as well, but of the go-kart racing variety. This small show/meet was held inside the compound of an indoor kart racing facility known as “Racer’s Edge”. Norman, who is also the head of local Socal car crew AS1, set-up this entire event and all the homies as well as other fellow enthusiasts came out to show their support. The lot didn’t seem very large but they were still able to squeeze in a pretty large amount of vehicles. Norman and crew had expected more cars and were planning to use every possible open space to fill it with a car but the fire marshall notified them that they wouldn’t be able to house as many cars as they could due to fire code. It certainly didn’t have too big of an effect on the show though because there was a very good mix of different builds present. Hondas, Nissans, Subarus, you name it, there was probably one in attendance. There were even some very nice old school rides present, which is always a pleasant surprise. One of the coolest things about this show was that people were also able to go karting inside for a discounted rate. Being able to race and watch others race inside also provided shade from the intense heat outside. I don’t really know what’s going on with this weather, especially in mid-late October. There’s no reason why it should be getting this hot. All in all, it was a good show. Big Mike, DPK David, and some of the other homies ended up spending a lot of their time there judging the non-Honda categories and some of the other guys showed up just to hang out. May and I arrived around 2pm and I began snapping away at whatever I saw…enjoy the photos and thanks to Norman for organizing this event…
This was one of the first cars I spotted when I got to the show…Pretty cool looking MK5 GTI on air and Bentley wheels…Kinda liked this photo so I included a Larger Version (1200×800)
Integras were abundant at “Race Day”…
I thought this MX-5 Miata on TE37s was interesting…
Classic look for a DC2…R front end conversion, R wing, Spoon SW388s…
Another good looking DC2…this one with clear housing JDM Integra headlights, front end, and Mugen MF10Ls….
Always been a big fan of this 4-door Integra…I like the simplicity of it and the contrast of the red Bride interior on the white…
The engine bay is very traditional…no crazy tuck or shave or anything…still retains ABS, air conditioning, stock battery location, etc…
Very nice interior…
Teddy’s white EK with his newly-mounted First Molding front lip…
This coupe was pretty clean…the engine bay is pretty random and I can’t say I’m really a big fan of that whole style but I can appreciate the amount of labor involved in creating it…
The bay was so busy I almost didn’t notice the ITBs…
This Corolla was really clean…I didn’t get a chance to see what was under the hood but the outside looked pretty mint. Even the Watanabe wheels looked like they were brand new straight out of the box and on the car with original center caps and everything…
Another AE86, this one on SSR Longchamps…
Here’s another old school Corolla…this chassis is the one that preceded the AE86 chassis….
Loved this RPS13 hatchback on SSR Professor SP3s and Top Secret aero…
Sil80 on SSR Professor SP1s…
Legacy Wagon on Blitz Technospeed Z1…it was so hot that the tires were sweating, haha…
Sloppy aka TGIJoseph’s Honda Fit on Spoon wheels…
Clean Subaru STI on polished Volk CE28s…
White EG Civic on what looks to be Mugen sideskirts (could be Wings West), and Spoon Sports-style front lip….949 wheels with caps also and Recaro seats…
4-door Civic on Mugen NR10s…the name of the front lip escapes me right now, but I think it might be a Vision-style carbon fiber EG9 Ferio lip…
This was tucked away in the corner at the show but I thought it was a good look. The blue on blue is not that common with Subaru-owners and it doesn’t hurt that the wheels are aggressively sized Work Meister S1s…
Spotted this RSX at various events in the past…
FA5 Civic on Yokohama Super Advan Racing Ver. 2 wheels…
I walked inside to the karting area and spotted Salem from Phaze 2′s TSX parked inside the track…pretty cool but with the way some of these kids were driving, I would have been a little worried…
One of the interesting things to note about this event was that Racer’s Edge had a separate building inside the parking lot that made it possible for Norman to park some cars inside of and out of the sun. While this was cool for the people inside because they could escape the burning sun, it made for crappier photos…
Here’s a Civic that I’ve been keep an eye on. It has a cool, track-inspired look and the guy actually takes it to the track…It just needs to be painted and it’ll look like a completely different car…
DPK David’s EJ1 coupe…
DPK JP’s Civic…
Crappy photo of Arn’s Integra…looks like he parked next to the fucking sun or something…
Phaze2 Arnel’s 4-door with the lip kit paint-matched….this thing is starting to look better and better…
AS1 Karl’s EM1 Civic on CCWs…
A “photoshoot” that was going on in the middle of the show with one of the girls that was working the Race Day event…
Jose Romo’s Audi A3…
This was pretty interesting/random…authentic right hand drive Datsun Bluebird that was tucked away in the back corner…
Mugen CR-X Pro.2 from GSpot Automotive…
Brian Arias’ Civic that was featured this year in Import Tuner magazine…
Civic from GTS Auto that you should all be pretty familiar with by now…
Arn brought his wife and baby out to hang out at the show for a bit before it ended…this little guy always looks like he’s surprised, haha…
Leon also brought his newborn baby out for the first time…it’s still pretty crazy to think that Leon is a dad now…
Chaba was working the event inside the karting area throughout the day but found some time to come out and hold Leon’s baby… On most other sites, you will see her doing poses and modeling at events at what not…on The Chronicles…YOU WILL SEE HER HOLDING A BABY. Haha…this ain’t “It’sJDMYo!!!” We got models holding babies over here…
Anyways, it was nearing the end of the day so it was time for the awards to be presented…
Norman, the man behind the event, holding up one of the awards…he also does his fair share of holding babies because he’s a father of 12…
DPK David won “Best Honda” and Chaba was happy for him…
DPK JP won “Best Honda without headlights”/”People’s Choice”….
A bunch of other awards were given out too but there was already a photographer on hand to cover that so I just sat back and didn’t do shit the rest of the time…oh I clapped…that should be mentioned I guess…
Group photo with the award winners…Arnel actually won “Best Stance” but he was nowhere to be found so David is holding up the award for him. He was either smoking a cigarette or not caring, or something related to not standing there at that moment…Congrats to all the winners though, smokers or not…
That’s pretty much it. YEAR.THREE is this weekend! Get your cars some what in presentable condition!…
Thanks for looking….
The Top 10 Hondas of 2010…A retrospective…Part 1…
Well, it’s probably a little later than I would have liked to have put this together but here we are in October and this is finally happening…As you all know, I usually do a “Top Ten Hondas” at the end of every year to spotlight some of what I feel are the best Honda builds. It started in 2008 and I followed it up the following year with the Top Ten Hondas of 2009 and then again in 2010. During the middle of each year, I did an update on all of those builds and gave you guys some insight as to what they are doing and where the cars are at. It’s always interesting to see what happens to the Hondas on the list because you either see them continue on with their builds, or sell them and start on something else. Today we’re going to take a look at the bottom half of the list and in the days following I will give you guys an update on spots 1-5…
If you guys are new to the site, make sure to check out the original post on The Top Ten Hondas of 2010…
You might want to catch up on the reading before you start on today’s post, otherwise it won’t make much sense to you…
Here is the original follow-up post to the Top Ten Hondas of 2009, so you guys can get a good idea of what the format is like for today…nothing crazy, just a couple new photos compared to how the cars looked when they first made the list…
The Top Ten Hondas of 2009…A Retrospective…Part 1…
The Top Ten Hondas of 2010…A Retrospective…Part 2…
Alright, so now that we are all caught up, let’s get started on a retrospective look at the Top Ten Hondas from 2010…
10. Kane Chan’s Civic Coupe/Arn Reyes’ Acura Integra/Ejay Adriano’s DA via 3-Way Tie…
What he’s up to now: If there is anything that needs to be said about Kane Chan’s Civic, it’s that he and his car have been nothing but a model of consistency. He’s had this coupe since the 90′s so it’s highly unlikely that it would make any drastic changes. He participated in the first two Super Street FF Battles but took off the 2011 event to give the car a break and so that he could just sit back and enjoy the races. He also landed once again in the pages of Super Street magazine and I’m proud to say that I was able to shoot and write the story for it. It’s been a pleasure knowing Kane and it’s because of Super Street and the FF Battle series that I was able to meet him and now call him a friend…
Not much of a change aesthetically… In 2011, he re-installed his Spoon Sports front lip and put the car back on some classic Work RS-Betas…Everything going on under the hood is exactly the same as when it made its appearance on the 2010 Top Ten Hondas list…
What he’s up to now: Arn is another one of those old school cats that has had his Honda for a while and doesn’t have any plans to get rid of it any time soon. He had a baby and is a full-fledged family man but he still finds time to mess around with his Integra. The guy always has a collection of parts that he can always swap on and off but at the 2011 Nisei Showoff event, he brought his DC2 out on a brand new Hershey Brand front bumper, a piece that also debuted in 2011….
Many will argue that the Mugen front bumper is a timeless look that should never replaced but Arn Reyes has always been a guy that’s been willing to try something new and take some chances with his car. That’s why he always has different parts so that he can change up the outside appearance of his Integra at any time…Not much else is new for Arn and his car but don’t be surprised if he comes out in 2012 with some all new shit…
What he’s up to now: Ejay had quite a year in 2010…he brought his DA out to practically every event in California and even found himself with a feature in Honda Tuning magazine. It’s probably one of the most recognizable DA Integras nowadays but in 2011, he’s taken more of a laid back approach with his car…
He wasn’t too please with the power his H-swap was making so he went ahead and swapped back to a B-series motor. Ejay planned to make his car more streetable this year so that he could just simply enjoy the car so the motor just made more sense to have. While I think wholeheartedly that the SSR Super Mesh was the best possible look EVER for his DA, he also took those off and is now rolling on some Volk TE37s. He made the decision because he didn’t want to mess with the aggressive camber and rough ride anymore and chose to go with a more subtle wheel size…I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for taking the SSRs off but I’m glad that he can enjoy his DA to the fullest now…
9. Phil Robles Honda Civic...
What he’s up to now: Phil Robles’ Civic has been on hiatus in 2011. He did a couple track events with the car, then ran into some unfortunate events which have since been repaired, and now the car sits in his garage awaiting a new power plant. Phil is a great driver but what was holding him back was the limited power he was making compared to some other Hondas he was competing against. He has finally decided to go K and I’m anxious to see how the J’s Racing equipped Civic will look when he reappears in 2012…
Meanwhile, he’s been busy at track events with another Civic hatchback. He’s got big plans for his original one though and you can read a little bit more on it at the projectonethirty site, where I also grabbed this photo from. It’s a cool site with some good shots so peep it…
8. “DPK David” Andrade’s Honda Civic Coupe…
What he’s up to now: David has been on a mad quest to get his coupe ready for some track events next year. While it has served most of it’s existence as a street/show car, he’s finally taking the leap into the motorsports world. His decision comes from just his overall boredom with the car. David wanted to redo the entire car, but with a wedding coming up as well as eyes on some new projects, it just doesn’t make sense to tear it down to start over. It first appeared in Honda Tuning magazine back in 2006, and then after a makeover, appeared in Import Tuner magazine in 2010. There isn’t much more exposure it can get so DPK David is just going to take the car out and beat it up…
He’s recently re-done his exhaust set-up and installed a new Vibrant muffler as well as porting his intake manifold, changing up his fuel set-up and finally getting tuned on AEM EMS Series 2 by none other than Bisi Ezerioha. The tune actually just happened not too long ago and I have video and more information on it HERE….How good he will do on the track remains a mystery but I’ll be sure to keep you updated on his progress…
7. RC Chacon aka “Kingdingaling’s” Honda Civic hatchback…
What he’s up to now: RC’s hatchback is actually sitting in his garage motor-less and untouched. Why? Well, because he’s been busy working on some other Hondas for his clients as well as starting on a brand new project, which is a 4-door Mugen-equipped Civic. I’m not really sure what his plans are for his hatchback but he seems to have shifted all his focus onto his new project…
RC debuted the sedan at the 2011 Nisei Showoff event and the turbo K inside his EG9 turned a lot of heads. There is still quite a bit of miscellaneous things that he would like to finish up on it and I should have some updated photos of it when he brings it out to the Year.Three Chronicles Anniversary event. As for his white hatch that originally made the 2010 Top Ten list, who knows when or if we will ever see it again…
6. Edwin Pagan aka “Midorieking’s” EK…
What he’s up to now: I really couldn’t tell you…because I have no idea. After the Chronicles 2-year anniversary meet, he had big plans to tear down the car and rebuild it for 2011, but half way through it, he abandoned the project and parted the whole car out. He ultimately sold the shell too and now Edwin’s project from 2010 is non-existent. I haven’t really talked to him nor have I seen him active on the forums so all I can assume is that he’s gone M.I.A. He never really explained why he abandoned the project either so it remains a mystery as to why he seemingly fell off the face of the Earth…
When he debut the build in 2010, it was met with a lot of praise and had a pretty good overall reaction from the community, so it’s kind of a shame to see that he hasn’t taken that momentum and done anything else…
Well, that’s about all for today…back with the rest of the list tomorrow or the days following…
Thanks for looking….
Productivity…
I normally don’t get more than one or two things done on an average day because I’m too busy doing absolutely nothing, but yesterday was a pretty decent day. I was sent out on assignment to Gearspeed in Rancho Cucamonga for work, spent the majority of the day there, and then I headed over to the Bisimoto facility to check out DPK David’s tune. Bisi was tuning David’s K20 Civic coupe and dropping by Bisimoto Engineering also meant that Bisi was going to give me a first look at some of his latest projects…
So I woke up early Thursday morning and drove an hour from the Orange County area to Rancho Cucamonga, which is in the Inland Empire. I really didn’t have any idea what I was supposed to do out there, as Rodrez only told me to go out there to cover a tech story for Honda Tuning. Big Mike happened to be off work that day and was good friends with James over at Gearspeed so I asked him to come by and hang out while I shot whatever was going down over there. When I arrived at Gearspeed, they gave Big Mike and I a tour of their facility and then we walked over to a work station where I was greet to a pleasant surprise. The tech story I was sent out there to cover that day was actually a tear down and reassembly of a legit Spoon Sports K-series transmission from Japan…
I can’t really get into full details of what actually went down, you’ll have to wait until a future issue of Honda Tuning magazine for that, but here’s a quick shot of the Spoon tranny, assembled by Spoon, straight from one of their race cars…
It’s crazy to see what goes down at a place like Gearspeed because these guys that work there take apart transmissions and rebuild them like it’s a very simple job, when in reality, it is everything but. I mean, these guys can tear down a tranny, throw every single removable piece into a bin, machine-wash it, and put it all back together in about 30 minutes time. Shit was wild man, I’m telling you… Just to think about how intricate each Honda transmission is and how these guys know them like the back of their hands is mind boggling… The Spoon transmission was way more than I expected it to be because I honestly don’t have that much of a favorable view of Spoon Sports stuff, but honestly, I was impressed. They actually did some work on this transmission and didn’t just like, throw a different final drive in there and plaster a Spoon badge on it like every one of their other products. That shit was definitely a learning experience, and I have a ton of respect for guys that work on transmissions on a daily basis. These guys are very systematic and almost robotic in terms of their ability to work on these transmissions. Big props goes out to the guys over at Gearspeed for not only their skill, but also their hospitality. The facility itself is a trip too because it’s a gigantic warehouse filled to the brim with Honda transmissions and parts. The craziest thing about that facility is that they have a full gym next to their lunch area, and one of the offices even has a tanning bed inside of it…haha…I’m serious, you can’t even make that shit up…
I definitely stayed there longer than I expected to though. I got there around 11am and didn’t get out of there until almost 4pm in the afternoon. The time spent there was a productive one, so I can’t really complain…
After that Big Mike and I hopped into our cars and made our way down to the Bisimoto Engineering facility. DPK David’s tuning appointment was at 2pm so they were almost done by the time we got there. Luckily they still had one more final pull left on the dyno and I was able to witness it…
Here’s what it looked like when we pulled up. The coupe was still hooked up to the dyno, but Bisi was taking a little break to have a nice cold drink…
Bisi taking a moment to chat with Big Mike…
As for the tune….the numbers at that point were pretty decent but Bisi felt that there was quite a bit of restriction coming from the intake area…
He recommended to David that they take his filter off and mount a velocity stack to it for the final pull. David removed the filter he had on, mounted the velocity stack and aimed it upward to get maximum air flow…
Here’s a crappy video of the final run…
The filter did prove to be the issue as the final run yielded some pretty good results…
Final horsepower numbers can be seen above…
Both Bisi and David seemed to be pretty happy with the results. 218HP on a internally stock K20 Type-S motor tuned on a AEM EMS Series 2 is not too shabby… There isn’t anything else done to the motor but the basic intake, header, exhaust combination…
By the time they finished taking the car off the Dynapak, it was time to close up shop. The photo above is Bisi and DPK David after they came back from a test drive. David was all smiles because his motor has never run better…
While David and Bisi were busy finalizing the details of David’s tune, Big Mike asked me to take a new photo of his side project, which is a 1996 Honda Accord wagon. He recently put some Work Leadsleds on so he wanted to get a decent photo of it…
Big Mike claims he’s not gonna do anything crazy with this car but we’re all waiting for the day when he let’s us know that he’s doing a full Mil-spec harness and ITBs for it…just wait, it’ll happen…. Overall, the wagon is mint, The interior is like new and everything seems to be working very well mechanically. He’s always wanted a wagon and the perfect opportunity came up to purchase one….
That’s all for today. Make sure you guys click above at the top of the screen to pick up your Year.Three Chronicles Anniversary spots if you haven’t done so already. Spots are moving quickly so it’s a good idea if you jump on them now…
PURCHASE YOUR YEAR.THREE CHRONICLES ANNIVERSARY MEET PARKING SPOT HERE
Extreme Dimensions Open House 2011…
Uhhh…this meet was less than extraordinary…haha. I had no idea it was even going on actually. The girls were busy doing some wedding dress shopping/fitting early Saturday morning and since May is a part of the DPK David/Jackie wedding, it left David and I with some extra time on our hands since the girls were away. I dropped off May at the wedding dress store and on my way home, I was illegally glancing through Facebook on my phone while driving and spotted one of my cousin’s (Timscribbles) updates where he stated that he was going to stop by the Extreme Dimensions meet. Then that triggered something in my memory where Mrs. Bisi Ezerioha herself, Hedi, emailed me telling me about this meet a couple weeks back…I just never bothered to look at the date on which it was supposed to take place. We were struggling to find something to do while the girls were away so this meet was the perfect spot to be at….so we thought anyway… Another thing that I had totally forgotten that was taking place that day was the Kardashians’ appearance at the local mall. Had I remembered this, I’m sure we would have gone to the mall to go see Kourtney and Kim Kardashian. It’s something that I know David regrets because he’s a big fan of Kim Kardashian. He doesn’t watch her show or really have any idea what she does for a living, but he’s seen pictures and watched the sex tape, and he became an instant fan….I too am a fan, and was a little disappointed when I realized that I dropped the ball and totally could have been awkward standing there and staring at them while they were signing autographs or whatever…
Going to the meet was probably a better idea though, because now I have something to show you guys on The Chronicles. So if you want to put it that way, it shows you how devoted I am to this site…because I totally missed out on staring at the Kardashians and instead went to Extreme Dimensions to get some coverage of this less-than-spectacular event…Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, the meet itself wasn’t lame or anything, because I think they put on a good event. They had food, a raffle (I think), and plenty of space for cars. The lot itself is also not exposed to the main street so it was actually a pretty private event. I say it’s “less-than-spectacular” because of the general attendance and the cars that were there. Many of the cars that were there were…uhh….not that great, but I mean, I guess I can’t really expect that much considering the type of demographic that a body kit company has. Attendance was alright but for such a huge venue, maybe it could have been better. I didn’t really see it promoted on any of the forums I regularly peruse but again, it comes down to the demographic and the type of enthusiasts who’s market they are looking to build interest in (probably Scions)… The only way I heard of it was through a private email and a social networking site, so in this instance, Facebook really did help to promote this event because I would have had no other way of knowing about it. I told David about the meet and he didn’t even know what Extreme Dimensions was….
It’s cool that they put on this event though, I’m not trying to take anything away from them…There was definitely some hard work involved in organizing it, I’m just saying…many of the cars there were not what I was into. I’m a car head, no doubt, I follow all makes and models. It’s just that some of the choices and tastes in mods aren’t anything that I would want to see done to a car..some were just out right bizarre (you will see)…Below are some cars that I thought stood out and also some cars that had me scratching my head, wondering why people do these things to cars… If you are offended by what I have to say, remember that this is one man’s opinion. If it’s not something that you enjoy reading; come back, don’t come back, go look at another site, whatever, I don’t know because it’s not up to me. You have the option to disagree and leave at any time… With that said, let’s get to the photos…
Oh I had to show this to you guys…this car wasn’t actually at the Extreme Dimensions meet but I should have saw this has an omen to what I would see on that Saturday. Supertwinz John, Big Mike, and I were on our way to grab some drinks one day while we were at the Rywire facilities and we spotted this Accord posted up in front of a local audio shop…I knew I had to stop by and take a photo on our way back to the shop and sure enough, when we went back, Marty McFly and Dr. Brown were there going over some new modifications to the Flux Capacitor…
Anyways, so that day after I left the wedding dress spot, I headed home to grab my camera and headed over to DPK David’s house. He wanted to take his Civic coupe out for a spin so we hopped in his car and headed to Fullerton for the meet. When we got there they gave us some paperwork to put on the dash since it was a free car show as well as a meet. We gladly obliged and headed inside. When I got there, my cousin came by and I chatted with him for a few moments about his new camera. He took off and then I started snapping some photos…
Here’s three S2000s I saw as soon as we started walking around…
I believe the owner of this S2K’s name is Lee…last time I saw this thing was at this year’s Skunk2 Unmeet I believe…
Don’t know the owner but I’m pretty positive this is the same S2000 that used to have a CR front lip on it… Here’s a shot of it from last year…
S2000 on BBS LMs…
Scion tC with some Rotiform BLQ wheels on it…Probably would look much better if it didn’t have all kinds of randomness going on in the front of the car…
Always enjoy seeing this Z33 on VIP Modulars….this thing is so low that people were like, laying down on the floor to check out the clearance on it…
Not really my style but there were actually quite a few of these types of builds at this meet…Crazy to see how much Import Tuner has evolved, seeing as how this car once graced the cover…
I saw in the cover shot that it had carbon fiber fender flares…what was a little weird for me was why he chose to leave like three stripes exposed when he had the car repainted…I don’t know if he did this to make it look like the flare was vented or to show off the carbon fiber…it’s pretty random looking….
This AE86 was pretty nice…I was checking out someone’s Japanese Classic Car Show coverage and I saw that this Corolla won an award at that event…Love the color and the Work CR-01s…I’m trying to enjoy these CR-01s as much as I can before I walk into the SEMA show this year and see that some company has probably knocked it off already…
This tC was a little less dramatic than some of the other tCs there, which was a really good thing…
Really liked this 350Z on Work Meister S1s…The Nismo V.2 front bumper is a good look…
Stumbled upon this S13 hatchback and it’s crazy turbocharged GM LSx swap…
Aston Martin that was posted up by the free food line…
Ryan Kado’s Nissan Titan VK56DE-swapped 350Z drift car…
Here’s a video of it on the dyno, sounds fucking intense…
The inside of the warehouse was open for spectators so we headed inside to check out the facility. This is just a small section showcasing their stock of body kits…This place was huge…
There were a couple cars parked inside on display as well. Here’s a semi-crappy shot of one of the 2GS on hand in the VIP Modular booth…
F50 Q45 on VIP Modular wheels…
Linda from Team Praxis also had her car parked with VIP Modular…
Bisimoto brought out the turbocharged Honda CR-Z and Bisi was busy chatting it up with his fans…
Strawberry-faced S13 drift car also on VIP Modular wheels…
Mugen-faced TSX on Enkei RPF1…
This drag-spec Civic hatchback was available to be won in some contest…I’d love to see the liability paperwork included with this car for whoever wins it…
R32 Skyline with a complete Do-Luck aero kit, wing and all…
S2000 that was in the 310 Tuners booth showcasing their new hood hinges…
VIP-styled S14 with a Supermade Instant Gentleman kit and 20-inch MMR HR3 wheels…
Another S14, but this one following a more traditional, non-VIP theme…
Classic example of how “aggressive” wheel fitment and “stance” can ruin a perfectly nice Honda…
Not even close to fitting, nor has there been any attempt to make them fit under the wheel wells,..you know, where your wheels are supposed to go…
I mean, it literally looks like the wheels are trying to run away from the rest of the car…
Oh, if you think that was bad, what you’re about to see below will blow your mind…It has to be one of the most random fucking things I have ever seen…
I don’t why this is happened, or exactly what is supposed to be going on here…The fact that it’s missing the top part of the dashboard is strange enough already but then you have the license plate that’s facing the people inside the car. That’s just the beginning though because then you take a look at the gauge cluster that is just laying there, and you spot a different image of Michael Jackson in each gauge. If you’re not mind-fucked yet, you also have a bullet belt just fucking laying there on top of everything… And IF that isn’t enough for you, the owner also has a shift knob with the head of Animal from Sesame Street… Looking at the interior of this Scion reminds me of walking into a Big Lots! store…it’s full of shit that you don’t want, scattered everywhere for no apparent reason…
Toyota MR-S on re-released Enkei J-Speed wheels…
Widebody Toyota Supra from San Diego…
This cement grey Scion tC looked great on 5Axis wheels…
Infiniti G35 coupe on fluorescent yellow Volk TE37s…
Supercharged Camaro…
I know there wasn’t much Honda content but that’s because there weren’t really that many Hondas there. That was pretty much it for that event. We hung out for a couple more minutes and then hopped back in DPK David’s coupe and headed home….
Thanks for looking…
NWP Summer Nights 2011 Coverage…Part 2 of 2…
Back now with the second part of the NWP Summer Nights 2011 Coverage held at the Eibach Springs facility…If you guys missed the first part make sure to scroll down and check it out…
When we last left off, the sun was setting quickly and Jared arrived in his Porsche with Big Mike. Throughout the night, people continued to show up in groups and by about 7:30-8pm, the lot was pretty full…
Here’s a look at what the front looked like just before it got dark. There were open spots scattered throughout the meet but for the most part, the turn-out was way better than anticipated…
Black DC5 with black chrome components under the hood…
One more shot of the white EK from part one…
SuperTwinz John, Rywire, Sheepey, and Jared hanging out in front of the main bay at Eibach…The guy that looks like Adam Levine from Maroon 5 is actually Tanner who owns the white 4-door Civic that was posted in part 1…
May hanging out and listening to Jared’s adventures in dating…
One more shot of Colin’s BB6 Prelude with rare Wisesquare aero…
Donut having a drink with Tony Jackson from Eibach Springs…
Jackie and May…
As you can tell from the photo above, it was starting to get pretty dark. I didn’t have a tripod nor did I bring any lighting so I just put my camera away and started using May’s Canon S95 point and shoot. I used the same camera when I took some behind-the-scenes shots during Sheepey’s Honda Tuning feature shoot. The photos were a little different from the norm because I was shooting in the S95′s “Nostalgic Mode”, which made for a cool look, so I decided to cover the rest of the NWP Summer Nights meet using the same feature….The previous two photos up top were actually shot with the S95 as well, but just in full-auto with no flash…
Ryan from Eibach Springs grilling up some meat and hot dogs for us to eat while we hung out…
Ryan’s ITR that he picked up a couple months back…
Arnel and Sid came up to me laughing and told me to walk over to this one white Civic coupe. I wanted to know what was so funny so I went to go check it out and saw that the car had a bootleg “Phase 2″ sticker on it…haha…weird…
A trio of Integra Type Rs…
Red Civic slammed on some SSR mesh…
Phaze2 Arnel’s 4-door, Sid’s Fit, and Sid’s brother’s Chevy as they were getting set to take off…
A red NSX on Work VS-XX that arrived late in the evening…
Tony Jackson and Ryan Hoegner…
DPK JP with his two baby boys…
Yellow S2000 on Enkei RPF1 and blue Cusco cage…
Carlos from DPK’s white-on-white S2000 CR…
Joseph aka Sloppy from AS1, Karl, and Karl’s girl chillin….You may not be very familiar with them but you probably know their cars…
Sloppy’s Fit…
Karl’s EM2 on CCWs…
Big Mike, Jared, and David…
Rywire Ryan taking off to go grab dinner with some of the guys…
JP and his boys…
S2000s…
A pretty clean Miata that I spotted on my last walk through to see whatever cars were left at the meet…
The majority of the crowd had dispersed by around 9:30pm or so and you can see from the photo that most of the cars were gone…We just hung out and talked for a little bit before we took off…
Ben from ATS Garage giving one of JP’s sons some water…
One final shot of Tony Jackson’s Civic…
That’s about it. We said our goodbyes to Ryan and the other Eibach Springs guys as they started to clean up and then we hopped into Ben’s G35 to head back home…
Back tomorrow with more updates, possibly the next installment of the Rywire ITR build…Thanks for looking…
NWP Summer Nights 2011 Coverage…Part 1 of 2…
Not many people knew about this meet because it was sort of an impromptu thing. There was a thread on the NWP4LIFE forums where there was some discussion in regards to a meet, but there was never really anything set in stone for a time and date until a couple days before this event took place. The whole idea behind this was just to do something small because Ryan from Eibach Springs didn’t want it to become a giant fiasco. For any of you who have gone to any of the annual Eibach Honda Meets, you already know how many cars that facility can hold and the type of foot traffic that it generates. Doing that would require permits, a larger staff to make sure all the cars got inside okay and no bullshit was going on, and that would just be more of a headache than it was really worth since this was meant to be a smaller meet. Ryan just wanted to get a couple NWP forum regulars to come out, chill, and just have a good time to celebrate the end of summer…
I’ll be honest, I didn’t even plan on going to the meet. Not because I didn’t want to, I just didn’t think that I could actually make it there. I was in Las Vegas, Nevada that entire weekend because I was attending the wedding of Mike from Plan B Motorsports. Mike is a good dude so it was cool that he invited us to go out there for his wedding and to allow us to be there for such a momentous occasion. Mike has been with his now-wife for ten years now and they wanted to step outside the typical wedding-box a little bit and just decided to have fun with it. As he said “it’s been a great ten years so we wanted to make it fun.” He went with a full costume-themed wedding and wanted everyone in attendance to dress up in different costumes. This was cool because it made things a lot easier and at no point was there ever a moment when things got overly serious, like many other weddings. I thought it was a great idea because it meant that I didn’t have to dress-up and do the slacks and tucked in shirt business. I mean, if it required that and it was a formal wedding, cool…but to have the opportunity to dress up and just do whatever we wanted definitely made things more entertaining…
Here’s a shot of a May, Big Mike, Rodrez, and Tes….May was an old school rapper with a giant inflatable boom box, Big Mike was doctor, Rodrez was the creepy guy at the club, and Tes was a pregnant Snooki… This was taken outside the “world famous” Little White Chapel in Vegas. I’ve never been to a wedding in this type of setting so it was definitely an interesting experience. The ceremony went by quickly, we all did some photos inside, and then headed out to El Segundo Sol for the reception. After that we got out of our costumes and then just hung out in Vegas. Big Mike actually arrived earlier that day to attend the wedding, and then headed home after the reception because he had work the following day…
While the wedding was quick and small, it was definitely something that I’ll always remember, just because of how unique it was. There was a lot going on that weekend with not only the NWP meet, but also Japanese Classic Car Show. I love attending that event every year, and I’m sure you guys have seen my coverage of the JCCS event in the past but I would gladly miss it again to attend the wedding of a friend. It was good to get away that weekend as well. I absolutely love going to Las Vegas to just chill and have a good time eating. I know a bunch of people love to get out there to go clubbing and do all that shit but honestly, I’ve been there and done that and the whole Vegas club experience isn’t something that I like, have a boiling feeling in my loins for, you know what I mean? I’ve partied everywhere, shit ain’t that different in Vegas and I don’t think it’s worth the hassle. I just wanted to get out there and do nothing. We are headed back there in about a month for the annual SEMA show anyway so there was no rush to do anything crazy…
I got back to my hotel late Saturday night and was looking at the NWP forums through my phone and noticed that the meet wasn’t going to start until 6pm Sunday night. I went to bed and woke up the next morning, had lunch, then headed back down to Los Angeles. I got back around 4:15pm, and hit up DPK David to see what time they were heading out to the meet. He said that he was heading out there with Jackie and Ben from ATS Garage so he came by, swooped May and I up, and we headed out to Corona to the Eibach facility. I wasn’t expecting much of a turn-out since there wasn’t any formal announcement of the event, but I was pleasantly surprised when I got there. Cars were beginning to fill the front lot and it looked like it was going to be a promising meet…
This is the Honda CR-Z that belongs to Eibach Springs. You probably remember it from last year’s SEMA show where it was parked with all the other CR-Zs that were distributed to various individuals/companies by Honda to build for their display. Brian from Hasport actually came by and picked this car up moments after I snapped this photo. I chatted with him for a little bit and he filled me in on what Eibach and Hasport had planned for this car. I don’t really know if I’m at liberty to reveal what they are doing but I promise you this; you guys won’t want to miss this thing at SEMA if you’re attending. For those of you who can’t make it there, I will definitely have some photos of this CR-Z’s new powerplant…
Tanner from Eibach Springs’ 4-door weekend track toy…
Sheepey’s turbo S2000…hopefully you guys have seen the video of this car that was made by Rodrez…if not make sure to click here to check it out…
Must be nice to be Ryan Basseri and have this as a weekend cruiser…
Phaze2 Arnel’s 4-door daily Civic on Mugen MF10L. He had a lip kit on the car at the Motion Auto Show a couple weeks ago but he’s since painted it and waiting to re-install it…
I really like the new SSR Professor SP3 wheels on Bryant’s TSX…I’ve enjoyed the progress on this car and it looks better than ever now with these wheels…
Mini Cooper on some old school Rays mesh wheels…
Spotted this K-turbo EK that I haven’t seen before…
Frankstar aka Bolt Boys Frank aka Downstar Frank’s Civic reppin’ Premium Garage Krew…
Always good to see Enrique Rosario and his Civic…this build is also one of those builds that have come a long way. There are always subtle changes to this car that many probably wouldn’t notice. He’s taking his time with this car and working at his own pace, which is a good thing…. I thought the interior shot was interesting because the bag of Lay’s potato chips and the drink from Subway somehow match the color scheme of his car…hah…hopefully this was unintentional and he doesn’t force himself to eat and drink things that only match his car….
Alex Colon’s Civic is another car that has seen some new gradual changes and subtle upgrades…the engine bay is looking good these days with his Rywire harness installed…
Speaking of Rywire, here he is with Brandon from Autolife TV staring at each other with hungry eyes…
Saw this ITR and it reminded me of what ATS Anh’s R looked like before it went through it’s massive transformation…
Always liked this del Sol but never met the owner…he’s always rocking a Chronicles and HellaSUNK sticker so I have to give him a shout-out for showing me love…
This del Sol on Regas is usually parked next to the one above and is also a very nice, simple build…kinda sucks but in this lighting, you can see that his front end doesn’t match the rest of his car…
Went by to snap a couple more shots of Sheepey’s S2000 after he popped his hood…
Really liked this red Civic coupe of Volk NRS wheels…
Chatted with the owner of this Prelude, Colin, for a little bit…he’s a really nice guy and has a pretty rare Wisesquare aero kit on his Prelude…I think it might be like possibly one of two kits that exist here stateside…
This EK was the same one that I was talking about from my Nisei coverage this year. I didn’t get a photo of it at the show so I made sure to snap a shot of it at the meet….Clean build and about as close to a real EK9 as you’re going to get…
This Civic had all the right parts on it…Mugen MF10Ls, parts from Backyard Special, and a K-swap…I just think it would look much better if it was maybe an inch or two lower…
4-door Integra on some black Enkei RPF1…
Donut probably had one of the most recognizable EG builds of all-time (click here if you’re unfamiliar) , but he’s been MIA from the Honda community since he sold his car and bought an Infiniti G35… He actually does still own a Honda and the Integra above is his weekend track car. There really isn’t much to the car, just some basic mods and some black 949 wheels but he takes it to the track and beats the shit out of it and has a blast. I haven’t seen him in awhile so it was cool to meet up with him and cruise out to the meet together…
Speaking of Hondas that get a beating on the track, this white hatchback belongs to Tony Jackson from Eibach Springs…
In this shot you can see how the middle section of the meet was kind of empty. More cars showed up later on but I found it interesting that even though there were plenty of open spots up front, people were still rolling up and parking along the side of the building. I guess people are so conditioned to be parked like how they are at the annual Eibach meets that they automatically assume the front is reserved for “VIP” guests, and that certainly wasn’t the case for this meet…
I really like this 4-door Integra that belongs to “Charlesfoo”…I love the red Bride-themed interior and the black 949s…it’s very simple on the outside but everything just works…I snap a pic of it every time I see it at an event…
Big Mike had left Vegas the night before so that he could go to work Sunday and then come to the meet after so it was strange to not see him there after we arrived at the meet. He’s usually one of the first ones there and I was about to give him a call until he rolled up with Jared in Jared’s Porsche….Jared was all smiles but Big Mike was looking kind of upset about something. I asked what was wrong and he said that the drive home from Vegas and then work just beat him up that whole day….
That’s about it for today, I have another batch of photos but that will go up tomorrow…It got dark real quick so I had to switch cameras later on in the night to be able to continue coverage. Stay tuned for more tomorrow…thanks for looking…
Motion Auto Show 2011 Coverage…Part 1…
So for the delay, I just had a couple things I had to knock out before finally getting to the Motion Auto Show coverage. I have to first off give a huge thank you to Paul Nguyen from Pro-Motion Distributing. I never intended to have a booth at the Motion show, but Paul was kind enough to approach me at the Eibach 2011 event earlier this year to offer me a spot. I honestly kind of slept on the idea and just totally lagged it and fucked everything up. I didn’t hit Paul up about it again until probably the week leading up to the show and he was kind enough to squeeze me in and gave me a terrific spot. I had never met Paul previous to that but he was so great about letting me know that I was a welcome part of the Motion Auto event. Even on the day of the show Paul came up to me to thank me for coming out, shit was unbelievable…if anything I owed him big for giving me the opportunity. For that, I give a huge thumbs-up to Paul and Pro-Motion…
Now onto my thoughts on the show….Man, with a three week block of shows, I was expecting to be completely burned out from doing car shit week after week. Spocom was cool, but it wasn’t anything that I would run and tell people about….Nisei Showoff 2011 is always a show that I will be a huge part of because of the history of the Showoff events….and the Motion Auto Show, was the perfect ending to that three week block because the show itself, had all the elements of a well organized, well thought out event. Obviously with all these shows going on, you’re going to run into the same cars over and over, that’s expected. Spocom lacked the amount of cars that I would have preferred to see and almost seemed to take on more of an “Extreme Autofest” feel. The Motion Auto Show hosted way more cars, and the quality of cars was just better. I’m not going to compare it to Nisei obviously, because they are two completely different shows. Motion and Spocom are both heavily backed by the aftermarket parts industry so they had the funding and location to have huge events. The Motion show was great because it had elements that everyone would enjoy at a car show. If anything, it is the new “standard” of how all import automotive events and competitors should follow their lead. It had the cars, it was held at a great venue, and the girls…holy shit, there was a fucking shit ton of females there. If you are a guy or gal that goes to car shows just to stare at females, this was the show to be at. There were models at every corner, everywhere you looked. If you are there for the cars, then the females were a bit of a distraction, but that just comes with going to a car show of this size. I’m sure Tony and the It’s JDM Yo!!! staff was having a fucking field day shooting photos of girls. There were so many girls there that some were posing inside the fucking engine bay of some cars. It was a first for me for sure…but I literally saw girls standing like inside the engine bay of people’s cars. I mean, I don’t think you get what I mean….For example, I saw a girl standing inside Bolt Boys Frank’s engine bay like, inbetween his radiator and header. How she managed to cram herself in there I have no idea, but they managed to do it. Sometimes you would even have like 3 cars on one car and girls had to like dislocate their fucking joints and shit to fit inside a photo….it was crazy…
I wish I would have been able to cover the event with more depth because I have taken a look at other site’s event coverage and there was a significant amount of vehicles that I did indeed miss. Instead of spending all my time shooting though, I was busy operating The Chronicles booth. May had taken all of her time last weekend preparing for Nisei and also spent the whole day working the booth, so I didn’t want her to spend another weekend stuck at a car show, so I worked the booth with DPK David while May and David’s fiance, Jackie, went out to have a girl’s day. It was all good though because I thought it would be good to just sit back and enjoy a show for once and make a little bit of money. Whenever I had a free moment, I did go out and snap some photos though. A lot of the cars will be the same as you have seen during this entire month so expect that. There wasn’t that much debauchery from our side because we spent most of the day at the booth. The most interesting element of this 3-part series of Motion Auto Show coverage will definitely be the models. I’m sure that’s why you’re looking up Motion Auto Show coverage anyways…I didn’t go hunting for model shots or anything, that’s just not what I’m about. That’s Tony and It’s JDM Yo!!!’s prerogative…I captured whatever I saw at that particular moment and if it ended up being a good photo, so be it…Models don’t like to be photographed by me at events anyways because I usually just snap photos of them without waiting for them to pose for me. One reason behind that is because I’m always on the go snapping other photos, and the second reason is that I have the terrible shakes and by the time I’m able to focus and snap a photo of the model, they already think I took the shot already and start looking elsewhere or doing other shit….That’s why a lot of the models you’ll see on here are like, not looking at my camera. They started out doing that but probably thought I was fucking with them because I just stood there with a camera pointed at them and nothing was happening…haha…
Let’s get started with the photos…
I posted up some photos from the whole Saturday set-up process last weekend, but one of the photos that I left out was a shot I took while we ate lunch at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. Roscoe’s is a staple of Long Beach, CA so whenever we get a chance to head to that area we try to grab a bite there. After we finished setting up The Chronicles booth at Motion, we all met up at Roscoes along with Bakari Howard and the some of the other guys from Falken Tire…
Not much really happened that night. We met up for dinner, hung out for a bit, and then went home to rest up for the show that Sunday. I got back to the Long Beach Convention Center around 10:30am along with DPK David and Ben from ATS Garage and spent an hour or so prepping the booth. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving all my merchandise at the booth over night at the show so we brought it on Sunday and the guys helped me carry it in…
I had a couple stickers on display so that people could decide which Chronicles decal they wanted to purchase. That day I had the 2011 Nisei Edition “Battleship Grey”, the traditional black on chrome, as well as the Eibach 2011 edition of the Chronicles decal…
I also debuted the brand new Ver. II HURT FEELINGS t-shirts. We updated the design a bit and had a new grey shirt available as well as black versions…
The show opened up at 11am that day so I just hung out at the booth for awhile. Some people came by to say what’s up and show their appreciation for the site, which was really cool. DPK David and ATS Ben then took off to go move some cars around in the Falken Tire section. Loi Song from Sportcar Motion then arrived at the show to hang out. He really didn’t have anything planned that day so he just sat in the booth with me while we people-watched…
It was a little slow so I decided to pick up the camera and take some quick snaps. Here is a shot of the Falken Tire area, where they had set-up an all-Honda/Acura display. You should be able to identify a majority of the Hondas in this photo because they are some pretty familiar faces…
There wasn’t much done to this Honda CR-Z but it was in the Takeda booth directly across from mine, so we spent most of the day staring right at it….
To the left across a wider walkway was the Injen booth where they had this Volkswagon CC on display as well as a 3-series BMW…
Tony from It’s JDM Yo!!! and I actually shared a 10×20″ space at the show, so that was pretty cool. I knew if and when I had to go walk the show, I could rely on him to operate my booth for me and take care of things. He had all kinds of people around his booth the whole day. It’s pretty crazy to think how big his site has gotten since he started it. He’s got a couple guys shooting for him now and at the Motion show, he had this model at his booth. I believe her name is like Rachelle Viado or something similar to that. I’m not good with names…
I got a bit thirsty so I had Tony watch things while David and I went over to the NOS area to grab some drinks…When we got over there, we were greeted with this crazy ice sculpture that helped to serve NOS samples to show attendees. It was a pretty cool idea…I doubt it really sped up the process of getting drinks out to people, but it was cool nonetheless…If I ever became like, filthy rich or some shit, I think I would have one of these NOS ice sculptures delivered every single day and placed in front of my toilet. Then I could have fancy pee sessions because ice sculptures make everything more classy. I don’t know how long it would last and because my pee is probably hot but whatever, I’m fucking rich. I could even take a dump into it and use it as some sort of NOS ice turd cannon…
After I spent some moments staring at the NOS girls and their sample serving, I turned around and spotted this model, who reminded me of this porn star named Rachel Roxxx. As I was taking this photo, I was thinking about this one scene that Rachel Roxxx did recently where she was getting DPed by two dudes…If you don’t know what DP is and aren’t well-versed in the lingo of the adult movies, try to picture an electrical outlet where both outlets are plugged-in….yeah it’s kinda like that….If that also doesn’t make sense, just think of a conventional hot dog and bun set-up, but this particular hot dog….has two hot dogs instead of just one…Do you get it now?…
Two McDonald’s chicken nuggets….ONE sauce…haha, okay moving on…
After I finished grossing myself out thinking about nasty shit, I stopped by the Falken Tire section to say what’s up to everyone. Big Mike had just gotten off work and returned to the show, and guys like Mike G. were standing around chatting with other guys…Here’s a shot of Mike’s “Tank” next to Anh’s ITR…
The “Tank”…
Anh’s Integra Type R…
Angel’s S2000 with Big Mike in the background with others…
Big Mike’s Prelude…
This black RSX with Backyard Special aero was parked in the Falken Tire area along with Big Mike and the others…
Danny from PlusOne’s coupe…
There wasn’t much going on over there so I headed back over to the booth to sit down…The 5Axis booth was also pretty close so I snapped this shot of a matte white tC that I spotted. That red contraption you see in front of it was actually one the Motion Auto Show trophies, designed by Troy from 5Axis…I have a better shot of it later on in the coverage….
At this point, people were beginning to trickle in so I decided to walk around a do some more coverage while I still had the chance too…
Michelle Yee modeling for Savini wheels….
E46 BMW M3 with Japanese Voltex aero…
Scion xB rocking the Gulf livery…
Infiniti M on AME Shallen LX wheels…
I journeyed over to the area where all the TWC cars were and saw that they also had an elaborate ice sculpture. I then remembered that I had seen the TWC crew rocking ice sculptures in the past at other events so they were probably responsible for the one that was also at the NOS booth…Later on in the day, Salem told me he saw this ice sculpture fall over and almost hit Ka Wong’s orange AE86…
TWC went all out for the Motion Auto Show. They had their own DJ, a fucking ice sculpture with their own crew name on it, a bunch of nice cars, and also had their own models. Here is one of them rolling around on the back of some huge fucking truck… The funniest thing I saw all day was the two go-go dancers that were in the TWC area. They were dancing like they someone had the fast forward button pushed and a majority of the time, they weren’t even dancing to the beat of the songs that the DJ was playing…shit was crazy…
Melyssa Grace posing on a motorcycle in the TWC area…The guy in the background snapping the photo of her cleavage looks like DPK Darryl making a pouty-face…Melyssa Grace probably went blind after I snapped this photo since the brightness of my flash was so intense….Shit was acting up all day and was just a total pain in the ass…
Yellow FD3S RX-7 from TWCompetition…
Ka Wong’s F20C-swapped AE86 Corolla…
Always love seeing this widebody orange Infiniti G35…
A model passing out some flyers about AutoImportCraze’s new website…
Widebody Toyota Supra representing Squad One San Diego…
A couple shots of Tracy Linh…
Genevieve Chanelle and friend…
Oh here’s a good example of what I was talking about earlier…Genevieve Chanelle was hawking at me wondering why I was taking so fucking long to take the photo. At this point, she was already over it and saying “fuck this guy” to me while her friend stepped-in and picked up the slack…
Another shot of ATS Angel’s S2000…
I’m sure you guys remember my photo from Spocom of this young lady posing alongside an old ass man who was making a jerk-off motion with his hand….Well she was back in black at the Motion Auto Show…I think someone mentioned that her name was Kai Lansangan or something like that, but I prefer to call her the name I coined for her after I saw her at Spocom….TITLA MCBOOB…
Here’s Titla flippin’ her herr…
Titla McBoob striking a pose for another photog….Haha…seriously though, her real name is Kai Lansangan…That may be her real name or an internet persona, I don’t fucking know but it sounds pretty legit to me…If she wanted to go by an easier, more recognizable name, she would probably have gone with Titla McBoob…
Gonna close it out for today with a couple shots of Big Steve’s LS400…This thing has been sitting in a garage for what seems like 49 years now, so it was cool to see it out again, especially since it was the car on the Motion Auto Show flyer…Big Steve and I are a lot alike…we are both Asian and drive cars…haha, I’m just fucking with you, it’s late and I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about…I’ve been up for almost two days straight so it’s time for me to hit the hay…
Two more parts of Motion Auto Show Coverage to follow, thanks for looking….
Nisei Showoff 2011 Coverage…Part 6…The Finale…
Alright, time to close out the 2011 Nisei Showoff coverage with some random photos towards the end of the show, the awards ceremony, and at the end I’ve attached some of my favorite photos that I took from the show. Those won’t be in any particular order, they’re just shots that I thought were good. Overall, I think it was a great event. Foot traffic of course was a bit slower than in year’s past, but that was expected because of the 3-week block of shows. It’s really unprecedented to have that happen and definitely a first, but I’m happy to say that I was able to go to every show during those three weeks and was able to experience each of them. It’s crazy that it wrapped up with the Motion show because that was probably the most anticipated event of the summer. That’s not taking anything away from Nisei Showoff though. Nisei has and always will be a staple in our community’s history and it was more than kind of Ken Myoshi to have me be a huge part of it. I hope everyone enjoyed the 6-part mini-series of Nisei Showoff. I like to cover these events in such a way that you get to see not only nice cars, but also details behind their builds and stuff you may miss if you aren’t actually there in person. The GENERATIONS line-up came together quickly and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I think the general consensus from every Honda head that was there was that it was a positive move in bringing everyone together for one show. Hopefully in the near future I will be able to do the GENERATIONS line-up again but with even more people participating and more Hondas that we have all grown to know and love throughout the years. With that said, thank you everyone for coming over to The Chronicles to check out the coverage and I am appreciative of your continued support…
Now, let’s move onto the last batch of photos…
Lance Uchida, who helped drive Billy Shea’s IS300 out to the show, packing up along with some friends before awards took place…
You can’t look at Billy’s HKS-themed IS300 without taking a look at the amazing engine bay…
Billy’s HKS T51R turbine…
Sportcar Motion’s newly-built drag K24 Civic…I think a lot of people are misinformed when they see this car since they have become so used to Sportcar’s involvement with time attack. This is purely a drag car for their personal use. Nothing but pure straight line racing…
The motor currently makes around 350whp but plans are already underway to boost the K and make even more power. As of this week, the parts from AFI Turbo have already arrived at the shop and tear down will begin shortly…
Speaking of turbo Ks, one more shot of RC’s work-in-progress 4-door Civic…
Mike G. and DPK Jared having some fun and posing for a shot…
Mike G.’s buddy had this pristine real deal Civic Type R park with us since I ended up with an extra parking space when Will from Circuit Hero let us know that he couldn’t make it out…
Rywire Ryan and ATS Angel discussing some future plans, whether it be car shit or what to eat for dinner…
ATS FCB with his son Jaylen…
May and I were at the show for the whole day watching over The Chronicles booth, so we didn’t get an opportunity to go walk around J-town to grab a bite to eat…Luckily there was a sketchy-ass cart right outside of the front gates to Nisei Showoff where they sold “Danger Dogs” aka bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Definitely not the safest thing to eat, especially considering that there is meat being cooked on a rolling cart and mayo has been sitting out all day, but hey, sometimes you have to live dangerously…
As unsafe as it sounded, the thought of eating a bacon-wrapped hot dog inspired everyone’s appetites so the homies also went and bought some dogs…If there’s germs, the hot ass peppers are sure to kill them right? Haha…
Rhett and friends taking a closer look at Anh’s ITR…
Miss Chaba with an impromptu pose…
Rom, Jared, and Ryan beginning the sticker-removal process so that Jared and drive home with clear visibility…
After that came the hood re-install…Apparently it takes 5 dudes to put on an S2K hood…
WheelFlip model Tina striking a pose…
One more shot of Big Mike’s Prelude as the sun was making it’s way down…
Dennis from Team Hybrid’s STi that was near the front stage where the awards ceremony took place…
Even though Ken doesn’t have any major sponsors backing the Showoff series anymore, it doesn’t mean that he’s ever skimped on the awards at his shows. He’s always been more than generous with the number of awards and awards classes and appreciative of every make and model that participates…
It’s JDM Yo!!! x 1-Up, Tony’s super crew (aka The Vanguard Collective), anticipating some awards…
Peter Vong holding up his 3rd place trophy in the Nissan/Infiniti Class for his LS14…
Salem from Phaze2 holding up his 3rd Place Acura Class trophy for his J’s Racing TSX….
Big Mike with another 1st Place Honda trophy…
Jonathan “JonJon” Usaha holding up his “JDM VIP Showoff” award…
Jaylen and Fred from ATS up to receive the Integra/RSX showoff award for Anh Truong’s Integra Type R…
Sam Ip winning back-to-back years in the “ES/FG Civic Showoff” award with two separate cars…
Chris Sakai won the “EK Civic Showoff” award…
Mike G. with his “EG Civic Showoff” award. These awards are given to the best of that particular chassis at Showoff so it was cool to have Mike, Chris, and Anh win in their respective classes. It was cool to see Sam win again as well and the “EF Civic Showoff” award (if I remember correctly) went to the 4-door red EF Civic and that was definitely deserving…I didn’t get a chance to snap a photo of Angel winning his 2nd Place Honda Class award because I was busy shooting off a mini-confetti gun at him…
Peter up to grab the “Team Showoff” award for It’s JDM Yo! x 1-Up, which was given to the best car crew of the event…
We were all watching the Toyota and old school class awards fly by with no mention of Ka Wong’s name and we were honestly all a bit surprised. Ka of course is the owner of that beautifully-built F20C-swapped orange AE86. He’s usually a lock at almost every show to bring something home like Billy’s IS300 so we were thinking that maybe he was overlooked by the judges…
…and then they called his name and he walked up to the stage to win the coveted “Custom Showoff” award, which is the 1st runner-up to what basically is “the best of show” honors…Very well deserved. Ka’s Corolla is a remarkable build and a contender for best of show at any import event…The guy is also one of the most humble people ever as well so he couldn’t be more deserving…
…and the winner of course for the best of show, known as the “Showoff Auto” award went to Billy Shea’s HKS IS300. The photo above is Lance picking up the award since Billy couldn’t be there. It’s practically automatic for him to win because the car has it all, exterior aesthetics, performance upgrades, interior mods, custom paint, and custom audio…Congrats to Billy and the rest of the winners at Nisei Showoff 2011…
I was pretty happy with the results that the GENERATIONS line-up was able to produce… Integra/RSX Showoff, EK Civic Showoff, EG Civic Showoff (not pictured), 3rd Place Acura Class,2nd Place Honda Class, and 1st Place Honda Class…Doesn’t sound like much considering we had over 20 Hondas but you have to remember that these guys were pretty much competing with one another in the same classes…
After the annoying ass announcer was done promoting his own shit while giving out the awards, we walked back over to finish cleaning up and saying buy to everyone before they took off…
Here’s one more shot of Jorge Hernandez’s gold EG as the night quickly approached…
…and a shot of Mike Schietroma’s EM1 and Ejay Adriano’s DA Integra…
Ryan snacking on some JDM crunchy peas as we were getting ready to take off from the downtown Los Angeles lot…
Nothing to exciting happened after we left…We all went home to shower and take a break, then we headed down to the city of Irvine to go have dinner together and talk about the show….
Gonna close it out today with some bonus stuff for you guys. Below is a video of Nisei Showoff 2011, created by Honda Tuning head editor Rodrez…peep that. And when you’re done, I’ve included a couple of photos that I really liked from Nisei but in a larger format for your viewing pleasure. Thanks everyone for looking, thanks for supporting The Chronicles, and thanks for supporting Ken Myoshi and the Showoff events…Until next time…
Click on the links below each photo for larger versions…
History in the making… Larger Version (1400×933)
Fin.
Nisei Showoff 2011 Coverage…Part 5…
Just one more section of Nisei Showoff 2011 coverage after this one. I honestly didn’t even realize I took so many photos until I got home and went through them. Overall I’m happy with it and I think it’s a good representation of what was at the show. My only regret was not taking some more time to look at all the old school Mazdas that were there. There was a whole line-up full of them and I just completely missed them. Ah well, next time. I think I spotted a couple of them at the Motion show and I did snap some pics. In any case, you guys are probably here to see Hondas and shit anyways so all the other non-Honda stuff should be a plus. I just try to capture what please my eye so if you don’t see something that you like on here, I either missed it or we just have differing tastes…
Today we are going to be taking a further look at some of the other cars at the show and at the end I’ll give you some more detailed shots of various engine bays with some details that I really liked. Enjoy and I hope all of you have enjoyed the Nisei Showoff 2011 coverage…Tomorrow will cover the end of the day and stuff like that and there won’t be as much car content….
Always been a fan of Linda’s Toyota Matrix from Team Praxis. I think this car often gets overlooked and doesn’t get enough credit simply because it’s not a very popular platform. It’s definitely a top quality build though and it’s nice to have seen it progress to this point…
Linda’s VIP Modular wheels…
TRD Supercharger and custom wire-tuck and harness via Rywire.com…
Jay’s TL on Work Varianza T1s…
Michael Johnson’s 1st gen. Acura TL…
Joey’s Scion tC on Jline wheels…
Robert’s Civic with a custom front end adapted from a Mugen-style RSX front bumper…
Jared checking out some wheels at the Infinit Wheels booth…
DPK David once again…
Kane Chan’s girl Annie’s DC2 Integra on white Advan RGs…
Another shot of Parnell’s DA…
1st gen. Toyota Celica…
Mark II Toyota Celica Supra….
It was cool to see all the old school Toyotas parked along this row with a brand new Lexus LF-A in the middle to show off all the different generations of Toyota sports cars…
Wald IS-F…
Dennis Kongvongsai’s Subaru STi representing Team Hybrid…
350Z also from Team Hybrid…good looking car but I do feel like vinyl roll calls along the side of the door are a bit tacky these days…
Really liked this Miata on SSR MK2 wheels with the original caps…The custom rag top over the cage was a really cool idea…
Always see this hatchback from GTS at every show. At Nisei he ended up placing in the Honda category as well I believe…
This EF is always in immaculate condition and was recently in Honda Tuning magazine a couple months ago…
Always been a fan of the Lexus RX chassis. I’ve never seen this one before but it was definitely a pleasant surprise… There was an EK next to this car that I really liked too but there was this hoard of people around it and I could’t wait very long for them to move out of the way for a photo since I had to go back and clean up…
Charles from 1-Up x Its JDM Yo!!!’s Honda S2000…
Andrew Lim’s gold Supra…
Andrew’s brother Jason’s IS300 and JonJon’s IS350…
Old school Skyline GT-R…
Jose Romo’s Audi A4…
Lowfat Pie attempting to sexually assault Jared in The Chronicles booth…
Gonna close it out today with some engine bays like I mentioned at the top…
Arn Reyes’ white on white on white engine bay in his DC2…
A couple more shots of Sheepey’s turbo set-up since I saw some photos over the weekend of a particular S2000 owner on the east coast who is basically copying Alex’s exact turbo set-up…You’re welcome for the shots… If you guys are wondering who it is…think of a S2K out there that looks almost identical to ATS Angel’s S2000…haha…
Mike Schietroma’s bay with a Spoon Sports valve cover signed by Ichishima Tatsuru…
Ryan Der’s new white valve cover and coil over plug set-up…I love the blue beauty washers that are used throughout the car, from the interior to the bay all the way to his ignition coils…
Chris Sakai’s wrinkle black-themed bay…
…his breather and catch can set-up…
…and his custom Trick Flow fuel set-up…Note the hardware and the spacers used for fuel pressure regulator position in relation to how the fuel filter is mounted…all very minor touches that add up to a great overall bay…
Custom teal powder-coated horns for Anh’s individual throttle bodies…
Closing it out today with a shot of ATS Angel’s matte black TE37s and blue Project Mu brakes…
That’ll be all for today. Back with the final installment of the Nisei Showoff 2011 coverage tomorrow…
Nisei Showoff 2011 Coverage…Part 3…
Thanks everyone for their continued support…today we will be moving forward with Part 3 of the 2011 Nisei Showoff coverage. Today, like yesterday we will be taking a look at a mix of different cars at the show along with some closer detail shots that I really want you guys to take a look at. Many times when you look at photos of builds online, it’s easy to miss out on the minor details and intricacies that many like include. I’ve always been a firm believer that no matter how minor the detail, if you appreciate your own build enough to include them, somebody out there will notice it. One of the main things that I miss about having my own Honda build is those individuals who I don’t even know that will come up to me and ask me about a certain detail in my car, that I never expected any one to notice. It’s a great feeling, especially when you realize that there are people out there that really enjoy what you do and how you execute a particular detail. Attention to detail, like I have always said, has become a lost art form. Many people these days are out just to get immediate attention and hype, and completely ignore the little things that would make their builds so much better. It’s a shame when I see a really nice, well put together, car at a show and upon further inspection, realize that it’s just one of those cars that look better from far away. It’s very easy to spend those extra moments to make sure that you have things a certain way. I say that even the smallest detail will be noticed by someone, but I must also point out that the minor flaws that you took a short-cut on are even easier to notice sometimes. Just take that extra time, those extra dollars, to execute…you know? I know these days everybody is all about swag, and hype, and sticker bombing or whatever the fuck it is, but those things are only cool for the moment. Great detail, great builds, will live in the minds of enthusiasts for a lifetime. That’s why it’s great to see cars like Parnell’s from the past and the ATS Garage guys from the present. Those builds will stick with you. Every time you work on a new build, you’re going to go back into your memory banks to create a mental checklist of what should (or needs to) be done and those cars will be your mental examples. And years from now somebody will think back and remember what you did, because you spent those extra moments to make sure your build was as close to perfect as possible….
Anyways, moving on with the photos…
One more look at the DPK and ATS Garage guys in the “Present” section of GENERATIONS…
I was overjoyed to see the SSR Super Mesh wheels back on Ejay’s Integra…Of all the different sets that he’s had, I always felt like these wheels were the perfect look suited for his DA…
A better look at Jeff Campbell’s DC2…Love the engine bay and all the purple/blue -aN fittings and hose ends. It’s crazy how unsuspecting this car looks with the hood down. When he pops the hood it’s a completely different car…
I never get tired of seeing Parnell’s DA…I’m happy to see that it has aged well and hasn’t gotten beat up like some other Hondas…
One of the cool things about having a smaller crowd at an event is that you can actually stand there and look at a car in detail without being interrupted by someone or have someone stand in front of you, blocking your view. That’s usually what happens whenever I’m around Mike G.’s hatch but at Nisei, I was able to get some pretty good shots of “Tank” under the hood…
The Plan:B Motorsports billet valve cover with custom coil-over-plug set-up…
I thought all the bullet-ends on the bolts, dipstick, and oil cap were a cool touch. Definitely adds character to the bay…
Custom shock tower bar from ASC Speed Metal with “TANK” welded onto the center of it…here you have a better look at the oil cap….
Here you can get a better look at all the bullet-ends that serve as bolt caps…Also note the cap over the distributor…
ICB Matt’s Civic…Never thought I’d see the day where a Chronicles sticker would be placed on the same windshield as a DOHC Garage sticker…
Jorge Hernandez’s Civic and a shot of his bay with the classic Abbey Road Company intake and induction box…
Kane Chan’s EJ1 coupe…
Royal Origin 350Z on VIP Modular wheels…
E36 BMW on VIP Modular wheels…
Meet the owner of this FG2 Civic, Alex, while I was walking around doing coverage. Dude was telling me how he moved down from Washington state and what not and his experiences being out in Cali…nice guy…
Saw this NSX on aggressive white TE37s for the first time at this year’s Nisei Showoff… The owner of this NSX was parked in the same ditch that Sheeps was parked in. That’s why it looks like his car is taking a hard turn and leaning hard on one side…In fact, you can see Sheep’s S2K in the background and it looks like they are tandem drifting…
Yellow S2000 decked out in (hopefully legit) ASM aero all around…Good looking S2000 with individual throttle bodies and all…
It was good to see Darren Wong’s EM1 out at Nisei since he was having some problems with his C.O.P. set-up during FF Battle 3…I talked to him for a little bit and he told me that he figured out what the issue was and the car was running pretty good…
It definitely wasn’t over crowded at any point in time during the day. Here you can see the scattered crowds and groups of people talking…
Anh’s ITR was a hit throughout the day…
VW on some rare 16-inch VIP Modular wheels…
The 2nd Gen. Lexus GS was probably the most popular of the VIP-themed rides at Nisei….I don’t want to say that they were “everywhere” but there was definitely a strong showing from them…
DPK David DJing with his homie at one of the ItsJDMYo!!! booths…
Ms. Tracy Linh was one of the models present in the ItsJDM Yo!!! section…
A couple cars representing ItsJDMYo!!! x 1-Up crew…
Andrew Lim’s gold Supra…
Peter and Theresa’s LS1-powered S14…
Enrique Rosario’s EG…Always good to see that guy because he’s always all-smiles…
Loi Song from Sportcar Motion taking a Facebook break in the shade…
I really wanted you guys to take a closer look at one of my favorite cars at Nisei Showoff 2011, which is this IS350 that belongs to Jonathan “JonJon” Usaha…It’s a great example of a well-rounded VIP build….
I’ve been a fan of this car ever since last year’s RPM show in Irvine and it’s good to see that his IS has continued to evolve…
Love the Weds Kranze Vishunu wheels and the custom neo-chrome Endless big brake calipers….
Junction Produce-themed interior…
Quick shot of ATS Garage member Chris Sakai’s front end and engine bay…
Gonna close it out today with a couple shots of this DC2, which is owned by Twee… This Integra has come a long way and is now wearing a newer Acura RSX Jade Green Metallic tone…
…and is also now K-powered. I thought the air intake was a little odd but overall, the bay is getting there…
A quick interior shot of her Integra…
That’s all for today, back tomorrow with more…
Nisei Showoff 2011 Coverage…Part 2…
Back with part 2 of the Nisei 2011 coverage. Today we will be taking a look at some cars that were in the first two rows of the show where my booth was. I was still hanging out at the booth at the time and didn’t really want to move since the sun was blazing hot. Before the event started, a bunch of us even drove to one of the Japanese markets down the street to buy some nice cold drinks to cool down while we waited for May to finish making her fruit drinks. It was definitely hotter than we expected so it was a good thing we had a canopy to be under. I went out in short spurts to take photos and then quickly ran back under the canopy as to not get burnt, so the photos in the first few sections of the coverage are just of the front area. I didn’t make my way through to see the rest of the show until much later on in the day. Anyways, hopefully today will be drama free in the comments section and everybody can just sit back and enjoy the photos…
A couple people are complaining that I always cover the same shit over and over, so to start it out today, I’m gonna post some photos of cars that I have posted before….
Edgar Loyoza’s purple G35 was one of the cars that I really enjoyed staring at all day. I love the SSR Professor SP3 wheels and the subtle aero…
Ka Wong’s AE86 F20C-powered Corolla has to be, bar none, one of my favorite builds of all time. Everything is executed as close to perfect as it gets and to top it off, Ka is a very nice guy and I always enjoy running into him at events…
His engine bay has a lot of little nice touches. Look at the bolts with the purple beauty washers used in every part of the bay possible, even where the wiper used to be mounted…And as weird as it sounds, a Honda S2000 motor looks like it belongs in an 8-6….
Shooting his Corolla and doing a story on it for Super Street magazine was also one of my favorite shoots. I loved the way the photos came out and it’s cool to see that he brought the plaque out with him to display at Nisei Showoff…
ItsJDMYo!!! and 1-UP crew…
DPK David in the GENERATIONS section…Told this dude to move his car back like 16 times because it was sticking out past everyone else’s cars and he was busy DJing in one of Tony’s booths with his friend…
Sheepey’s S2000 parked in what I call “the ditch”…I had the exact same spot last year and Salem parked there. That groove was so deep that Salem’s TSX looked like it was flipped over on its side when he had his front wheel sitting in the groove. We were kind of joking around that Sheepey would be mad his car was parked right there but it wasn’t intentional. That’s how all the cars lined up and he just so happened to be at that exact spot. I was gonna put my booth there but with 22 cars even, I divided it up evenly down the middle and my booth ended up being 2 car spots down from there…
Sheep’s wild turbo, dump tube, and dual waste gate set-up…
Jared talking to Alex from WheelFlip about his custom M7s…
Big Mike talking to one of the judges, Amy, while she was judging his Prelude for the Honda Class category…
Big Mike’s Prelude on freshly refinished Volk SE37Ks…
A quick look at Jeff Campbell’s engine bay…
It’s crazy to think that the last time this Civic made a public appearance was at the 2006 Eibach Meet…Thanks to ICB Matt for bringing it out for the line-up…
2GS that was parked with Infinit Wheels…I liked how the rear fender was modified but doesn’t look haggered like a lot of other guys who are trying to fit aggressive wheels on their cars…
Really loved this BMW with Japanese Voltex aero and HRE wheels…Very nice mash-up of styles…
Says it all…
Mike G. enjoying one of the drinks that May prepared…
Anh’s loves teal…
Frankstar aka Mexican Zac Efron checking out Sheepey’s bay…
Billy’s IS300 came out once again to collect a best of show trophy. I’m starting to think that this car is untouchable in that class and it’s very deserving of the praise….
Engine bay shot of Sportcar Motion’s newly debuted Civic….
Phaze2 Salem’s TSX was a part of the GENERATIONS line-up. Not only does it have the best TSX components that J’s Racing has to offer, it’s also turned into quite a capable weekend track car, as evidenced by it’s great performance at the Super Street FF Battle 3…
Leon Casino’s CR-X was a late addition to the GENERATIONS line-up. I had contacted him about possibly being a part of it but with his baby due any time now, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to make it out. He called me at the 11th hour of roll-in and asked if I had a spot for him and we made room. I really wanted him to park with the older guys for the “past” section but that area was filled up and I had a spot up front since Will from Circuit Hero no-showed, and that’s where he ended up…
RC Chacon’s newly debuting EG sedan build. He wasn’t quite finished with it yet, as I stated in part 1, but it made for a perfect fit for the “future” portion of my line-up…Interested to see what else he plans on doing to this Civic. Maybe when the 3-year anniversary meet goes down towards the end of the year, he will make another appearance in it’s finished state…
Always enjoy seeing this GR Subaru STI on Volk TE37SLs… I think I use this exact same line every time I post a photo of this car…haha…
PlusOne Danny’s coupe…
Sheeps and ATS Angel…
RX-8 on BBS wheels…
Vincent Shu’s LS400… He used to have a 2GS and I actually bought my AMEs off of him…
TL on HREs…
As usual Socal car events usually have celebrity appearances from time to time. At the Super Street FF Battle 3 dyno day, we saw an appearance by Birdman. At Nisei…
Richard Attenborough aka the old man from Jurassic Park showed up in period-correct attire in honor of GENERATIONS….haha. Loi spotted him first and I asked him which Jurassic Park movie he liked the most, and he clearly enjoyed the second one the most…
Sam Ip’s new black 8th gen. Civic build, which replaces the white one that he totalled awhile back…The container of parts from Japan he was waiting on didn’t make it to the states in time, but he promises that there are all kinds of new J’s Racing parts in there for his car…Looks promising so far and very different from his previous Spoon Sports theme…
Arn Reyes’s Integra with the Hershey front bumper….
Charles from 1-Up’s widebody S2000…
A bagged and kitted Prius that I saw while walking towards the front gate…
Mike Schietroma’s Civic with BYS front bumper…loving the red Vision seats…
Closing it out with a trio of history-making EGs….if these three cars could talk, man, the stories that they could tell….
That’s all for today, thanks for looking…Oh and sorry that some of the tones are off on some of the photos compared to the others. I edited them at different times and they are from different times of the day but I actually went and organized the photos for once to make sure they were in order of what I was talking about and this happens…yikes…
Nisei Showoff 2011 Coverage…Part 1…An Introduction…
“Honor the past…Appreciate the present…Build for the future…”
GENERATIONS
presented to you by The Chronicles…
I wanted to start off the coverage with a formal explanation of the line-up that I put together at Nisei Showoff 2011. I’ve been looking around online and some people were wondering what the whole “Generations” sticker was about that they saw on some cars there and if you follow the site regularly, then you already know why. For those that don’t and are just here to see the coverage now, allow me to explain. Ken Myoshi hit me up a couple weeks ago wanting to know if I had any ideas to throw at him for our collaboration that we were doing. I try to work with Ken and Showoff a lot because I appreciate what Ken Myoshi has done throughout the years for the entire import automotive community. It was the original import car show back in the early 90′s, long before Hot Import Nights, any of that NOPI garbage, Import Fest, Wekfest, Spocom, etc. It will always be THE original import car show event. I always make it a point to work with Ken because it’s an honor for me to do so. I’ve always been a heavy supporter of his Showoff events in the past and attended them whenever I could (and that was often). Having The Chronicles collaborate with Ken is something that I never imagined I would be able to do. No matter what I want to call it, this is a blog about Hondas. Simple as that. I didn’t think working with Showoff was possible because this site is not very significant in the broader scheme of the import automotive community. It was cool of Ken to ask because for whatever reason, he values my opinion and thinks that I can help him push his show. Last year, I collaborated with him with the “Top Ten Showoff” where I brought out a couple of Hondas that I throught were really nice and it worked out well. I had a booth, I sold some things, and the show overall was a success. Ken liked what I did and he asked me to help him out again this year…
For this year’s Nisei event, I had a very short amount of time to put something together because I’ve been busy taking care of other things, and just hadn’t had much time to contact Ken about what we should do. When I contacted Ken, we threw some ideas out at each other but nothing was really set in stone. I told him I’d reconnect with him on AOL Instant Messenger the very next day at around the same time, which was early in the a.m. around 1:30. The next day came and went and we didn’t get a chance to talk. This was a week before the event was set to take place…and I had nothing. Whenever I drive to May’s place to go spend time with her, I always spend those 35-40 minutes on the highway brainstorming ideas for the site. Some of my best ideas have come from those drives, many of them which I forget by the time I get home. On one of the night’s driving to her place, I came up with an idea….an idea to bring some of the best builds of year’s past (that were still around of course) and display them with some of what I feel are the best builds of our current generation with a couple of other cars that had yet to make a public appearance, which I would deem “The builds of the future”. Showoff is so enriched in history that it just made sense…I would call it “GENERATIONS”…it had a nice ring to it, so I went with it. I parked my 4Runner in my carport, ran up to my apartment, hopped on my computer and shot Tony from ItsJDMYo an email. I had somehow lost my contact info for Ken so I had no way of contacting him, and he wasn’t online at that moment, so I asked Tony to forward my idea to him. I was pretty excited by the idea but it almost seemed impossible to put together in less than a week’s time but if Ken liked the idea, I would push forward and do whatever it took to make it happen. Ken emailed me later that next day and told me that he felt that it was a great idea…and then it came time to execute…
The Chronicles and GENERATIONS represented on Big Mike’s Prelude passenger window…
What car was still around I thought, that people would appreciate seeing, that hadn’t been out at a car show like Showoff in a couple years…the first car that sprang to mind, within moments of thinking was Parnell’s 1993 Acura Integra. It was a beautiful build, timeless in every way, with all the right parts to make to relevant no matter what era it stood in. I didn’t know Parnell that well, we had met in passing, and I ran into him another time during a dinner with May and some friends at Fogo de Chau, and I almost didn’t recognize him. We became friends on Facebook after that, so my only means of contacting him was through a social media source. I am very good friends with Ejay though, who also had a DA like Parnell, so I knew I could always talk to Ejay if I had to. Ejay and Parnell are like brothers, if I had to have someone convince him to do it, Ejay was my man to do it. I hit Parnell up on Facebook and he quickly responded without hesitation that he was all for it. So the first guy was locked down….
Team Kosoku past and present…Parnell’s Mugen DA and Ejay’s DA…
The second guy I knew who might be down, was Kane Chan. He shows with all the other old school car crews at Showoff practically every year, so if I could piggyback off that, the whole “GENERATIONS” theme would make even more sense. Kane wasn’t sure what everyone in his crew wanted to do, so he said he would let me know after they had a meeting…so Kane was a “maybe”. I needed some help brainstorming ideas of who and what car to bring out, so I headed down to the Rywire facilities to meet up with Ryan, DPK David, and Big Mike. There we tossed around some names of who to ask…Mike G. was one of them, and a couple other names popped up, but we had no idea if those guys were even into cars anymore. Right next door to Ryan’s shop, if you didn’t know…was L*CON. Inside L*CON’s building was a smaller business, called Ballade Sports and was operated by Alex Doan, who has that full Spoon-themed black S2000 and a guy who has been a part of the Honda community for years, a guy we know as “Skinhead Mike”. Mike is the proprietor of Jon Tanji’s Civic hatchback. Jon passed away a couple years ago, and Mike has had his EG ever since. He occasionally takes it to work with him, and it has remained in its exact state since Jon had it…it was the perfect choice to bring to Nisei. We could honor not only the history with Jon’s Civic but also honor Jon Tanji, who many people these days don’t know of and to showcase his work. Big Mike talked to Skinhead, I talked to him for a bit, and while Mike was all for it and loved the idea, he had a personal matter to deal with and that was all I needed to hear. I’m not gonna make anyone do anything car-related if they have more pressing matters to attend to. When I first made the announcement regarding the appearance of Jon’s Civic, I kind of pulled the trigger on it too early by stating it would be there and that was my error. It should not reflect on Skinhead Mike or anyone else. I would have loved to have seen the car there, but it’s more important to me that he takes care of whatever he had to in his personal life. For those of you who expected the car to be there, I apologize, it was my mistake in jumping the gun and no one elses…
With little time left to get more of the Hondas from year’s past together, I hit up Matt from ICB Motorsport to see if he was coming out from Arizona for Nisei, and all of a sudden, everything fell into place. Literally out of nowhere, Matt single-handedly saved my vision…and he has no idea that he did…haha. Matt was bringing out 5 cars… one of them being perfect for the section, because it stood the test of time and has remained in perfect condition…no, it’s not the car that you’re thinking of if you’ve already seen other pics. It wasn’t the famous “blue EG”. It was Jorge Hernandez’s gold Civic hatchback. You don’t hear from him because he’s a man of few words, but his build is one that you will always remember. The other cars that were coming out with him were perfect for the “present” section of GENERATIONS. Mike had a very nice Spoon-themed EM1 build, and another guy, Jeff Campbell, had a blue DC2 that made a strong presence at Eibach this year. RC Chacon was set to debut his new 4-door EG Civic build, that no one had seen yet, and while it wasn’t finished, it was perfectly suited for the “future” section alongside Loi Song’s debuting red EG build. The fifth and final car, was either going to be Matt’s CRX Pro.2 on MF10Ls…or a build that he’s had in his collection for years now (since 2006), a blue EG that once belonged to famed-Honda head, Chad Castelo. Chad for whatever reason, has taken it upon himself to speak ill of me and my work to others who we have as mutual friends so it was interesting that Matt offered to bring it out to Nisei. Matt had no idea about this of course but I made it a point to ask him to bring out Chad’s car to display at Nisei. Chad has never spoken to me in person, nor does he even know me personally, but he’s taken it upon himself to say some unpleasant things about The Chronicles and the people associated with the site. I have always loved his cars. In fact, his 4-door EF build back in his Team Ziggy days was one of the builds that made me fall in love with Hondas to begin with. His EG was a landmark build as well and one of the reasons why I really wanted it there was because Jon Tanji was the main contributor in that build. When it came to custom engine bays and tucks, and what not, Chad’s Civic was one of those builds that you will always remember if you have been in this community for the last decade-plus. I have nothing bad to say about Chad and I’ve been nothing but respectful of his work throughout the years, that’s why I wanted his old car to be there at Nisei. It was a perfect fit, albeit an ironic one, for GENERATIONS. Matt told me that it was iffy getting Chad’s old car out there because it had been sitting in storage so long but I made it a point to make sure that it made the trip out….
The cars for the “present” section, were by far the easiest to get together. The Hondas from DPK, ATS Garage, along with Ejay’s DA, Salem’s TSX, and Big Mike’s Prelude, were perfect. They are at the top of their game and the builds are a great representation of the top builds today. I later got a call from Kane to inform me that his Civic coupe would indeed be parked with us and that rounded out the 22-car line-up perfectly. All that came together in just a couple days time, and when Ken saw the line-up at Nisei that Saturday morning, even he was impressed by what was accomplished in that short time…
GENERATIONS “Present” line-up….starting with DPK David, ATS Garage’s Ryan Der, Chris Sakai, Anh Truong, and Angel Ramos’ S2000 in the distance…
Now on to what I think was one of the most talked about topics that day at Nisei Showoff 2011…the foot traffic and overall attendance. It wasn’t busy by any means that day, and it didn’t have to be. I heard so many people complaining about how no one showed up and how there was barely anyone there at the show. There didn’t have to be an overwhelming crowd. When there are too many people, people complain. When there aren’t that many people,….people complain. You have to remember that Nisei Showoff hasn’t been that crazy busy in the last couple years because that’s not what it’s about. If you want it to be crazy busy, go to one of the newer shows like Spocom or something, where there are bitches flocking around everywhere and there is loud music and go-go dancers. That’s not what this show is about. Nisei Showoff has always been about tradition. Ken Myoshi isn’t stupid. He doesn’t do this show to make money. The Showoff franchise hasn’t been a cash-cow in years and Nisei Showoff is one of his last remaining events. Ken continues to do Nisei Showoff because it’s an important part of our automotive community’s history. Showoff is what started it all in the beginning and it’s one of the last remains of our rich past. Honestly, you could have 4 people show up at Nisei Showoff, and I wouldn’t give a shit. Why? Because I know those 4 people that walked into the show will have come for the cars and for the history. What other event can you go to where you will see cars from the old school crews like Bosozoku and Street Image Performance parked alongside the current generation of crews like DPK and ATS Garage? Only at Nisei Showoff. People who only complained about the foot traffic fail to see the significance of Nisei Showoff. You should come to appreciate the cars and the people from your community, and not whether or not someone is invading your personal space because there’s no where to walk. You know what I mean? Who cares if there wasn’t that much foot traffic? Are you selling something? Do you have money invested in this event? If your answer is no, then why worry about it? You should appreciate Nisei Showoff because Showoff is still around. The people you looked up to who were building the cars that you wanted to build went to Showoff events, and hopefully, one day, when your kids are into cars and building cars like the ones they watched you build, can say that they went to a Showoff event. You are a part of a bigger picture and if you think that Nisei Showoff was a failure because attendance was low, you’re not only selling the event short, you’re also selling yourself short. Appreciate what is around you. When you go to this show, take a step back and look at everything. There are people from the past uniting with the current crop of enthusiasts to share each other’s work. You shouldn’t have to worry about attendance because the guys that are there to see the cars at Nisei Showoff, are already there with their cars and they are parked right next to you…
Just a small glimpse at the GENERATIONS line-up…
People always joke around saying “oh I thought last year’s Nisei was the last one”, “every year is the last one”…that’s because it possibly could be. Ken continues to put this event on because the lot that it is held at every year is still available for him to use…one day it won’t be. The lot is owned privately and at any point in time, it will be torn down and there will be property built over it. Every year Ken calls to ask if the lot is available, and if it is, he will put the show on. It isn’t because he’s using the fact that it’s going to be the last show as a selling point for you to come. Next year, it may very well go into development. And someday, you may drive by that exact area and tell your kids or whomever, that it was the spot where one of the best import automotive shows was held all time and you miss the fact that there’s no more Nisei Showoff…
It’s sad to hear that I see some people on other sites complaining about media passes and how they weren’t “taken care of” properly. It’s that ridiculous sense of entitlement that exists these days that make kids think that the people at Showoff should roll out the red carpet for them. The Showoff events have made their mark in our industry. It doesn’t need some kid’s photos to make or break it. If you really appreciate what you do as a journalist, enthusiast, car head, or blogger, pay the $10 that it costs at the gate and walk your ass inside and take your photos. I walk into every event I go to not thinking about what I can do for the event. I cover events because it has helped me build my site and reputation into what it is today. That’s why my coverage is always very comprehensive, very detailed. I have total confidence in saying that nobody does event coverage better than I do because I don’t feel entitled to anything. Nobody owes me shit. I cover cars, and especially the people because I want people to be able to look back and remember the great times they had doing what they love. If you’re getting upset because you didn’t get a free pass, or didn’t get inside the event at a certain point in time because you think that event organizer needs to have you there, your site sucks and what you’re doing fucking sucks. There are thousands of people taking photos at events and covering what’s going on who don’t complain and just do it because they love it…
It’s a lot to read, but I hope you got through all of it…now we can move forward with the photos…
There was quite a bit of traffic on the way to downtown L.A. the morning of Nisei Showoff, so I got there a little later than expected. I don’t have very many photos early in the day because I was busy setting up the booth, as well as parking all the cars in our line-up the way I wanted them to be parked. The first part of the coverage today will cover my booth and the cars around it. My reasoning behind that is because I think what I put together at Nisei Showoff is important and you should see it and also because I stayed at my booth the majority of the early hours of the show….
A quick glimpse at the line-up… Ryan from Rywire was supposed to bring out his CR-X, but for the second straight year, his EF had what we call “The Nisei Curse”, and didn’t make it to the event…so he brought out his back-up, his white NSX on white Regamasters….not a bad back-up if you ask me…
While Ryan’s NSX was the book-end to the left side of The Chronicles booth, Big Mike’s Prelude served as the end on the right…
Our line-up was so big that day that we ended up taking up that whole side of the show. It was a lucky coincidence that my boy Billy’s IS300 ended up parking next to The Chronicles. Sportcar Motion’s red EG made it’s first official public appearance at Nisei Showoff and it was at the start of our 22-car line-up…
Northwest internet celebrity and retired Hmong gangster Yee Vang made the trip out from Washington to show his support at Nisei Showoff. Here he is with Big Mike in a rare photo of them together…
Jeff Campbell’s DC2 and Mike Schietroma’s EM1, both blue, both on Rega EVOs…
Ejay and Parnell’s DA Integras…They both dropped off their cars and quickly left to attend to family matters…
May usually brings out treats like cookies and what not for The Chronicles booth but she brought all kinds of fruits and juices to make drinks for everyone…
The ice cold fruit drinks were perfect being that the day ended-up hotter than anyone had imagined. The photo here is obscured because I took it through the mesh netting from our canopy…
Norman from AS1 probably saying something dirty to Fred Chapman from ATS…
DPK David and Ryan Der made sure to represent their sponsor, Falken Tire….
The two S2000s from our GENERATIONS line-up…
WheelFlip.com model Tina posing for a photo…
Danny from PlusOne was one of the guys that I should have asked to be a part of our line-up. I thought he would be with his crew so I didn’t even think to ask. It all worked out though because he ended up parked directly across from us…
Danny’s custom PlusOne Mugen MF10s sitting over his custom purple Spoon Sports calipers…
Chris Sakai showed up to Nisei Showoff with a set of Mag Blue TE37s and a couple of new touches under the hood…
Anh was on vacation so Fred Chapman brought his ITR out to Nisei…
Loved this slammed Radio Flyer that a loyal Chronicles reader brought by the booth…
Also across from The Chronicles booth was the WheelFlip.com booth… Alex had 3 different sets of M7s on display…
Nisei Showoff 2011 also marked the debut of the new Hershey brand DC2R bumper, seen here on Arn Reyes’ Integra… I’ve been following the build-up of this bumper since Alex Zhao started work on it and I have to admit that while I was sketchy about it in the beginning, it looks much better in person…
My only criticism is my disliking of the L.E.D. turn signals. Being that the original design is based off the GR-chassis Subaru STI, I felt that he should have left the OEM foglights intact…Still a novel idea either way though, and it’s definitely different…
DPK Jared and Big Mike spending a moment in the shade and having a drink…
Anh’s ITR proved to be one of the most looked-at builds in our line-up…
Arn not only debuted the Hershey bumper on his Integra, he also brought out his baby boy for the first time for everyone to see…Meet Anthony Reyes…
Little Anthony didn’t really appreciate the idea of someone picking him up…
Murdock and Sam Ip hanging out…Sam was a part of The Chronicles Nisei line-up last year. He had the white 8th gen. Civic SI sedan that he ended up wrecking later on in the year and now he’s building a black, all J’s Racing-themed, sedan…
My cousin Tim aka Timscribbles came out to Nisei to check out the rides…He’s a younger guy in our community but he’s a lover of all kinds of different automobiles and his blog shows all his adventures…
A couple of shots of Angel Ramos’ S2000….
Lowfat Pie with ekfour Tony Huynh’s daughter…Tony and family came back to Cali along with Steve Kwan (dagreenek) to hang and check out Nisei Showoff…
Tony from ItsJDMYo!!! rocking his old school 13Devils pit crew shirt…Tony and I used to be from that crew back in the day and I even had the banner on my car when my car was featured in Honda Tuning back in 2006…
I still miss Ryan Der’s kit on his EK but it’s looking slightly better with the black TEs back on it…
Again, Nisei was the debut of Sportcar Motion’s 330whp K24-powered Civic hatchback…this thing is a fucking beast…
RC Chacon also debuted his new 4-door EG sedan at Nisei, alongside Sportcar Motion’s red EG…You should remember RC from his previous build, which was the white hatchback with no hood, bright orange valve cover, and dump tubes exiting through the (non-existent) hood…The 4-door wasn’t anywhere near completion yet so he decided not to compete at Nisei, but it was cool to have the car out there nonetheless…
That’s all for today…gonna close it out today with another shot of Angel’s S2K….stay tuned for much more. I’ve actually gone through the majority of the photos already and we are looking at a 6-part series of Nisei 2011 Coverage. Make sure to come back tomorrow for part 2 and tell everyone out there that they will get the best, most comprehensive Nisei coverage only here on The Chronicles….
