“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!
Tokyo Auto Salon 2012 Coverage…Part 1…
As you all know, I wasn’t able to make the trip out to Japan this year for the annual Tokyo Auto Salon event. I was really strapped for cash towards the end of the year so it just wasn’t possible for me to make such a big trip out in the beginning of the year. I fully intend on going in 2013 though so I hope this show is still as strong as it was this year. I didn’t intend on really doing any coverage of the event either since I wasn’t there, but luckily for me and you, Yasutaka Shimomukai from Tactical Art made the trip out and was kind enough to take some photos for me. He’s about an hour or so away from the TAS show so I have to thank him for providing these shots. I mean, he didn’t go just to take photos for me but I didn’t expect him to take as many photos as he did. There is a huge mix of content in the coming parts so expect to see more than just Honda stuff…
From what I’ve seen of coverage online of the TAS 2012, I think I’m correct in saying that their automotive “scene” is going in a completely different direction from what we are doing here in the states. While we are over here doing heavy custom fabrication and focusing more on time attack and road racing, they are focusing more on wild, custom paint, and more luxury-themed vehicles. They have been building performance cars for years and doing time attack stuff so it’s easy to see why they have progressed into a different style of tuning. We are still focused on achieving that “race car look” so a lot of the stuff that you see us doing over here in the U.S. reflects that. Even our show cars are themed to look like race cars and many of our cars even pull double-duty and do both. We have our luxury, VIP-style cars but that scene is nowhere near as progressive as the rest of the automotive tuning community. Many people are still stuck on that whole “stance” deal and trying to be “hellaflush” or stanced-out or whatever and don’t focus on building complete cars. Over in Japan, they are also into the stance-look as well but that’s more of an underground thing and not anywhere near as popular as it is in America. Their VIP builds are starting to get more and more over-the-top but even still, they are very well-rounded. From simple observation, it just seems that they are more into the high-end, exotic, luxury look now more-so than ever before. It’s definitely cool to see how things are done over there though because they are always a couple steps ahead of us in a lot of ways. The culture started over there after all so we are often times playing catch-up to what they are doing over there. Whether or not we are going to eventually be as into the high-end stuff as they are remains to be seen. For now, all we can do is sit back and enjoy the crazy stuff that they are producing over in Japan…
One thing I am happy to see is how strong Rays Engineering has stayed throughout the years. Advan as well…these companies were in it early on and through all the years of knock-offs and having their wheels reproduced by other companies, they have remained at the forefront of the industry and their popularity has not wavered one bit. It’s awesome to see how many vehicles at the event are sitting on Volk Racing wheels, Gram Lights, Advan Racing wheels, etc. I hope things stay this way in coming future too. Both companies offer great wheels and it’s great to see them succeed. I don’t know why but to this very day I still find myself smiling when I see a non-Japanese car with some TE37s on them…
Anyways, on with the coverage. There are a couple cars that I have seen from other online coverage that Yasutaka missed but that’s alright. Understandably, it was an incredible busy event so it’s very easy to miss some cars just because there were so many people floating around in front of the cars. It’s kind of like SEMA, where you have to be there an extended amount of time just to be able to get the right shot of the car that you want. From what I understand, he only went for one day so he couldn’t possibly have gotten everything there at TAS 2012. I have another source for photos so if there is something that I really think deserves to be mentioned, I will follow up later with some more shots. With that said, a HUGE thanks goes out to Yasutaka and the Tactical Art crew for making this possible… Now…photos…
A very nice Nissan Y51 Fuga posted up outside in the parking lot of TAS 2012…
Much like the U.S. SEMA shows, females were few and far between…
A couple overhead shots of what a section of TAS 2012 looked like…
Wurde Porsche Panamera… “Wurde” stands for dignity in German I believe and this is actually a Japanese tuning company that creates aerokits and exhaust systems for Porsches…
T&E Vertex R35 GT-R….I knew they had a front lip for the R35 for awhile now but the carbon fenders and that added piece at the end of the bumper makes me think that those may be widened fenders…Hard to tell because this is the only photo I’ve seen of it so far…
The Sense Brand Celsior is kind of booty-looking but I thought I’d show you guys some photos of the exhaust systems that they are producing for VIP cars….
Check out the exhaust on this other Celsior. Twisted pipes and the cut-outs in the rear bumper are some things that you will never see over here…I’m almost curious and wonder how it sounds…
Restored ’70s-era Kawasaki H2 750 Mach IV…
LXF Design Toyota/Lexus LS600…
…and the most uninterested model EVER….nothing says “come check out the LXF Design LS600″ than a girl with a face that says “get me the fuck out of here”…
T&E Vertex 2JZ-swapped widebody E92 BMW…
Oh this was a novel idea…Many of you scouring online for TAS coverage has probably already seen this but it was a very cool idea. This as you know, is the new Toyota 86. Well, instead of having two different 86s representing two rival tire companies, they decided to put two different liveries on each side, one side representing Falken Tire, and the other side…
…representing Dunlop Tires… They put a make-shift wall up to make it look like a half-cut of an 86 on each side and it’s a something that only the Japanese would think of to do…
Really like the new Rays Gram Light wheel and center cap…I don’t know the exact model because it’s new but it’s probably 57-something because that seems to be the name trend with the Gram Light line…Endless brakes are looking awfully good too…
Direzza not only has tires, they also offer forged wheels…The older ones were made by Speed Star Racing (SSR) but I’m not 100% sure about these new ones…
The Mugen CR-Z RR Concept that I posted up late last week… this is actually one of two, the other is a lime greenish color with slightly different aero…
Mugen brakes and the latest Mugen wheel, a 19-inch forged wheel tentatively named “Mugen LS-Mesh”…haha…
The rear of the RR Concept…Note the center-exit exhaust and how it will differ from the other CR-Z RR Concept…
The other CR-Z RR…
As stated, the other center exit exhaust…rumor has it that this exhaust variation can also be used as a tow hitch for the Mugen Trailer RR…That rumor of course, was created by your’s truly at this exact moment…
The Rotrex-type Mugen Supercharged CR-Z engine with Mugen air box…
A closer look at the Mugen airbox for the CR-Z RR…
Mugen F1 car sitting pretty…
As Loi from Sportcar Motion would say “Aero are serious”…
Bossy Repsol bike…
Honda HSV-010 GT aka the NSX they should have made instead of the current concept they are considering…
Love how menacing the front of the HSV looks…
Mugen Honda CR-Z…making the world a better place with new, non-attractive Mugen wheels…
Rear-wheel drive, battery-powered, Honda EV-STER concept…
From the future concept to the distant past in the form of the original Honda roadster, the S600…
Japanese patrons shopping for some Honda Goods…
Honda N-Box Flash Box….
Raybrig Honda NSX Super GT car…
The “Raven”, which looks to be a Mark IV Toyota Supra with a 350Z Veilside front bumper, Lambo-style doors, and BMW F10 5-series headlights…Quoth the Raven “I’m fucking on fire right now”….
The Nitto Tires booth…
Wild chop-top Subaru STI from Car Service Hiro…
TWS Forged…
Lexus LF-A in the TWS Forged booth…
Toyota G-Sports Mark X Concept…
Toyota Celsior from Glanz…I wish Yasutaka would have gotten a closer look and taken some shots of the interior of this thing because it looks pretty interesting…
Pregia Tissimo Daihatsu Mira…
An example what I was referring to at the beginning of this post about the custom paint work that seems to be popular in Japan…
Weber Sports Mazda RX-8…I like the custom paint work in the a-pillar and roof…
“Itasha” themed Audi S5 coupe with Lambo doors and some models that kind of creep me out…Batman agrees…
That’s all for today… Check back tomorrow for part 2 of the 2012 Tokyo Auto Salon coverage…
Thanks for looking…
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 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….
Exclusive Content…The Bisimoto Engineering 2012 Honda Civic SEMA Build Revealed…
As you should all know by now, the annual SEMA show kicks off this week which will serve as the grand unveiling to many of the industry’s latest and greatest automotive projects. It’s probably one of the most anticipated of the year and many aftermarket tuning companies save their best work for this event. One of the companies that brings out their absolute best to Las Vegas every single year is Bisimoto Engineering. Last year, I had the pleasure of unveiling their 400+hp fully-functional hybrid Honda CR-Z project to the world and this year, or today rather, I have the esteemed honor of revealing their 2012 Honda Civic coupe build. This build, in my opinion, is possibly their best yet. During the build-up, I told Bisi Ezerioha that this has to be his best-looking car yet….I was a little premature in my praise of course, because while I still believe this is his best-looking build yet, I had not had a chance to see the dyno numbers and how much power the new K24z7 produced. This car is absolutely insane. I’ll leave you with a bit of suspense until you can see the horsepower numbers for yourself on the Dyna-Pak screenshot below. What he’s been able to squeeze out of this K-motor is pretty crazy…just hearing it start-up was intense enough…
I was lucky enough to be able to cover more of this build than last year’s Bisimoto CR-Z project. In fact, by the time I saw the CR-Z, it was probably at about 85-90% completion. This year, I was able to see the 2012 Civic from the point in which it was completely stripped down, all the way until the final moment of re-assembly and right when it was loaded on to the trailer and sent off to Honda of America. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to cover every single moment of it, but I’ll tell you this, I spent a couple sleepless nights over there snapping away with the camera while also lending a hand wherever I could to help Bisi and crew finish up the car. The time table was definitely tight on this one but I feel that this 2012 Civic will undoubtedly be a hit at the 2011 SEMA show. What I love about this year’s build is that Bisi also touched on the aesthetics of the car, something that isn’t always a focal point of his builds. Overall, it’s just a very aggressive looking build and it definitely has the guts to back it up….
I have to thank Bisimoto Engineering and Rywire.com for giving me the ability to be present during the build process. It’s a great feeling to be able to unveil such a huge project to the world today. For those of you who will be able to participate in the SEMA festivities, please stop by the Honda section in the main hall to check out this build for yourself. For those of you who aren’t able to go to SEMA, you guys are in for a real treat today. I am going to put up photos and video today from the point in which I first saw the car in raw form to the moment it went back to Honda for shipment to Las Vegas….
I would have liked to have been able to do a more traditional “shoot” like I did last year with the Bisimoto CR-Z but we just ran out of time this year. Luckily I was able to cover more of the intricacies of the build and you get a chance to see the process instead of just the final product. With that said, I would like to formally announce the first official photos of the 2012 Bisimoto Honda Civic coupe….enjoy and if you’re new here, I hope you stick around…
Note – There are quite a bit of photos so please allow them to load…I would have separated them into sections but since I am currently away in Las Vegas, I don’t know if I will have the ability to upload different parts throughout the week…
This is the state in which the 2012 Honda Civic was in at around 1am on October 20th, 2011…The only visually complete items on the car were the Stop-Tech big brakes, cut-out hood, and full roll cage…
Ryan Basseri from Rywire creating custom brake lines for the Civic…
Bisi Ezerioha, Supertwinz John from AEM, and Ryan Basseri going over some ideas for the engine bay…
I was thinking that Bisi would go with his signature Bisimoto Fighter Special wheel since a couple of them were either mounted on the car or around it, but that wasn’t the case because he had a new wheel to debut on the Civic…
At this point, the exterior was still basically stock, other than the cut-out on the hood…
A look at the cage that was built by Steen Chassis…
Stop-Tech big brake kit…a small wheel spacer was needed to clear the caliper…
Ryan doing work…
Supertwinz John holding up the Burns Stainless short muffler that will eventually go on the Civic…
Ryan under the car working on the custom lines for the rear brakes…
The lines running to a Wilwood proportioning valve…
Bisi and Ryan going over the brake lines….
Bisi swept a little…
This next batch of photos were captured 3 days later. By this point, the motor had gone back into the car, the vehicle wrap was complete, and re-assembly had begun…
First look at the K24Z7 since going back into the coupe…
One of the most noticeable additions that I spotted right away were the AEM High Output Ignition Coils….Definitely didn’t expect Bisi to go back to using a more conventional, external coil over the O.E. coil-over-plug set-up…
I did however, expect to see this massive Turbonetics turbo…
Custom relay and harness set-up built from scratch by Rywire…
Cool little addition that Bisi had found off of an airplane…I forget what it’s used for now but Ryan actually rewired this thing and made it functional…
Ryan working on the fuse box….
Your first look at the graphical livery and vinyl wrap layout. You can see here that the chute has been installed and the new wheels mounted…
How the engine bay looked before the radiator support and everything was reinstalled…
Your first look at the Bisimoto “Eins Gramm” wheel…
Ryan and Bisi working on the engine harness…
Ryan installing the Odyssey battery beneath the headlight…
The K24Z7 engine coming together…
I didn’t get a chance to stay very long that day… I just wanted to stop by for a bit and check out the progress… The next batch of photos came another 3 days later, on 10/26/2011, just 5 days before SEMA. The car had to go back to Honda of America for press photos and what not, so there was definitely a sense of urgency to finish. The 2012 Civic actually had to be delivered the next morning so Bisi and crew stayed up for a couple days to knock it out…I had pulled an all-nighter for work and other reasons, but I had to make the drive out to Ontario to see this build through to the end…
Random shot of one of Bisi’s Porsche projects sitting outside next to his trailer…
When I got there, Bisi was busy on his laptop configuring the Racepak dash display while two representatives from Extreme Dimensions were busy installing some carbon fiber pieces from their “Carbon Creations” line of products…
In the days that I was away, the car was actually sent out to Bisi’s fabricators for more stuff, including this custom rear wing…
Guys from Extreme Dimensions installing the carbon fiber half-splitter pieces/canards or whatever you call those things…
I forget the exact specs on the wheels right now, but I’m sure wheel fitment and “stance” guys will appreciate it. I think this had to be the first time where Bisi ever had to worry about wheel fitment. There are only so many suspension components out for the 2012 Civics at this point so messing with the camber adjustments and what not was definitely interesting…We eventually where able to get the wheels to fit without that little area of the rear bumper being pushed out slightly…
The “Eins Gramm” logo on the wheel which means, easily enough, “One Gram”…
The engine bay with the radiator, core support, and front mount intercooler re-installed…
At one point in the afternoon, we stopped to eat lunch since Bisi had ordered pizza, and it was great to see a photo of Misa Campo hanging inside the Bisimoto offices after staring at car parts and dudes all day…haha…
After we finished eating and chatting for a bit, it was back to work. I took the time to get some more detail shots of the Bisimoto Civic coupe…
A closer look at the custom vents on his drag wing…
Bisimoto-themed custom graphical livery…
Better look at the AEM High Voltage “Smart” ignition coils mounted to a plate on the Golden Eagle intake manifold…
The massive Turbonetics turbocharger…
Okay, so speaking of the giant turbo, Bisi had tuned the K24Z7 motor earlier on in the day and revealed to us the final numbers from his tune…
There were still some very minor issues that will need to be resolved once SEMA comes to a conclusion but your eyes aren’t deceiving you…the Bisimoto Engineering 2012 Honda Civic produced 1004 horsepower and 623LB-Ft of torque… One-thousand and four horsepower K24!…
A shot of the front bumper…
A shot of the rear of the Civic….
Bisi Ezerioha putting some of his vinyl decals on to support his many sponsors…
Big Mike helped with the rear window decals…
A shot of the cockpit with the custom airplane “launch” switches…
Almost complete…Below is a video of one of the start-ups so you guys can get a chance to hear the motor….
Corner of the front bumper featuring another batch of sponsors….
Vibrant Vanjen clamps…
Golden Eagle Pro Series fuel rail…
All hands on board to help!…
The Turbonetics unit in motion…
Ryan going over some last minute details in the bay…
A final look at the Bisimoto Eins Gramm wheel on Falken Azenis…
Bisi applying the “BISIMOTO.COM” banner to signify it’s completion…
Below is a video of the 2012 Civic making it’s way out of the facility for the first time and getting onto a trailer for SEMA…
See you at SEMA 2011!…
That’s a wrap…if you guys are going to be attending the SEMA 2011 show, make sure to stop by the Honda section and check out the 1000+ horsepower Bisimoto Engineering 2012 Honda Civic. Remember where you guys saw it first….www.stickydiljoe.com!!!
I apologize for not being able to get better shots of the Civic outside of the facility, there just wasn’t any time. Below is a link to a larger sized photo so you can have a better view of what the car looks like…
Thanks for looking, and thank you to Bisimoto Engineering for the opportunity!!
See me in Vegas, I’m outta here!!! I will definitely try to update whenever I get the chance!
Motion Auto Show 2011 Coverage…Part 3…The Finale…
What’s up everyone, time to close out the third and final installment of the Motion Auto Show 2011 Coverage. Sorry for the lack of an update yesterday. I was running around taking care of some everyday shit like getting new tires for my beater as well as doing some product photography for Rywire. Judging how the hits have been lately, it seems as if everyone is happy with the coverage up to this point. Any time you have a combination of cars and girls with their asses hanging out it always makes for good hits…
Umm, not really much else to say about the show…it was definitely one of the best of the year so far but there wasn’t any crazy funny stories going on or anything dramatic. Gonna probably just close this out with the last bit of photos now…enjoy…
This was what I was talking about in part 1 with the girls standing inside the engine bays and shit…In all my years of going to shows, this had to have been a first…Hope it doesn’t become a regular occurrence at events because then you will have girls trying to climb into engine bays at local car meets and outdoor shows and shit where the engines are going to be hot…haha, nothing good will come of that. It’s not like they can just like hop out and shit either. I mean, that leg gets caught in a hot ass exhaust manifold, that shit is DONE…or like a girl with her ass hanging out trying to sit on a valve cover that’s been sitting out in the sun…uh yeaaah…
Ryan’s NSX sitting in the Falken Honda display section…
Ms. Maureen Chen was modeling for Team Hybrid that day but took a moment to walk over to the PASmag model search area…
Playboy mode Julri Waters did the same…
Here she is with Joselyn Cano at the Sony or something or other booth….I’m not sure if that’s really her name either so if you go and Google her name and an old lady with 2 crusty vaginas show up, it’s not my fault…
APR widebody G35 from TWCompetition…
Toyota MR-2 from Team Hybrid…
Lexus LS460, also from Hybrid, with wheels that look too small for it…
Chameleon-ish 350Z…someone should tell the owner that chrome vinyl will fuck your paint up pretty bad if you apply it directly to your car. That’s why I always tell people to put the stickers on the windows and glass instead of on paint…
I don’t know if you guys remember this WRX wagon or not but I did a story on it for Super Street a couple months back (towards the beginning of the year I believe) and it used to be silver. I had no idea he had the car repainted so it was a little surprising to see it at the show… it’s a cool build. Originally meant to be a beater wagon, then he started adding all kinds of shit to it, even customizing Voltex aero pieces to fit on the wagon chassis…
Crappy ass shot of Sheepey’s S2000. I honestly forgot the car was there entirely until Sheepey came up to the booth the hang out. By the time I got over there to get a shot of it, everyone was cleaning up already and the hood was closed…
S14 from Garage Boso…
Saw this really nice Mazda RX-2 towards the back end of the show. I missed out on all these cars at Nisei Showoff so I had to get a shot of it at Motion…
This one looks like it’ll fuck some shit up…
Spotted this NSX during roll-in the night before…the kit itself is really aggressive but I kinda wished he would have gone with more “fitting” wheels…if you know what I mean…Not only in terms of sizing and all but just the style of the wheel in general…
Oh okay, so here is a shot of one of the trophies that were specially designed by Troy Sumitomo from 5Axis for the Motion Auto Show… It’s pretty wild. Like one of those things where if you left it in your living room and then tripped and landed on it, you might rip your neck open…
JonJon’s IS350 from 1-Up…
Charles’ widebody S2000 from 1-Up…
Jose Romo’s Audi A3 on Work VS-XX wheels…
One more shot of Dennis’ STi while they were taking the tent down at the Mizu Cooling Solutions booth…
I think a lot of people slept on this Hyundai at the Motion show. I first saw it at the SEMA show in Vegas last year when it was parked in the Hyundai area in the center hall. You wouldn’t really think much of it, other than the kit and the HRE wheels but when you look at the back of it, you can tell that there’s so much more going on…
This is a crappy photo but if you look into the rear hatch glass, you can see that the motor is actually mounted in the rear…
You can see here how the exhaust is mounted through the rear bumper and how the vent has been added to the rear hatch where the emblem sits…Also notice the vents where the glass runs along the shoulder of the car…pretty sick build…
Abraham’s Civic, absent are the females that were crawling all over/inside it…
Arnel from Phaze2 recently installed a new lip kit to his 4-door….
2GS from Infinit Wheels…
Not really sure how I feel about this new look on Ejay’s DA….I really loved the SSR Super Mesh and I felt that it was the perfect set of wheels for his car. He said he has these on now instead because he doesn’t wanna have to deal with camber and ride height issues anymore…Ehh..I don’t know…
Downstar Frank’s right-hand drive EG on SSR Shumachers with optional center caps…
Top Secret Supra from Auto Concept Elite…
Billy’s HKS-themed IS300…
Mini from Auto Concept Elite…
Another angle of the Auto Concept line-up…
One more shot of the Falken Tire Honda display…
I loved the Motion Auto Show but I was scratching my head when I saw this DA inside the show by the back gate parked next to this stock Mustang…I like, stopped what I was doing just to take this photo…
Here’s something to make up for that last photo…haha…
That was pretty much it for the Motion show. After that I kinda just stood around and chatted with people until the awards ceremony ended and they let the cars out…I didn’t really go to the stage to check out what was going on for the awards because the majority of our guys were not competing that day since they were a part of the Falken Tire display…
Here’s a shot of ATS Angel’s S2000 as I was walking out to the vendor parking lot to pick up my 4Runner…. It took quite a while for me to get back inside with my truck since they wanted all the show cars out first but eventually they just let me in so we packed up the truck, said bye to the Falken Tire staff, and then took off..
Since the Long Beach Convention Center always has strict regulations regarding how much fuel can be in a car that’s parked inside, the guys had to get gas right after they left the venue…
One more shot of Ryan’s NSX while it was posted up at the gas station…
After that we all met up back at the Rywire facilities to drop off the cars, then we met up with the girls at a local Vietnamese food spot to have dinner. We hadn’t really eaten anything the whole day so we grubbed like no tomorrow. Nothing crazy went on once dinner was finished. We just talked and hung out and then everyone went home to get some rest….
That’s a wrap…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….
