Wekfest SF 2012 Weekend Coverage…Part 1…
Man, what a weekend…
By now, I’ve become pretty accustomed to the way things work during the week of Wekfest San Francisco, but no matter what, it always manages to be quite the overwhelming experience. All I can really say to sum up the entire weekend was that it was just completely spectacular. The main difference with this year’s Wekfest event was that I was the most well-rested I have ever been. I’ve been going to these events long before it was even a Wek’Sos production and I’ve always been just drained going into the day of the show. This time around, I got everything done by the middle of the week and found some time to sleep. Even while we were all in Norcal during the weekend, I made it a point to not stay out too late. By that Sunday I’m usually walking around like a zombie with blood-shot eyes from lack of sleep and dry contact lenses. I’ll barely be able to make the drive back to the hotel and when I get back, I just crash out and don’t talk to anyone. It was almost the complete opposite this year though, as I changed my procrastinating ways and even showed up everywhere on time…if you know me, you know that I am notorious for being late. Hopefully entering my third decade of life, I can apply that to all aspects of my life so that I can be better rested and have more energy to do more things…
Another thing that I really wanted to change about previous years of being at Wekfest was managing my time hanging out with different groups of people. There are so many different friends from all over that come out for the show and I always regret not being able to spend time with everyone. It was virtually impossible because it didn’t seem like there were enough hours in the day to spend it with everyone in one single weekend. We have the usual Socal people that I love spending time with, and also the Norcal folks that I don’t ever get to see enough of. On top of that, we also had guys from the east coast/mid west making their way out and even the guys from Mayday Garage were going to be there. Luckily I was able to finish everything for the booth this year with time to spare so I didn’t have to spend too much time organizing it in the hotel room. This allowed me to have more free time to spend with others. I don’t know how it all came together, but we all managed to book rooms in the same hotel so I was able to see a lot of people by the time I got up for breakfast. There were some that I wish I could have hung out with more, but that’s just how it goes. It’s hard to really coordinate with so many others staying in different parts in the city but I think we all did a good job of hanging out. It seemed like everyone made a better effort this year. While we were in the city, it seemed like every time we stopped, more people were able to meet up and we had a big group of people from all over… In year’s past I’ve always had an amazing time in SF, but this time was definitely more diverse and I’m happy that I was able to see everyone and spend even a small moment to chat with them…
Now, as for the show itself…Wekfest San Francisco proved once again this year why it was the “mecca” of car shows in these last couple years. It was just bananas… I know a lot of people complained and many more couldn’t even get into the show because they were turned away, but that just shows you how big SF Wekfest has gotten. They outgrew the old parking structure and moved it to the Fort Mason/Herbst Pavilion, and easily outgrew that venue in just a year’s time. It’s tough guys, it really is. For everyone that complained about how crowded it was and how long the wait was, you have to understand that putting an event of this magnitude is an enormous amount of work and managing a crowd of that size is no easy feat. Just simply from being there in the morning to watching the entire roll-in process, organization improved by leaps and bounds. It was very well put together. I remember last year I was even a little annoyed by the roll-in process for vendors but I had zero issues this year. The main issue with using this venue is the people that run Fort Mason. They are incredibly strict and were not shy about making things inconvenient for everyone. There strict rules put a lot of pressure on everyone and they, along with the Fire Marshall, were the key reasons why the crowd was let into the show an hour late. You wanna know just how ridiculous certain things were? We were inside a large venue with hundreds of cars filled with gasoline (which isn’t an unusual thing for an indoor car show), and for whatever reason, I had to have a fucking smoke detector hanging from my canopy at my booth. It literally was tied and hanging to my canopy. If that wasn’t enough, I also had to have a fire extinguisher just to even have a fabric top on my canopy. I am not too familiar with how things work in San Francisco, but I have never set anything on fire selling stickers and t-shirts. If there was going to be a fire somewhere inside of the venue, believe me, my smoke detector wouldn’t have been much help in alerting me that there was a fire. In any case, the rules were ridiculous last year, and seemed to get more ridiculous this year. Whether or not they will use this venue again is unclear, but I don’t see it happening again, especially after how many people were told that they wouldn’t be able to get inside the show because it was at capacity. I heard people were turned away at 4pm because of the sheer number of people inside and they were upset. I too would be upset if I had waited in line for however many hours and then told I wouldn’t get in. That’s terrible, but I would also have tried to show up earlier, knowing how big Wekfest is every year…
It’s a shame that that many people couldn’t get in…it really is…Every year the organization is getting better and I am sure that the Wekfest staff is working hard on trying to alleviate the problems for the future. Over 10,000 people were at Wekfest, with the numbers maybe even reaching 14,000 maybe…you can’t please everybody. People have a right to be upset. But people also have to have a better understanding of how shows like this work. The Wekfest SF show has reached the levels of popularity that I haven’t seen since the old days of Hot Import Nights and Import Showoff. It took years for those shows to reach the point where they were a well-oiled machine and able to absorb that many people. Wekfest will get to that point, it just takes time. The hype around the event is just crazy right now. Hell, I don’t even understand how it got this big and I’ve been going to this show for how long now? Shit is just wild. If you didn’t get in this year, it sucks and I really hope you have a better time the next year if you plan on coming back. I wish I could sympathize with all of you but I have other things I need to worry about. I’ve been doing car show stuff for about ten years now and I would never wait in a line that long to get into a car show, and fuck, I LOVE car shows, haha…Best of luck to all of you who want to try again next year. It’s hard for me to gauge it and say that it’s worth waiting that long to get inside but my priorities are different. If you got the time and the patience, fuck, feel free…
I had a great time overall. I’m really happy that people were excited about the new shirts and the new merchandise. I didn’t go into it with any expectations but man, I was surprised by how much merchandise went out that day. I thank you for all of your continued support and it’s a great feeling knowing that you guys love The Chronicles. Stickers were going faster than ever and I ran out of a majority of shirts before the doors even opened that day. Thanks to Junior, Adam, and Ken for putting this event together and allowing me to be a part of it. These guys work their asses off and deserve all the success that is coming to them.
With that said, let’s get on with the coverage. If you are here to just see photos of cars, then you obviously are not a regular here on The Chronicles. I like to cover any and everything that is going on to give people an idea of what our experience is like overall. You can see photos of the cars at SF Wekfest EVERYWHERE. Everyone these days has a camera and is covering events like this. The way I am going to present it to you is more personal and like no other. This site has grown because of the idea of presenting the “lifestyle” to viewers throughout the world. Remember, it’s not about how many people are doing it…it’s how it is done that matters. Execution is everything. You want to see cars, scroll past everything else and look at just the cars or go to any other website to see car photos. You’ll see everything that goes on here, from the show, to behind-the-scenes, etc. Don’t like it? You’re welcome to leave, but buy a sticker first, haha…
Here we go…
The Wekfest SF weekend kicked off for many of us on Friday morning. If you saw last year’s coverage, we had a pretty large group of people to caravan with. This year was a little different… Some couldn’t make it this year, some were still putting their cars together, and some had babies so they couldn’t just up and leave right away. For the 2012 SF Wekfest road trip, May and I had just a couple of people to cruise with; Salem and Murdock in the J’s Racing Phaze2 TSX, Keith aka Keychain from It’s JDM Yo!!, Ms. Holly Lee, and a couple new friends in Jay Mayuga and his girlfriend, who apparently didn’t say a word all weekend, haha…
After meeting up for breakfast at Denny’s in the morning by Magic Mountain, we headed over to the Chevron across the freeway to gas up. I had to pick up an energy drink as well and buy tissues since I had a cold coming…why I needed a energy drink at 11am in the morning is a mystery but I probably purchased it by habit since I was usually going to bed around this time on a normal week day…
Jay Mayuga’s TSX with Modulo Voltage front bumper and Volk CE28s….Jay is also the only person who was down to blue tape his front end. Salem is Mr. Race Car guy now so his bumper is beat up anyways, and Keith apparently just didn’t give a shit… May and I rolled out in her Yaris. We didn’t blue tape shit because her car is so high that it usually does the job of kicking the rocks at everyone else…
Random thought but, it’s nice to know that even year’s after I sold my Accord, I can’t get away from them and they are still following me everywhere, haha…
Keith scratching his head and wondering how his freshly-painted lip kit is going to survive the streets of downtown San Francisco…
We got on the road and were overjoyed that there were no indications of rain…Last year, we drove through a storm and ended up taking the 101 north-bound all the way to San Francisco, which ended up taking us almost 9 hours…
We stopped at Kettleman City for a pee break and a stretch, then got back on the road immediately…
I didn’t take too many photos after that because there wasn’t anything very exciting about the drive. We got to our hotel around 5:30 or so in the evening and just relaxed for a bit before going out to dinner. There wasn’t any crazy pre-Wekfest private dinner party this year so we just rounded up whoever was in the city already and went out to grab drinks and eat. Those photos are actually on May’s camera so I’ll just toss-up those photos in part 2 tomorrow…
The next morning, we all got up early to eat breakfast downstairs in the hotel. One of the main reasons we stay at this particular hotel was because of the free breakfast. Most other places just offer simple fruits and maybe some travel-size cereal but this joint had everything…eggs, sausages, biscuits and gravy, bagels, etc…and all you can eat. It’s the best free meal of every day, haha…
Some of the homies from the other coast were up bright and early… Here’s S2kJay chillin with Widdy after breakfast in the patio area of the hotel…
Sloppy, Sam, and his girl Linh enjoying some free food…
Ryan, OldmanJames, Ray from ATS Garage, and DPK Darryl grubbing…Ray lives in Norcal and didn’t even stay at the hotel, but probably stops by the hotel to eat everyday because the people at the hotel don’t even pay attention…Actually, Darryl didn’t stay there either, haha…
After breakfast we all decided to meet up again and take the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) aka a train down to the city to hang out. There were so many of us that it wasn’t even worth driving all the way down to the city and trying to find everyone so we all agreed to take the train and stay together…A couple of us had cars to show that weekend too and parking them in the streets of San Francisco is not something that anyone was down to do…
I hadn’t taken the BART in a couple of years so I forgot how to buy tickets and what not, but we figured it out with just a couple of minutes before the train arrived…
Ryan Der from ATS showing off his faux-camera iPhone case…
May doing her favorite activity, iPhone apps and Instagram…
Salem, who I am wishing the best for, since he was set to have surgery on his eye today, just a day after he returned home from Frisco…
Murdock doing what he does best…
Ryan “Rywire” Basseri was probably happy to have a moment to relax and is not trapped at the shop building engine harnesses…
Phil from ATS Garage hopped on the train a couple stops later and then we all got off the train on Powell St… it was pretty busy being that it was President’s Day weekend so happy shoppers were everywhere…
A couple of the guys wanted to check out the Ferrari store so we waited outside while Salem played around with the Ferrari FXX motorized toy outside…
May was just happy not to be doing car-related shit for a change… I know how much she likes to take the BART down to the city so it was good that we had the opportunity to take it again…
Outside of one of the stores, I spotted this guy across the street who was so fucked up off of muscle relaxers that he was falling asleep in the middle of the street…At one point he almost fell off of the sidewalk and into the street with cars approaching. I don’t know what this guy was doing but he was messed-up. Eventually he got halfway onto the street and then had to turn around to get his bags but before he could pick them up, he started dozing off and was just all over the place. We all stopped to see what was going to happen next but he eventually stumbled off so we moved onto Chinatown…
Ryan stopped for a photo op with the lions that stood guard at the gates of Chinatown San Francisco…
They had these cool bronze statues throughout Chinatown…this looked like a nice family gathering…
…nice until you see one of the statues playing a game of grab-ass…
Good to know that some Chinese guy decided to create this jade statue to honor the ancient Chinese sport of American football. I’m sure you guys know who Jeremy Lin is by now and how he’s been doing great things on the basketball court…well, here is his great great grandfather, Terrell “Sweet & Sour Fingers” Lin, who was the Michael Jordan of Chinese football. He lead the league in touchdown receptions and his team, the Beijing Fighting Communists, went undefeated for three straight seasons because nobody in China plays football and they were the only team. Lin was also the quarterback on his team and threw the ball to himself because nobody else was on his team. He retired after he realized that nobody in China plays football, EVER….
Only $10.99 for these apple bottom jeans featuring your favorite celebrities from the early 2000s…Nothing says “wear these jeans” then having Carmen Electra on your back pocket…
Chinatown still bearing decorations from Chinese New Year a week or two ago…
Deejay Murdock doing work…
The trolley system rolling through…
Our buddy Nick Caster arrived from Roseville in the afternoon with his CR-X and then took a cab down to Chinatown to meet up with us…
A piece from famed street graffiti artist Banksy on some random wall in Chinatown SF…He was down there not too long ago for the debut of his documentary and took to the streets early to knock out this piece. They even have a plastic cover over it to protect it…that’s when you know you’re doing big things…when you tag on a wall and steps are taken to preserve it…
One of the more interesting things beside the Banksy piece that we saw down in Chinatown were these crazy dragon knives/blades/swords…While I’ve never actually seen anyone try to rock these in a fight, I’m confident in saying that I’d run like I was on fire if someone chased after me with giant blades with dragon handles on them…
Elderly Chinese street musicians playing for by a busy intersection…
Sam and his girlfriend met up with us also and we decided to stop by a local Thai food spot to eat lunch…everything looked absolutely delicious and everything was also only 5 bucks a plate…
After eating, it was starting to get dark so we made the trek back to the BART station to head back to the hotel…
The train was pretty crowded by the evening but we managed to all get seats…
Sloppy dropped Sam and his girl off earlier in the day so he didn’t get to take the BART with us until our trip back to the hotel… Turns out that it was his first time ever being on it and he seemed pretty excited to experience it…
Speaking of Sam, it was his birthday on the day of Wekfest so his girl Linh had this cool birthday cake made for him…It’s a cake made to look like his Civic driving through the Golden Gate Bridge in SF…
We parted ways for the most part after we got back to the hotel. Salem and Murdock headed out to meet up with Junior from Wekfest at a local car meet, while the others bought alcohol and pre-gamed for the night. ATS Phil met up with them later that night to go party at a lounge in the city. May and I hung out in the room for a little bit before meeting up with Rodrez and his Fiancee’ for dinner. Not much excitement after that since we had to wake up early in the morning for the Wekfest show…
The morning of Wekfest, we got up early and got ready to head to the Fort Mason venue for vendor set-up. Rodrez didn’t have a booth this year but he wanted to roll to the event with us so he could cover the show before spectators got there. Breakfast was ready right around the time we got down to the lobby so we stopped to eat really quick. We weren’t in too much of a rush since I got back to the hotel early the night before and had the car loaded-up and ready to go…
On the drive to SF that Friday, Salem and I had joked around about putting the free hotel food in our pockets to bring to the show, so I thought it would be funny to put a couple sausage links into a styrofoam cup to give to him when he got there. The last sausage turtling-up out of the cup wasn’t planned but added to the randomness of having a cup of sausages, haha…
When I got to Fort Mason, I checked-in and drove right into the venue. There was no wait this year because they were much more organized….This 510 was one of the first cars I saw that morning rolling into the show…
I thought it was a little crazy to see people already waiting in line to get in, but I later found out that these guys had been camped out there since 1am in the morning….fucking crazy…That’s when you realize how big Wekfest has gotten, when people are camping out like they were waiting for a new shoe release or something…
Some of my favorite photos that I took last year at Wekfest were during the roll-in process so I was happy to have plenty of time to get more this year in-between setting up The Chronicles booth with May and Tony from It’s JDM Yo!!…
A wingless Subaru STI sitting on some red Volk TE37SL…
Adam from Wek’Sos giving some instructions to one of his staff members…
Junior directing the 510 to his parking space inside the show…
A boosted CR-X drag car making his way in…
DSR Loreto posted-up by his “Shark-teal” EK on new Volk TE37Vs…
R33 Skyline GT-R on Prodrive wheels…
Evos were represented very well at Wekfest SF 2012…
2GS on SSR Vienna Kreis wheels…
Subaru with Work Schwert SC4s…
I had no idea Mark with the white 4-door DB would be making the trip to Wekfest so it was a cool to see him pull-up….He made some more additions to his Integra like a front splitter…
…and a retro-fitted Mugen wing…
ATS Anh’s ITR with a brand new look….say goodbye to the BYS front bumper…
Here is Anh mounting a camera to his windshield… He had this nifty idea of doing a time lapse video during the event so it’ll be cool to see later what came of it…
I wanted to see what was going on in the other building so I walked over and saw Mark Arcenal’s Rauh Welt Porsche…
No new additions to the car itself…It looked about the same as it did during SEMA last year…
Not even sure if Mark was even there at the show but there were guys moving the car around while others set-up the Fatlace booth…
PG+K Moe and Bon made the trip out to Norcal…Here they are chatting it up with Rodrez in their brand new Chronicles Ver. IV tees…
I walked outside to see if anyone new popped-up and spotted DPK Slappy and Jay Powers in his CR-X…
Absolutely loved this Evo…Never really imagined how teal and brown would work together but for whatever reason, it does on this car…
Traveling all the way from Japan was Tetsuya Yamaguchi of USDM Jam-fame… Here he is chatting with Big Mike…
Lisa from ATS Garage and her always-clean Integra on Almight Grey Regas…
Her husband Jay and his timeless CR-X on SW388s…
Nick Caster debuted his new J’s Racing set-up on his CR-X…more on this later…
ATS AJ and his C-West Integra on mag blue Volk SE37K…
Closing it out for today with a quick snap of Rywire’s NSX…under-exposed but I thought it made for a cool shot…
That’s all for today folks, come back with WAY more. I shot about 650 photos at the show and am still in the process of going through all of it… Thanks for looking…
“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!
The Chronicles’ Choice…Favorite Non-Honda Builds of 2011…
Well this is a first…During the last couple months when I was busy trying to figure out how the order of the Top Ten Hondas of 2011 would go, I came up with an idea to spotlight some of my favorite non-Honda builds of the year. I am after all, an avid automotive enthusiast and I love cars of all types. I don’t even own a Honda anymore personally, and I’ve at one time had a Toyota, Honda, and now a Nissan (Infiniti). I always have my eye out on everything because I can appreciate a great build without brand bias. Another reason why I’m always looking for great builds in general is because I work in the magazine industry. It’s sort of my job to go and seek out new cars to feature so I have to always be aware of new builds that are coming out every year. This list isn’t in any particular order, much like the 2011 Honors list, because I feel all these cars are great in their own right. All are very different builds and from varying parts of the world. Some I have seen in person, some I hope to someday see…either way, it’s my personal list of favorite non-Honda builds from 2011. The Top Ten Hondas list will always trump any other list I make here on The Chronicles but to show my deepest appreciation for their hard work, here are some builds that stood out to me the most and really captured my attention….
Joy Abdalla’s Subaru STI…
This car absolutely took my breath away when I first spotted it at the 2011 SEMA Convention…It’s just a great looking car. I love how aggressive the widebody is on it and how it still flows with the original lines of the STI. Where this build really shines though is under the hood…the bay is very well-done and one of the cleanest Subaru engine bays I have ever seen. Everything just comes together nearly perfectly…the custom paint, aero, engine bay, interior…man, just top-notch… I believe this is going to be in an issue of Import Tuner in the future so make sure to grab a copy of that. I had a chance to meet the owner at one of the industry parties’ during the SEMA weekend in Vegas last year as well and when David Do from MayDay Garage introduced us, I can honestly say that I was very surprised to see that it was a female owner. I’m not saying that I’m surprised that a woman can build a great car, because I’ve seen it plenty of times before…I’m just saying, a lot of STI owners are usually like bro’d-out white dudes or larger gentlemen that seem like they enjoy a good competitive game of Warcraft…haha, okay that’s not totally true but thumbs-up to Joy Abdalla for building herself a wonderful car. A favorite of mine for sure…
Nick Weir’s K20-powered Volkswagen Caddy…
Nick’s Caddy is probably one of the coolest builds of 2011. He wasn’t the first to do a K-swap in a VW Caddy but his is definitely the most well-rounded. When I first heard about this thing, I was really interested in seeing it in person. Luckily for me, I had a chance to fly out to Nashville, TN for the annual summer Import Alliance meet and I did indeed get the opportunity to see it for myself. There are little things here and there that obviously don’t make it “perfect” by any means, but Nick never intended it to be. It’s a little rough around the edges and that adds to the appeal of the truck. For what it is, the quality of work is very good. How often are you going to see a VW caddy with a K-swap and a battleship-greyish bay? It’s a one of a kind build with some unique personal touches to it that leave no question that it’s the work of Nick Weir. He was bummed that he didn’t get the Rotiform wheels that he wanted for it but the Work CR-01s look pretty good on there. This Caddy was one of the highlights for me in 2011 and I’m happy that I got to see it in person to appreciate it. Nick is a bit of a weirdo so his personality reflects his cars..haha. This thing is most certainly an odd-ball build but odd in a very cool way…
Machan’s A60 Toyota Carina wagon…
Speaking of oddball builds, this Toyota Carina wagon is about as outside of the box as it gets. I first spotted this thing at the Hellaflush Japan event and I’ve been looking for more information and photos of this wagon ever since. It has a Japanese Firetruck theme on the outside and apparently, it’s actually used at one of the firestations. I love how it’s a mix of genres and also a mix of old school styling and new technology. The bay is tuck and shaved with the cage running through the firewalls to the shock towers, and the heart of this Carina is a Toyota BEAM’s 3S-GE from the Japanese market Toyota Altezza. It also has individual throttle bodies, a custom header, and a custom semi-trailing arm suspension. If that’s not enough, this Carina also features a Tilton brake system and 14×8.5/9 RS Watanabe wheels…Man, this thing is so sick. I know that the “stance” and “hellaflush” style is just getting completely out of hand but when it comes to a build like this, it works…. Everything is over the top and not meant to be anything taken too seriously… I don’t know about you guys, but I thoroughly enjoy old school Toyotas, Nissans, etc. and it’s cool when you see something like this that has a mix of everything…
Jin Ueno’s Aimgain VIP Lexus LS400…
Jin’s LS from Kyoei USA has to be my favorite VIP build of 2011. I say that because I’ve always preferred the more traditional VIP “look” and Jin has executed it well. When I say “traditional”, I mean, it’s not just all about wheel fitment and modifying fenders. He has taken the time to create a well-round VIP project…he’s paid attention to the interior, which is essential when building a VIP project, and he’s added some one-off touches that make it stand-out in a sea of black and white VIP cars. I love the simplicity of the Aimgain kit and the contrast of the red pinstriping and red exhaust tips. It’s another car that flows every well because the owner has paid great attention to minor details. The red also transfers over to the front fogs, something you never really see, and the black/red them is also found throughout the re-wrapped and custom stitched interior….VIP-style isn’t all about cramming stupid wide wheels into your luxury/non-luxury vehicle and this is a great example of how to build a VIP-style car…
Wilson Tam’s Carlsson 2010 Mercedes Benz E350…
I’ll be the first to admit that I am not all that familar with European vehicles. It’s just not something that I’ve taken an active interest in throughout the years. I just love Japanese cars and Japanese automotive culture, so my attention has been devoted to that. When I ran into Wilson Tam’s E350 at SEMA 2011, it made me want to learn more about a car that I would otherwise overlook normally. It was sitting in the outside display area and it just looked so good sitting on the ground on some custom bronze BBS LMs. I walked up to it and noticed that it also had a full Carlsson aero kit. Everyday that I went to the SEMA show that week, I found myself stopping by to take another look at it. If you have seen my coverage from SEMA and Autocon in 2011, then you most likely have already heard me rambling on about how much I like this build…I’m not that big of a fan of Mercedes Benzs but I love this one…
Ka Wong’s F20C-powered AE86 Toyota Corolla…
I’m a big fan of Ka Wong because he not only built himself an amazing AE86 Corolla, he also happens to be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. This car has been around for about two years now but I like the fact that he continues to add new stuff to it. This year, he showed-off his custom audio set-up in his trunk and it just makes his Corolla that much more untouchable at car shows. The guy has been a consistent winner and he’s very much deserving of all the accolades that he receives. It’s just one of those cars that you can’t help but notice, you know? Not only because of the bright orange color but because of the S2000 engine swap and the myriad of other things he’s put into this build. There are very few AE86 Corollas that are built this level of quality and I’m happy that I’ve had plenty of chances to see this Corolla in person.
Ryan Deguzman’s FD3S and FC3S RX-7s…
Ryan Deguzman happens to have a pair of two of the finest RX-7s in the west coast. I don’t know how or why he has both these sick ass builds so I’ll just sit back and enjoy the view. His FD RX-7 stands out much more because of the yellow tone but his white FC is not a car that you should just overlook. It’s in mint condition and I believe his FC is also his daily driver. I’ve included links below to take you to some online features of both cars so that you can read more about them if you choose. I’ve never had a chance to meet this guy or speak to him but he has great taste in parts and has a very good sense of style. I really like both of his RX-7s and they are definitely two highlight builds of mine in 2011…
Click here to read more about Ryan Deguzman’s FD3s RX-7…
Must be nice, right? Haha…round of a applause to this guy for having a pair of well-built Mazdas…
Brandon Burke’s S13 Nissan 240SX coupe…
I didn’t get a chance to see Brandon Burke’s S13 until December of 2011 but it immediately became a favorite of mine in 2011. I just love how simple it is and how it can still look really aggressive without having any wild aero. What I like the most about it is that it’s completely garage-built and everything but the paint itself was put together inside his crappy garage. It’s a little rough around the edges here and there but it’s almost a throwback to how cars were put together back in the day. Brandon is completely self-taught and put this whole car together himself without having the help of any shop or anything. I can’t say much more about it because his Super Street feature drops in about a month so just pick up that issue if you want to hear me write more about how great it is…
Mark Arcenal’s Hakosuka Skyline 2000GT…
2011 will probably be remembered as the year that Rauh Welt cemented it’s status in America and that’s largely due to the efforts of Mark Arcenal from Fatlace/Illest. His Rauh Welt Porsche was the talk of the second half of 2011 but my favorite Mark Arcenal automotive build will always be his Nissan Skyline 2000GT. I just feel that the Rauh Welt look is a look that Akira Nakai created and it will always be Nakai’s style. Mark’s Porsche was built to represent Rauh Welt so the car is very much Nakai’s creation and not truly his. His Skyline on the other hand, is more of Mark’s handy work and has more elements to it that are more representative of Arcenal himself. It’s not built off another car that’s already been done before and I love the overall look of it. It’s style in it’s purest form. I also enjoyed how Mark himself described the car in a video that I’ve attached below. Check it out and you’ll understand why I like this build so much more than “Pandora One”. You can tell how big of an enthusiast he is just by listening to him talk about his car…really neat stuff…
If the video link doesn’t work for you, click here to go to the page…
Well, that’s it for today. I promise this is the last of the “Top”-whatever lists. Haha…Time to move on to stuff that’s going on in 2012…Thanks for looking….
Hot Import Nights 2011 Coverage…Part 3 of 3…
Time to close out the 2011 Hot Import Nights coverage, brought to you by the one and only stickydiljoe.com….
By this time, the show was about to begin and a majority of the lights were turned off so spectators could be blinded by strobe lights and camera flashes. It was probably around 3:30pm at this point and all the exhibitors were finishing up their displays and the models were strolling into the model showcase area. Today we will be taking a look at the final car shots I took, and the rest are either of models or random things that I saw while I was walking around. I spent a majority of the time just hanging out inside the It’s JDM Yo!!! booth but there were spurts when I got bored and walked around to see what sort of debauchery was happening. I went to the show super early to avoid the crowd and shoot, but my original plan was to leave around 6:30-7pm to pick up May from the airport. She had flown out to Dallas, TX for work and her flight was supposed to come in before 8. I found out later that evening that her flight was delayed in Phoenix so I stayed at the show much longer than I anticipated. There was no point in going home because the LA Convention Center was pretty close to the airport, so I just stuck around. I think I ended up staying until around 9:30 or so. I got there at 2:30 that day so being at HIN for 7 hours was more than enough for me. By the time I left I lost hearing in one ear and had no idea where I had parked earlier in the day. The back exit was closed off so I walked out of the front gate, got lost for another 30 minutes, and eventually stumbled upon my parking spot. Anyways, on with the photos…
I don’t know if you guys are viewing these photos from your work and I don’t know how strict your work is about this stuff, but there are some photos at the end of women that are scantily-clad. I’ll warn you guys one more time before I start rolling out those photos but you’ve been warned, haha…
Now let’s move forth with photos…
I love everything about Ryan Deguzman’s ’93 FD3S RX-7…From the paint to the wheels, engine bay, audio, and everything, it’s executed to perfection…
Every time I see that yellow FD, I know that Ka Wong’s AE86 Corolla isn’t too far behind. These guys are always parked together at events so I knew Ka’s Corolla is only a couple steps away…His 86 is definitely one of my favorite builds of all time. It’s just so well done with great attention to even the smallest of details…
Ka Wong saw me passing by so he walked over to say what’s up to me. He asked me if I had a chance to check out his new audio set-up and walked me over to the rear hatch of his Corolla. I don’t know why I didn’t notice that his trunk was open when I was getting a shot of the exterior before. He didn’t have audio before so it should have clicked right away in my brain that he probably had something new. As you can see above, the audio set-up flows very well with the rest of the car and isn’t wild with all kinds of fiberglass everywhere. The custom enclosure still follows the straight lines of the older Hachi-Roku…Well done sir…
Flared-out TSX with Mugen front bumper and SSR Professor SP1s in SBC finish…
Another shot of this clean FC3s that I posted up in part one of the HIN 2011 coverage. Great looking build overall, very simple, and everything follows his two-tone white/black theme. The interesting thing about it is the engine bay though…
…because the owner decided to paint the bay purple. There could be a possibility that this car may have been originally this color, but it’s unlikely since the paint looks pretty clean in the bay like it had been re-sprayed. It’s definitely not a bad look but cause he has other purple accents in the bay to match but if I didn’t tell you that this was the engine bay of the FC above, you would almost think that it was a different car altogether. Execution is impressive though, regardless of the purple bay….I’m a fan…Especially considering all the junk-ass cars that were at HIN, this one was one of the cleanest by far…
Yellow widebody EVO X posted up next to some random Dubbed-out Escalade…
I found two things interesting about this EVO X….one, being the random pube near the bottom of the gas door, and two, the AeroCatch hood pin on the gas door itself…I’ve never seen one of these used on a gas lid so I’m lead to believe that it’s there because maybe the lid doesn’t latch anymore after the widebody was done. My initial thought was that it’s used to lock the door but there’s no lock on the AeroCatch unit itself so it couldn’t be that….Maybe the owner lives in the bad area where they steal gas or something, haha, I don’t know…the combination of the hood pin and the lone pube serves as a deterrent to gas thieves…
This Scion xA should have come with an epileptic seizure warning sign but it made for some cool photos…
S2000 on white Work VS-XX…
Junction Produce LS430 from BP VIP…
GS430 also from BP….
Austin aka Amoney47′s Y33 Q45 on VIP Modular wheels…
BB6 Prelude on some step-lipped Work Equip wheels… I can’t wait to get my Equips back and throw them on my car…
Karl’s EM2 Civic on CCWs posted at the Fatlace showcase area…
Jon Jon’s IS350 that served as the booth display vehicle for It’s JDM Yo!!!…His feature in Performance Auto Sound magazine just dropped this month so make sure to pick that up and check out this build…
Oh this was fucking random as hell. I was staring at this Scion tC on 26′s or whatever with the Tjin brothers and we spotted this female half-torso thing sitting under the chassis…Crazy but a cool idea I guess, haha. I like how dude hold mirrors everywhere just so you could see all the random things going on under the car…
This was my view for the majority of the evening. Natalia Marie hadn’t shown up yet so we just hung out at the booth… Here you can see Keith and Gilbert from It’s JDM Yo!!! soaking up the club-like ambiance of HIN 2011…Tony had a pretty elaborate display for his booth. He brought out lighting and everything as you can see from this photo…The booth was very well-lit throughout the night so many were probably left wondering why there was a bunch of dudes sitting in a booth meant for models….
Okay, so this is the point in the coverage that may or may not be “safe for work” for you guys. I don’t know what you guys do for a living but if it’s not okay to look at scantily-clad women at your job, you should probably close this browser now and resume viewing when you get home…
You’ve been warned…
I really have absolutely no idea who a majority of these girls are, but thanks to Tony from It’s JDM Yo!!! and the Autocon 2011 model line-up, I was able to match up a lot of faces to names. If I for whatever reason get your name wrong, it’s probably because I don’t know who you are…Ready?…
Stacie Li…
Michelle Sanchez modeling for Fatlace….
Holly Lee and Tracy Linh…
Lily Wang…
Raquel Estrella…
I am unsure of her name but she was a part of the Capistran swimsuit showcase…
Brian Filoteo from Auto Concept Elite with his fancy purse…
Sherry Tee…
Cara Skye modeling for Auto Concept Elite…
Veronica LaVery…looking angry and then slightly less angry…
Another shot of Michelle Sanchez after Yogi from Fatlace hooked me up with some stickers…
Big Mike and Sloppy…
Neil Tjin showing his mechanical prowess by not being able to remove spark plugs from a display cylinder head in the UTI booth…
Ali Marie with a hoodie of herself…
A little while later, Natalia Marie showed up at the It’s JDM Yo!!! booth and the whole outlook of the booth changed. Before, it was just us hanging out there looking all sad and shit and after Natalia showed up, the booth was crackin’ with all kinds of pervos…
Emerging from the darkness of HIN was the creepiest perv of all… Do you guys remember this photo, where I snapped this shot of an old man doing a jerking motion to good ol’ Titla McBoob?…I guess he is quite the import model/asian girl fanatic and attends all these shows to spread his creepiness…I shall call him…. “Old Man McJerkin”….There was one very distinct difference at HIN that I noticed right away when the models starting showing up. You have your car enthusiasts, and then you have the dudes that follow the import models everywhere they go and are not into cars whatsoever…
Old Man McJerkin’ doing the thumb-up stroke while posing with Natalia Marie…
Ela Pasion and Nikita Penalosa came by to say hi to Tony…
This photo was not conveniently cropped…
Another shot of Stacie Li…
Oh these are cool…. If you guys have an iPhone 4/4S, make sure to head over to the It’s JDM Yo!!! storefront to pick up one of these cases featuring some of your favorite models. What was really nice of Tony to do was to include The Chronicles logo on the cases that feature images that I shot for them. So if you grab one of these, not only are you supporting It’s JDM Yo!! and the models, but also showing your support for The Chronicles… peep them here and buy a couple, they make great stocking stuffers…
By this time, it was already 9pm or so and I had to pack up and take off to the airport to pick up May. The show was still pretty busy and there was a line to enter as I left…
Before I took off, I made sure to get a shot of Natalia Marie at the booth…She’s a cool chick. During some moments when it wasn’t stupid crowded at the booth, she was talking to all of us about her previous car show experiences as well as stuff that was going on with her regular everyday life. Very down to Earth girl and it was cool that she was there to help Tony out…
Natalia Marie noticed the over-usage of new import models that were trying to dress like Lady Gaga and it infuriated her, so she Hulked out and started smashing shit. I wanted no part of it, so I left…
That’s a wrap on HIN 2011. It was an interesting experience no doubt, would I go every year? Ehhh…
Thanks for looking…
Hot Import Nights 2011 Coverage…Part 1…
I’m sure all of you have heard that Hot Import Nights is making a return to our beloved import automotive community. Some were very skeptical about it’s comeback because the last couple years that it was around, it just wasn’t the same anymore. Many of the new generation won’t understand, but HIN was once the top tier car show to attend in the early half of the 2000s. Back then, you looked forward to two events every year, Import Showoff and Hot Import Nights. HIN was so huge back then and were making so much money, that they even tried to buy the Showoff series at one point, but Ken Myoshi turned them down because he wanted to keep the show grassroots. It turned out to be a good decision because inevitably, HIN was sold itself and the whole show just changed and shifted another direction. The new owners didn’t want to do the shows indoors anymore in an attempt to save some money and it somehow hooked up with the NOPI series which was the worst fucking idea EVER. Now, apparently, the original owners of the HIN brand have brought it back and are hoping to bring the show back to it’s top tier status…
This past weekend’s HIN event was held in the venue that helped make the show huge back in the day; the Los Angeles Convention Center. Maybe by bringing the show back here, it’ll conjure up the same excitement that enthusiasts once had for the event. What they didn’t mention to people was that the show wouldn’t be held in the larger hall where the once epic Hot Import Nights show called home…it was in the adjacent smaller building next to it. I was honestly a little surprised to hear that it was back at the Convention Center myself, because renting out a venue of that magnitude is not cheap at all, by any means. Plus they get a chunk of your gate, insurance, etc., etc… When I arrived the night of roll-in and Tony told me that it wasn’t in the larger hall, it made more sense to me. They dubbed this show “The Return”….as in Hot Import Nights “return” to prominence… Unfortunately, in my opinion, it was more of a “return” like if you were returning a DVD at the videostore. It’s loud, crowded, and you just want to get out of there as soon as you can. I’ve been in the car show scene since the late ’90s so I am very familiar with Hot Import Nights. I was there at the peak of it’s popularity when it was so crowded inside the Convention Center that you could barely walk or breathe. Nevermind trying to take photos because there was constantly people walking in front of you and it was so dark in there that you couldn’t even see the cars. It was a massive….they had concerts with major recording artists and it was the talk of our industry. “The Return” served as a nice reminder of how HIN once was….that is, until you walked through the doors into the actual event. It’s just not the same anymore. It’s called Hot “Import” Nights but line-up of cars were everything but imports and a chunk of the cars were DUB-style, luxury vehicles or high-end exotics. I understand you want to bring these type of cars into the events because they have money and lots of it, but if you want to bring the show back to it’s roots, you have to bring back the cars that people came to see….IMPORTS. I didn’t really expect there to be a big turn-out of Japanese cars because I’ve also seen what has happened to Extreme Autofest over time, and that went from an all import show that turned into a DUB show. There were cars in there that definitely made me scratch my head…I have no idea where these cars came from but I definitely did not need to see them again after HIN…
The Hot Import Nights show has just turned into every possible cliche’ you can think of, of a mainstream COMMERCIAL automotive lifestyle event. Which basically means that it was pretty much a ridiculous music video that you really wanted to end, but you couldn’t find your remote anywhere so you just had to sit there and watch it happen. There were go-go dancers on the stage, DJs at every corner playing music that was way too fucking loud, it was dark as shit, there were rappers “performing”, and there were exotics as well as every car you could think of that could somehow manage to cram 24-inch wheels into their wheel wells. It was fucking hectic in there. I don’t know what the purpose of blasting six different songs at max volume simultaneously was, but it was so loud in there that you couldn’t even have a conversation with the person standing inches away from you without screaming at them. I didn’t even plan on going at all, but I managed to get a free pass from It’s JDM Yo!! Tony so I decided to go do some coverage of the show. From my previous experience, it’s always been incredibly difficult to take photos at HIN while the show was going on because, like I stated earlier, it’s incredibly dark in there and crowded. I knew that I had to get there as early as I could and get as many shots as possible before the show started. The coverage you’re going to see from HIN is basically everything that went on during roll-in the night before, and the day of, but before the gates opened to the public. They won’t look like the typical HIN photos because no one was there yet and the lights were all on. I apologize if you wanted to see the photos with the “HIN ambiance” included but I wanted to make my life easier and not have to fight people to get a good shot. I did take some pics during the show itself, but it wasn’t really car-related, haha. I just wanted to capture what was going on while I was there. At the end of the day, I think the HIN staff did a good job of executing “Hot Import Nights” but it just isn’t the same as it once was, and I highly doubt that it will ever be how it was when it was one of the top shows in the industry. The cars that are there just don’t fit the enthusiasts that once made the show as big as it was and it almost seems as if they want to cater to a different audience now. The younger generation might enjoy the event, but it’s hard to spend $12 on parking and another $35(?) at the gate. It’s more of a DUB show now and the cars there represent that. You won’t see those cars here though because I took the time to weed out the cars that I liked and the ones that aren’t very favorable to your eyes are cars that I captured merely for comedic relief. With that said, thanks to HIN for the hospitality and I hope that you guys enjoy the photos…
If somebody were to ask me to describe my HIN 2011 experience in one long-drawn-out sentence, I would say:
“I went to Hot Import Nights and saw a Chrysler 300C with a new Camaro front end on it and across from it was a Scion tC with 26′s or some shit and a truck that looked like it was in mid-explosion.”
It’s kinda like the new Chrysler commercials where they say that their cars are “imported” from Detroit. You’re not really fooling anyone but it was a nice attempt. I guess if you dim the lights and turn up the music, nobody will notice, but somebody is eventually going to trip over an RX-7 in the dark and ask their friend what it’s doing there…
We’ll kick it off today with the widebody R35 GT-R from Auto Concept Elite. You probably recognize this GT-R from SEMA 2011 sitting inside the ENEOS Sustina booth… This was taken around 6:30pm the Friday night of roll-in when the Auto Concept/High End guys were still setting up their massive display…
Loved this Lincoln that was posted up near the area where Tony was setting up his booth… This is actually one of the few none imports that I was happy to see….
Despite the obnoxious rear arch work on this S14, it was actually pretty well done. I don’t really understand why the rear arch was done like that but it throws off the whole car. The craftmanship itself is not bad at all and it has all the right parts on it. It even has Racing Hart CPF Tune-R wheels on it that you don’t really see utilized that often.. I just wish the owner bought wheels that fit better under all that bodywork…
Carl’s EM2 Civic at the Fatlace showcase area on some CCW wheels…
VIP-themed S14 with an Instant Gentleman kit and MMR wheels…I posted up a photo of this car awhile back and asked you guys to help me find out who the owner was and he actually emailed me, I just barely remembered right now and I need to return his email….
Cody Chan’s widebody Miata that I shot awhile back for Super Street magazine. If you guys follow this site religiously like I hope you would, then you probably caught the unpublished photos from the shoot that I posted up just last week….
Here’s that truck that I’ve been talking about that looks like it’s in mid-explosion, haha…Excuse me for being ignorant towards this style of modification but what exactly is the point of having your hood look like that?…
Widebody G35 that’s been a consistent force in the import show scene…
MaDara’s S2000 with ASM I.S. Designs aero…
Love this race-inspired BMW M3 with Voltex components and HRE wheels…
Wild widebody Cadillac CTS-V from D3 that was also at SEMA 2011 in the Toyo Tires booth…
I found it a little odd that this whole set-up was finished by the time I got to roll-in but when I returned the next day, it was completely different booth with different cars…
Crazy dually that was sitting on the floor…
Matte red-painted 5-Series BMW wagon from VIP Modular wheels…
Really liked the classic-styling of this FC3S RX-7…The two-toned bay was kinda odd and I took a photo of it the following day when the hood was popped, but I’ll save that for later…
Another R35 GT-R…I think this was the second of maybe 4 or 5 that were at HIN…
Top Secret widebody S2000 from Bulletproof Automotive…
This particular section of the show hosted some of the better cars at HIN in my opinion, including this Miata on SSR MK2s…
This Miata was also nice and I had a chance to talk to the owner the following day at the show and he tells me that there’s a motor swap in it from a newer Miata…
This one was a little more wild in contrast to the previous two I posted. It had a polished hood and a two-toned black/silver theme…
This S13 coupe was one of my favorites from the HIN event…I saw this thing posted outside on the dock during roll-in and it instantly caught my attention, even though it’s very basic aesthetically. Crazy how hammered to the floor it is and apparently from watching him drive in, this is his static ride height… I chatted with the owner for a bit and this S13 also has a RB25 swap…More pics of this thing tomorrow…
Tony and friends setting up the “It’s JDM Yo!!!” booth…
Yuta’s S30 240Z from Heart Breaker…
I think a lot of people at HIN slept on this Supra because it was dark as shit in there and you probably couldn’t see it…
…however, you couldn’t miss this thing from miles and miles away….Batman helps to illustrate my shock here when I saw this Chrysler 300C with a Camaro front-end….
This orange Civic hatchback was pretty clean… Me thinks those are Rotas though…
Engine bay is clean and well-done with a K-swap and JRSC…
Lexus SC430 from BP VIP on some Work Schwert SC4s…
2nd Gen. Lexus IS on SSR Professor SP1…
Infiniti Q45 on WED’s Kranze LXZs…
Junction Produce Toyota Previa…
Does anyone remember Greg Leone from the MTV show “True Life: I’m a Street Racer”? Well this is his short bus…
What’s cool about it is that it’s like some make-shift auto-transport for his S13 “drift car”…. The car is whatever and has VIP Modular wheels on it that cost more than the car itself, but what’s interesting is that he probably has more money invested in the school bus than he does on the car…
You see that little platform above the bus? Well during the show, he and his band of buddies were pulling random girls up to the roof and posing for all kinds of ridiculously douchey photos. They had their sunglasses on and some guy had a zebra-printed blazer, it was quite a spectacle…He should call this thing “The Douche Bus”…
A pair of Ruckus’ in the Fatlace display area…
Tony almost finished with his display…
EVO X on gold SSR Type-F….
Not really sure what’s going on with this 350Z… It has WED’s Kranze wheels on it, which are luxury VIP wheels, but then it has this really wide, aggressive body work done to it with a front bumper that looks like it’s too long for the Z33 chassis…I don’t know, I’m confused…
Michael Mao applying some finishing touches to his NSX…
S14 celebrating the spirit of the holidays…
Ferrari 360 Modena on HREs…
Another shot of the BMW as I walked past it…correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that bottom front splitter might be a new addition…
At this point, I walked over to the DUB area where I unearthed these gems…
OH MAN. Words just can’t describe everything that is going on with this 240SX…rainbow zipties….Kouki S14 front end conversion…a hood that may or may not fit the front end..Advan SA3Rs that look like they are trying to hide…
The back is even better…pink zebra taillight garnish…paint-splattered rear hatch…crazy arrow-looking spray-painted sharpie designs on the rear-quarter….AHHHH!!!…
Directly next to it was another S13, this one I’m hoping is some sort of display vehicle for House of Kolor…Fucking thing looks like a rolling acid trip…
I had to do a double take just to figure out what kind of car this was…I believe this is an Eclipse with a Vertex-style Toyota Soarer front bumper and spray-painted wheels…I was walking with Tony and he said that this car looked like it was “Transforming but got stuck half-way”….haha…
I’m not even gonna lie, this MR-2 with ROJA wheels wouldn’t even be that bad if it didn’t all of a sudden grow Nissan S15 Silvia headlights in it’s front bumper…now it just looks odd…
Once I returned to reality, I spotted this Honda Fit rolling into the show…
…and also saw VIPStylecars member “Blitz’s” Y33 Q45 with WED’s Kranze LXZs and a K-Break aero kit…
After that I packed up my gear and headed home. Tomorrow I will bring you guys the photos from the actual day of the show and I swear, they are much better than these. I even brought my tripod out and everything…. Since I went back to the show so early the next day, I had all the time in the world to do coverage because nobody was even there…Anyways, back tomorrow with more…thanks for looking….
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 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….
Fatlace 1/1 Showcase/Formula D Round 7 Coverage…
I can’t really call this the Formula D Round 7 coverage because I really didn’t get any coverage of the drifting itself. I didn’t even expect to go to this thing. I had slept like 3 hours the night before and had to wake up early to shoot a car for work and I had no intentions of going to this. I actually went home after the shoot, ate breakfast and even took a nap before I went to this. It worked out that gates opened around 2pm because if it had been any time earlier than that, I wouldn’t have made it. Even so, I still managed to get there 2 hours late but luckily my entrance was taken care of and I didn’t have to wait in line to get into the event. Honestly, I didn’t expect to see such a huge turn-out but the parking lot was pretty much packed to the brim. I guess drifting is starting to make a huge comeback. It’s a good thing that events like Formula D are still around to keep the sport alive since D1 doesn’t seem to want to have anything to do with the U.S. anymore….
Now I mentioned that I didn’t get any drifting pics and that’s mainly because I didn’t really stay long. I just wanted to show up and meet up with some homies and check out what might be the last show of the year. There definitely wasn’t a huge Honda turn-out and there normally isn’t at a drifting event. I don’t blame them, it’s just not their target demographic so the lack of Hondas definitely isn’t a surprise. There were a few though but of course I managed not to get any shots of them. People were all over the place and it was hot as shit, plus I hadn’t really slept much so I wasn’t in the mood to go scour for Hondas at a drifting event. Can you blame me? Anyways, here’s my coverage of the event. There really isn’t much because I left early to go chill and there weren’t too many cars that really caught my eye. This is just random stuff that I caught while I was walking around. If you’re on The Chronicles expecting to see some drifting…man, you are in the WRONG place…haha. Oh believe me, I’m a big fan but this isn’t what the site is about…Anyways, enjoy…
Make sure to be prepared because The Chronicles meet is coming up in a couple weeks and I hope to see everyone out there…
While I was waiting to pick up my pass, I noticed this lady running by like she was on fire…I don’t know what was going on but she was in a hurry to get somewhere…
NOS energy drink model…
Another one…
…and another one…
Maureen looking kinda bored…
The display that first appeared at Spocom this year…
Not sure what brand this wheel is but it’s probably one of those custom forged units…Looks like a cross between an old SSR fine wheel and a Carving Head 40 wheel…
Source Interlink had a booth there…
We were walking around when I spotted this GS with some other custom wheels that look like the VIP-equivalent of BBR Comps…
Yikes…
Look at this crazy ass blower in this S15…
Crazy ass Element…
This red Supra was definitely one of the better cars at the event…
Junction Produce…
DPK*Slappy came out all the way from Texas with a bunch of other dudes from Mayday Garage…
Those Mayday Garage guys really take their photography seriously…It’s not in this shot but another one of their guys was hanging upside down from a fucking helicopter taking a picture of an apple…
1st Gen. Lexus GS from Platinum VIP…
Goldmember aka Anthony with some new wheels…
The only drifting coverage I got…
Nicolette Lacson…
The most random thing I saw that day…Not really sure what inspired this half short/half pant design but it weirded me out. Wish she woulda gone all out and like wore a different shoe on one foot or some shit…Maybe one leg is like unshaveable or something, who knows…I once had a half speedo/half boxer combo on and now one of my scrots hangs lower than the other one…wait, what?….
Big Mike and friends…
As I was leaving I guess I stumbled into a portal that took me back to 1999 because I ran into this fully shaved DA with white vinyl interior and dual exhaust. Crazy to see this style done to a car and the car still in such great shape…
Also spotted this Legacy on BBS wheels…really nice stance and overall look…
…and of course my random ass day wouldn’t be complete without running into this bro’d out VW bug…so random…
That’s all folks. If some of the middle section of this post doesn’t make sense, it’s because I literally fell asleep while working on it and auto-piloted through it. Thanks for looking…
If you guys are looking for Chronicles 2-Year VIP parking spots, look to the right. There’s a link that will take you to it…
Bye Socal…
Sorry guys, been terribly busy lately…Like the type of busy where I get less sleep then I usually do already. Just a lot of work to catch up on for both mags before I leave Socal for a mini vacation. I’m heading to the Big Apple for the rest of the week to go over there and look at all the daily driven race cars that all deserve features (joking). Haha…in all seriousness though, I got nothing but love for the east and I’m pretty excited about going over there and hitting up all the landmarks that New York has to offer.
Just a few quick things before I head out. I’ll be around because I’m pretty sure I’ll have access to the web but not entirely sure how much time I’ll have to devote to it…
All orders that have been placed within the past week will go out when I get back the beginning of next week. I’ve just been busy and trying to be up with everything. Thanks to all of you who continue to support the site everyday. I will definitely have your orders out to you as soon as possible…
The whole NSX signed hood ordeal is dun-dada…as in, that shit is done and off the car now. Tony was approved for his Seibon sponsorship and his new hood came in. Originally we were gonna repaint the hood and color-match it but the raw look of the carbon on all that red looks very nice. That and it’s a sponsorship and I’m not exactly sure how happy Seibon would be if Tony just had that hood painted…haha….definitely looks good though. I’m sure this statement would have been much more valid had I taken a picture of it, but of course, I’m retarded and failed to have my camera with me every time I dropped by the shop…
Ummm…oh I spent the day with Big Mike while I was shooting a car this week. Things are looking good for the Prelude and it should begin it’s life as an actual, drivable car this week. We figured out what the issue was with the AEM EMS and something with the AEM twin fire ignition. When I say “we” I mean Big Mike and Bisimoto of course. I didn’t do shit. I basically just stood there and listened to Big Mike tell me about it, but “yay” I feel important. It’s getting tuned as I type this actually and we have our fingers crossed on what the actual numbers will be from the Dynapack 4000. I don’t exactly know what type of numbers Big Mike is expecting because the set-up is pretty much unheard of with the Kinslers and the eight injectors so it’ll be interesting when I get that text from him regarding the numbers…
Before I go, I gotta let you guys know that there is the Fatlace ONE/ONE Showcase this weekend in Long Beach. Fatlace recently took over the car show side of Formula D and they have a nice little Car Builders Showcase that is going on. All the homies should be out there so if you guys want to see some nice cars and some of the usual favorites, make sure to head out there. It’s the first of it’s kind so it should be interesting to see how Fatlace does car shows. Mark and the guys have been so successful with everything else they’ve got their hands on so it should be good. I unfortunately will not be there because I will be away but it just so happened to fall on the same week as my vacation. They got drifting, probably some girls, and definitely nice cars. How do I know? Because Mikeyyyy and I helped gather a big lot of the best cars from Socal for the show. Mark is a good dude and we wanted to make sure that we could help make this show a success. Support the industry and support Fatlace and their ONE/ONE showcase series…
That’s about it, I’m heading out to do some non-car related life stuff for the rest of the week. It’s nice to step away for a little bit and is a much needed break. Check back, I’ll try to come on and tell you random stories of my adventures in New York if time permits. I’m out for now people, thanks for everything…. Buy magazines, read them, check out the Chronicles store and purchase some goodies…both would help support my ass. I need it, haha… PEACE.
