California Dreamin’ At Wekfest San Jose…

California Dreamin’ At Wekfest San Jose…

With the Battlecraft x Exceed GR86 together now, it was time for me to make the 6-hour drive up to San Jose for the annual Wekfest super show! Not only was I shooting and working the event this year, I also had to make sure to get the GR86 there for display. Our goal was to have this car showcased at the two biggest Wekfest events of the year so it was important for me to get the car to San Jose. The drive itself wasn’t so bad, but it definitely made me remember why I stopped driving so far for shows, lol. Being that it was such a hectic event, I didn’t have too much time to film during the show but I did manage to capture some of what happened behind-the-scenes. After I got back to Los Angeles after the show, I found out that there was another event to attend mid-week so I cleaned-up the GR once again and cruised over!
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The 4-Day Transformation Of Our GR86 Build…

The 4-Day Transformation Of Our GR86 Build…

I swear, it doesn’t even look like the same car anymore! Just four months ago, we received delivery on our brand new Toyota GR86. We had plans for it but there was a lot of waiting while we collected parts from Japan. It seemed like the project was never going to get started and then boom! All the parts just started coming in all at once! The goal was to get this car to both Wekfest events in California this year so we could showcase the brand new Exceed Japan aero kit for the GR86. As things usually go, the date came out of nowhere and we found ourselves with a short deadline…Just around 4-5 days in fact! So we got right to work and literally had this thing done just in time!
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A NEW Daily And The Battlecraft x Exceed GR86 Build Begins!!…

A NEW Daily And The Battlecraft x Exceed GR86 Build Begins!!…

Well, it’s that time! After collecting parts from Japan the last few months, we finally get to work on the Battlecraft x Exceed GR86 project! The original plan was to get the car done for the Wekfest San Jose event but we were a bit worried about getting the necessary parts from Japan in time. Not many people know this but the GR86 has also been gone for the last few months! Teardown on the car began as soon as we got it back and while that was going on, I was also looking to buy a new daily since my Honda Pilot has been giving me some problems…
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Wekfest Seattle 2022 Coverage… Part 2…

Wekfest Seattle 2022 Coverage… Part 2…

I really thought I would have had this second part up early this week but with so much going on lately, it’s been difficult to sit down and type out the rest of this post. I had to squeeze in a few hours the last couple of nights just to finish. One of the first things I had to do this week was find a new daily driver. The Honda Pilot I have started giving me some transmission issues lately and I just don’t trust driving it around anymore because I don’t want to get stranded on the highway in this heat. Ironically, I was heading to a gig for Honda when it happened and I wasn’t exactly close to home so I took it as a sign to get another car. After that I had the grand unveiling of the brand new FL5 Honda Civic Type R event to attend and I’m glad I found a car rather quickly because the reveal happened in a completely different part of Los Angeles. While all that was going on, Kristian and I have been busy putting the Battlecraft GR86 together because our plan was to get the car to Wekfest San Jose next week…
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Wekfest Seattle 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

Wekfest Seattle 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

Wekfest Seattle came outta nowhere this year it seems. It hasn’t even been a year yet since we last had an event in the Pacific Northwest but due to scheduling and a venue change, there wasn’t much of a choice than to come back a little earlier than expected. I didn’t mind though. For me, returning from a month-long stay in Japan left me with a bit of a hangover effect. I was so used to seeing so much cool shit there that I was worried it would leave me a bit jaded when I came back to the U.S. Having the first Wekfest event of the year in Seattle worked-out perfectly for me because this area always churns out some high-quality car builds. Obviously it wasn’t Japan, but hell, the PNW knows what they’re doing so I was ready to get back on the road to see some cars…
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Back Home But On The Road Again For Wekfest Seattle!…

Back Home But On The Road Again For Wekfest Seattle!…

The Japan content was great and it was amazing to be out there for a whole month, but I have to remind myself that I have a life here at home in California. After returning home, I received some unsettling news that our brand new Voltex wing for our GR86 might have been damaged by UPS!! So Kristian and I finally open-up the box to see what was happening inside. A few weeks after, I was right back on a plane once again as I headed to Seattle for the first major Wekfest event in the U.S. It was July 4th weekend so we made the most of it too, enjoying to sights and of course, the food! Unfortunately, I was so busy that I didn’t film nearly as much as I would have liked. Instead, I spent most of my time covering the cars that I liked the most from this year’s Seattle Wekfest show.
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Chan-Oka Honda Meet Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 2…

Chan-Oka Honda Meet Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 2…

There’s a lot of things I could elaborate on when it comes to this meet. I could really do a deep-dive into each build, pointing out all the fine details that make it great, or all the minor miscues where they may have missed the mark. But, a simple statement is really all that needs to be said; The Chan-Oka Honda Meet is a love letter to the West Coast Honda community of the 2000s. It is everything this generation of Honda enthusiasts in Japan appreciate about what they saw in all those magazines, all the images on the NWP4Life forums, the Google image searches and now social media. This is them paying homage to us and completing that circle of inspiration because we were the ones originally inspired by the Japanese Honda enthusiasts that came before both them and us. It’s kind of amazing…
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Chan-Oka Honda Meet Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

Chan-Oka Honda Meet Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

If I recall, I was perusing Twitter one night a few months ago when I stumbled upon a post with an image I found interesting. I don’t know if you guys are aware, but if you enjoy Japanese tuning, Twitter is actually a great resource for Japanese car content. My friends and I actually refer to it as “Japanese car Twitter”. Instagram is popular worldwide but Twitter is actually VERY popular in Japan. It was likely the first social media outlet other than Facebook that enthusiasts over there used to post car content. If you don’t have Twitter, you should really think about getting on it just for car stuff. Anyways, before I go too far off on a tangent, I was on the Tweeting app one night when I saw a photo of a group of Honda enthusiasts gathered around a box of old magazines. I zoomed in on the image to see what these guys were looking at and it was actually a
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Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi 2022 Coverage… Part 3…

Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi 2022 Coverage… Part 3…

Well, here we go! Time to wrap-up this coverage on the Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi event. In the coming days, I’ll have some more event coverage for you guys from Japan as well as the photos that I shot from my shop visits out there. Some of the photos you’ve probably seen already but I actually shot a lot more photos at each different stop. It’s easy to forget about the photos since I will often post up the Vlog episodes first but my bread and butter has always been photos. As such, I would like to have them hosted here on the site for people to see and for enthusiasts to enjoy later down the line when they are searching for content on the web. The last event I have to host here is the Chan-Oka Honda Meet. That one is a multi-part set of photos too and I would really like to get those up before I fly out to Seattle this weekend for the first big U.S. Wekfest event of 2022. Everything is done, I just have to put it all together. Those photos consist of all Honda builds, unlike this last set from Stancenation Aichi. I think there might be only two Hondas in this batch. Everything else is Nissans, Toyotas, and some other unique builds. There was just so much variety at this event that it was hard to just focus on one brand or genre of car. I have no idea when I’ll be able to attend another one of these but I’d definitely love to go back again to enjoy it. It’s legitimately a great automotive event in Japan. Thanks to the people from Stance Magazine for extending the invite…
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