Ahhhh….why the fuck is it shaking?!….Haha, so I was at my parents’ house a while back and I managed to find a whole stash of all my old magazines that I used to collect. Back then, I used to buy pretty much all the magazines that were out but followed Import Tuner the most. When I do these posts, sometimes it’s basically impossible to find any pics of the cars I wanna talk about because they’re usually about 10 years old and any picture of them is probably long gone. For example, I brought up Kash Singh’s widebody Accord awhile back and struggled to find images of it. Now as you can see from above, I have the issue in hand with Aiko Tanaka on the cover and all…I also dug up the 2nd photo album that I was looking for. When I found the first one, some pics were missing and I was thinking that another album must be somewhere in my room and sure enough, here it is…

The first car and mag that I wanted to bring up before all the others is the June 1999 issue of the now defunct Turbo magazine. On the cover, as you can see from the top right corner of the picture, was the H22-powered, 531hp Top Fuel EK Civic…

Back in 1999 I was still a diehard Toyota-guy and also still in highschool. A Honda wasn’t anywhere near my plans for the future so the only time I really looked at them was when I flipped through a magazine. I think this EK might possibly be the reason why I fell in love with Hondas. Something about it was just so raw…

This feature was probably also one of the first time the U.S. was introduced to the Buddy Club bodykit. Whether you liked it back then or not, there’s no denying that this kit was probably one of the most popular of all time. I remember I went to a show once, probably an Autofest in San Diego, and there was a whole row of cars all rocking Buddy Club front bumpers. Of course they weren’t all real, kits were one of the first things to be copied and knocked-off but that represented the true popularity of the look at that time. Shit, of all the Buddy Club kits out there, I bet 90% of them weren’t real. They were all over the place. On Escorts and Sentras and shit,…EVERYWHERE.

This thing was serious…It made 531whp with an H22A and IHI RX-6 turbo. One of the signatures of this EK was the A’PEXi Skyline intercooler core. It might even be the first thing anyone noticed. It probably wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say that this EK was the inspiration behind the Team Rice EK as both used Skyline cores…

Advan RGs will always be one of my favorite wheels of all time. Seeing them on the Top Fuel EK is probably one of the reasons why. It was definitely on my list of wheels to own in my lifetime and when I found a set in 2006, I knew I had to have them. Sure RG2s are great wheels but they won’t ever come close to the original RGs in my eyes….

If you brought this car out today, it would probably still be a beast. There’s  nothing really outdated on it per say, the Buddy Club kit maybe but it’s functional on this car. People nowadays are still searching for a mint set of RGs, Top Fuel as a whole is probably a much bigger name than it was back in 1999, and the turbo H22 would probably be a built n’ boosted K20R. If anything it’s the prime example of a timeless build. Most people today are still trying to reach these types of numbers and trying to get ahold of the parts on this EK. If this thing were to arrive at a show or meet, guys would act like giddy little school girls in anticipation of catching a glimpse at it. A crazy thought considering it’s been almost 10 years since it graced the pages of Turbo…

Oh and if you were wondering…I intentionally didn’t scan the pics because of two things: 1. I fucking hate scanning shit cuz it’s so tedious and time consuming. 2. I fucking hate macs even more and that’s the only computer I have here that has a scanner. The images above probably look better than scanning it and them turning out all huge and grainy anyway…