Autocon 2011 Coverage…Part 1….

By stickydiljoeDecember 13, 2011 ( 10 )

Damn…I took a lot of photos at this event. I’d hope to be done going through all of them by now but there’s still a gigantic chunk of it in my memory card that I have yet to touch. I know many of you have come on here the last couple days since the event to see coverage so let’s just go ahead and kick it off today. I’m going into this not really knowing how many parts there will be, but it’ll definitely be more than just 2-3 parts. How I ended up taking that many photos I don’t know, but I think I did a pretty good job of covering the event. Obviously there is some stuff I missed but seeing as how I had a booth at this show, I think you will get a pretty good idea of how this show was…

Now my thoughts on the event…Hmm…I know many of you have already heard about the lack of organization and how the roll-in process was anything less than “hassle-free”. It probably was, I don’t really know because I got there early and set-up right away. A lot of people came by to the booth and brought it up to me, probably in hopes that I would mention it when I posted up the coverage. For all intents and purposes, shit, I have to say right now that it was a great event. I didn’t go last year because I made other plans, but I don’t think missing out on the 2010 Autocon show had any effect on how I felt about this year’s. Foot traffic was great, there was a diverse crowd of cars,…I don’t know, it looked to me as if it went well. If this was an event that I was putting on I’d be pretty happy with it. Okay, roll-in was probably a pain and I did notice how it was kind of unorganized, but you almost have to expect it with guys that are fairly new to putting on events like these. It was definitely under-staffed, but that can be alleviated pretty easily by just hiring more people. Organization just comes with better planning, and as time progresses, I think Justin Fong and staff will get better at it with time. It’s okay to bitch about it as long as you understand that it’s not something that can’t be fixed. I had a good time and it seemed as if everyone else did too.

There were some pretty beat ass looking cars that I don’t think should have been there but I don’t believe there was a screening process so it’s not like you can prevent people from PAYING YOU to show up, you know what I mean? Autocon is off to a good start….will it continue to get better? I would certainly hope so. Will they ever be as big as Wekfest and the other top tier shows of this current generation? Ehh, I don’t know if I want that to happen. I’m cool with the success and all but isn’t this show designed to be for a good cause? Justin originally put on this event as a simultaneously running toy drive. People bring in toys and gifts for children that are less fortunate during the holiday season. If this does turn into a major event, do they just continue to do toy drives at every location they go to, even if it’s not during the holidays? And if they don’t do they just move on as a major car show, leaving behind the original intent of the show itself? It’s kind of a grey area… I mean, if they abandon the whole Toys for Tots things, it would seem as if they used it as a stepping stone to move on and expand the Autocon name, and that doesn’t seem right at all…I don’t know….For now, I think we should all just be happy that this event was a success and everyone there enjoyed it. I also liked the idea of having all the food trucks outside the whole day. That I know for sure took some careful planning and it helped that people didn’t have to be there all day without food or eating some crappy, dry, convention center food…

Anyways, let’s move onto the coverage. Today we will be taking a look at the roll-in early that Saturday. I wouldn’t know about how painful roll-in was because I got there early and went in with It’s JDM Yo!!! Tony. If anything, if it was pain-free for me because I didn’t have to wait long and I took the spare time I had and shot photos…There are a lot of random photos mixed in with the cars because I had a booth and I tried not to leave it after it was set-up. Everything that you are seeing in the first couple parts are just things that happened around me and stuff I could capture from a distance….Enjoy… If you don’t like it, go log onto some other blog where they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about and have no comprehension of sentence structure…

We rolled out early in the morning and got there around 7:30am. I had no idea where It’s JDM Yo!! Tony was so I just pulled my camera out and started shooting until he came and got us…This yellow BMW M5 on HREs was one of the first cars I spotted…

First generation Toyota Celica waiting in line to roll-in…

You can see here how the R35 GT-R dwarfs the original Mini Cooper….

Evo X on CCW Classics…

I’m a big fan of the Powerhouse Amuse kit on the 370Zs…I liked how this owner added the black on the sideskirts to add some contrast and also to match the black lines of the front…

BMW E46 M3 on CCW Classics…I’m not gonna lie, Autocon 2011 was probably the only show other than Import Alliance this year where I saw this many sets of CCWs…Most of them were found on BMWs too, which was really interesting because I never thought CCWs were that popular in the BMW community….

Big Mike used Autocon 2011 as a platform to officially debut his new look…You haven’t seen his car at various meets/shows lately because he’s been busy getting his Chargespeed lip molded to his front bumper, color-matching his mirrors, and getting his wheels powdercoated a high gloss black…

I eventually found Tony…he was busy going over the floorplan with one of the Autocon staffers with Freddie from Autofashion and we rolled into the venue soon-after…

Once we got inside, we waited to see where they wanted our booths to be set-up so I continued shooting…

Ryan Deguzman’s FD3s RX-7 cruising in…

DPK David posted up next to my crappy 4Runner…

The guns and DTA theme I get…what I don’t understand is why you would put crappy Varrstoen wheels on a Porsche…and I don’t really give a shit about the sponsorship argument either…

Buddy Club Honda Fit show/sometimes track car…

Andrew Lim’s DPE S20 wheels on his gold Toyota Supra…

Matte red BMW 5-series wagon from VIP Modular wheels…

S2000 on teal BBS LMs…

TSX on mag blue Volk Racing RE30s…

Another shot of the BMW wagon next to Team Praxis Jimmy’s FJ Cruiser…

Nimbus Grey BMW on custom bronze BBS LM…

We checked the weather forecast early that morning before we left and it showed that it was going to be a pretty cold day… May was all dressed in her winter gear but then we arrived to the venue and the sun started to beat down and it was actually getting pretty warm…

VIP Y34 Infiniti M45…

Another shot of the M3 on Classics…the one parked directly next to it looked almost identical to this one…

Stanced-out DB Integra on some black steel wheels…

Ly Say’s Acura TSX on Work S1R…

Jamarri Whiteside’s award-winning Subaru STI from Auto Concept Elite… This build just won “Best of Show” at Hot Import Nights just a week prior to Autocon 2011…

Auto Concept Elite’s ENEOS-themed widebody R35 GT-R…

Big Mike’s Scion xB…haha…just playing, but they share a similar tone…

Justin and Autocon had advertised that there were free hot-air balloon rides that day and sure enough, there was…

Man, I fucking loved this Toyota Tundra on Volk TE37s…That truck couldn’t look any better…

Scion xB on air and BBS wheels…

Big Mike prepping his Prelude…

Slammed Lexus SC300 from Royal Origin (I think…)….

Chivas rolled out from Vegas with his orange EM1…I just recently finished a story on this coupe for a future Honda Tuning feature so keep an eye out for that…