I actually need to get some sleep but I thought I’d pass these along so you guys have something to look at for the weekend. If you plan to go to HIN today, here is just a small sample of what you’ll see at the event. Maybe you guys can even look at these while you wait in line or some shit, I don’t know…haha. I got there around 1:30pm Friday to help Tony from It’s JDM Yo!! set-up his booth as well as check out some of the cars there. I like to go to look at the cars during the set-up portion of the event because the HIN shows are typically very dark and hard to photograph. I’m sure you guys all know that by now and I’m sure you all know the random mix of cars that tend to be displayed at the event. I’ll pass on my thoughts after the show itself is over but today we will just take a look at a small batch of what I saw there…

There really wasn’t much since we got there so early and it was a Friday afternoon. People were either still at work or stuck in rush hour traffic and didn’t get there until later in the evening. I didn’t stick around too long because I was hungry and had other shit to do but even still, I ended up staying for about 3 hours. There aren’t too many shots but it was good practice either way. I’m still getting used to this new camera so I figured HIN would be a good test bed since I could try to figure out how to shoot with this thing in low light situations. I guess we will see after the show if I figured it out or not. There’s a strong possibility that the photos will come out like total garbage but oh well, chalk it up as a learning experience…

If you guys are planning on going I think the show starts earlier this year around 3pm. I’d go as early as possible to avoid lines and crazy parking and all that shit… pretend I’m saying something else important in this sentence and then look down for the photos…

Here’s the South Hall of the LA Convention Center when I arrived to help set-up. The wide angle makes the building look larger than it really is. This year’s HIN looked smaller than ever and a show that once filled up the entire South Hall has now been divided and only fills up 1/3 of the hall….

First car I spotted there during roll-in was this E-AT Civic from Street Lights. I’d never seen it before and was really impressed by how clean it was. I would have gone with something more era-specific than Mugen NR Mirror Faces but I’m just nitpicking. Overall it’s a great looking E-AT….I’d be lying though if I didn’t wish there were some NR10Rs on it, haha… hell, maybe even CF-48s…

Mike Mao cruised up to set-up his NSX at the It’s JDM Yo!! booth…

Eulises Torre’s S2000 rolled up with Mike as well… In the background are the Hondas that will be on display at the Street Lights booth…

Tony and crew trying to figure out how to arrange the cars. They would also be showing with two cars from Team Praxis but those guys wouldn’t arrive until later in the evening…

Thought this was a cool shot with the nearly empty building in the distance…

Last year, Tony had a booth right in the middle of the event. This time around, his booth was placed right up front by the entrance…

Spotted this Sorcery NSX that I had not previously encountered before…It’s got some cool things about it and some other really random things done to it…

Type R stickers and rear badge kind of throws the car off. One really interesting thing about this NSX was the supercharged and rear hatch set-up…

As you can see, the rear hatch glass has been removed and replaced with a metal mesh sheet with the supercharge protruding out of it along with a air scoop and filter…Even has an antenna on the top of the scoop too. You can’t see it at this angle but there’s also a third brake light or something mounted to the scoop…

Even more random were the rear taillights. The owner kept the center garnish but then proceeded to create his own taillights… In a lot of ways this thing is really cool but I can’t help but scratch my head when I look at the car as a whole…

Orange R35 GTR on Venaci wheels from R-Rydes…

I haven’t seen a VeilSide Fortune-kitted NSX in a long time so I had to take a closer look at this one. Strange how you wouldn’t see more than one, maybe two, NSXs at an event at any given time and there were already four spotted that day during roll-in. The other one I saw was red like Mike Mao’s but it had a different aero kit…

The kit isn’t for everyone but you have to admit that it’s kind of cool. You don’t really see VeilSide stuff around much anymore. They have their Premier 4509 line that is geared towards exotics and you’re likely to see that more often than an original VeilSide kit at a show these days…This particular NSX even had the carbon fiber VeilSide steering wheel as well. I’ll try to get a photo of it tomorrow but no guarantees since it’ll be pretty dark inside the venue tomorrow… All this thing is missing is the VeilSide rear wing and Andrews Racing wheels and you’d think it was straight from Japan…

Always thought there was too much going on with this S2000 but I like the new SSR Professor SP1 wheels…

Another shot of Mike’s NSX on custom Mugen MF10s…

Long Beach reppin’ on the valve cover…

There weren’t too many cars inside the building at that point but I think even after the show is all said and done, this blown Chevy El Camino SS will be one of my favorites of the event… I overhead a conversation the owner had with some other guy and he mentioned that this thing was on air suspension…

The biggest WTF car at HIN on Friday was actually a Cadillac Escalade ESV with Rolls Royce Phantom front end but the car you’re about to see had me totally confused for a good ten minutes. I just couldn’t figure out what it was until I got a good look at the interior…

Introducing… THE BENTLEX!! Pow pow pow… Bentley front end conversion…

…Lexus LS460 rear end conversion… I didn’t make up the name either, you can see in this shot that the license plate actually bears that name…. Notice the window minus the pillar… fucking crazy looking car…

Sitting on some massive TIS Modular wheels with custom rear flared quarters… There is so much work on this thing that it’s ridiculous…I’m gonna let you guys guess what this car originally was and the winner will receive two Autocon 2012 tickets. Make sure you head over to The Chronicles Facebook page to post your guesses… There will be a section for you guys to post your guesses…

That’s all I got from that day… stay tuned for more coverage from the actual day of the show… Thanks for looking…