Exclusive Content: Unpublished Photos Of Chris Ortez/Marcus Cooke’s G35s From Super Street Dec. ’12…

By stickydiljoeNovember 27, 2012 ( 4 )

Haven’t done one of these in awhile but I guess today would be as good a time as any. We finally finished off the annual SEMA show coverage yesterday but today, we’re going to be continuing the non-Honda theme by taking a look at some unpublished photos from a Super Street feature I completed a couple months back. You most likely saw it in the winter issue (Dec. 2012) of Super Street but the latest issue has dropped and that means that I can drop these extra shots off here on the site. I first spotted these two G35 sedans towards the early/middle part of 2012 at a car show down here in Socal. I’ve always liked the G35 chassis but it seemed that the coupe always got more attention than the sedans and I mean, it’s no surprise. The coupe was the sportier of the two with two less doors than the sedan and sedans in general have always been seen as more of a “family” car than a modifiable tuner chassis. Marcus and Chris’ G35 sedans are the definition of what I feel represented a growing community without much of a voice. These last couple of years, the G35 platform has become more readily available on the used car market and that’s why you see more of them at events. The coupes have been popular for quite some time now, particularly in the sub-community that loves “stance” and all things related to aggressive wheel fitment. The sedans have slowly picked-up steam but are still not nearly has popular with the 18-30 group as their 2-door counterparts. Because many of the coupe builds you see are just solely dedicated to wheel fitment, you don’t see very many G35s in magazines, whether they be coupes or sedans. At the end of the day, it is still very important that publications feature well-rounded vehicles and it’s sad to say, but there just aren’t many well-rounded G35 builds out there….

When I pitched these two cars to Super Street, I did so because I felt that these were very thorough, well thought out builds. It didn’t matter to me that they were sedans but the fact that they were made their builds that much more unique. I thought that it would be a good way to show the country that these cars were worth building and I think that Chris and Marcus were the perfect representatives to do that. I hadn’t spoken or even met Marcus Cooke or Chris Ortez up until that day when I shot their cars, other than via email, but I couldn’t think of two nicer car guys to feature. Marcus is a very meticulous guy who is very into minor details and it shows in his car. If you were to speak to him for more than a couple of minutes, you’d be able to tell right away that he’s very well-spoken and quite knowledgeable about cars, despite his G35 being his first build. Chris, ironically enough, used to be a Honda guy himself and used to own an EJ1 coupe like DPK David’s. I brought David along to help me out and these guys were talking Hondas most of the time. They even recognized eachother’s screennames from various Honda forums. Chris’ sedan represents more of a sportier-themed G35 while Marcus’ carries more of a luxury/sport motif…

The coolest thing about putting this feature together was getting to know both of them and how much they had in common, despite their geographical origins, family upbringing, and the fact that one is a L.A. Dodgers fan, while the other is a Giants die hard. It was an enjoyable experience putting their feature together and writing their stories and it didn’t even feel like work. I will admit though, that I had some trouble shooting the two cars together at the same time because we just ran out of time. I also had some equipment issues which forced me to move the shoot to the late afternoon instead of the morning and by the time I was 75% finished, it was completely pitch black at our location. I went home and was kind of bummed about the photos so I arranged to meet up with them separately the next week to re-shoot certain shots that I wasn’t happy with. In the end, it came out pretty good and I was content with the final outcome…

Below are a mix of photos. Most of them were unpublished photos that ended up not making the cut to print and the others are the digital versions of what you saw in the December 2012 issue of Super Street. I’ve also attached some behind-the-scenes shots at the end, some I think I may have posted before, some I have saved until now. Also, there are links under each photo for larger resolution versions as well as some 1080p-sized desktop images for you guys…

The print feature started off with Chris Ortez’s G35 so today, we’re gonna kick things off with shots of Marcus Cooke’s G sedan…

Larger Version (1400×933) | Desktop Version (1920×1080)

As seen in print in Super Street’s December 2012 feature titled “Opposites Attract” | Larger Version (1400×933)

Unpublished shot… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Unpublished…probably because it was hard to see the ARC oil cooler behind the mesh grille… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Unused engine bay shot… | Larger Version (1400×933)

This was the shot they ended up using in the spread… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Unpublished detail shot of the polished front timing cover… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Unpublished photo of the polished APS tallboy intake plenum and ARC titanium strut bar… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Really would have been cool if these detail shots would have made it into the feature but being that the story covered two cars, it was hard to find adequate space to fit everything into the spread | Larger Version (1400×933)

Another unused detail shot of the oil catch and coolant overflow tanks… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Published photo of Cooke’s Tanabe Medalion exhaust… | Larger Version (1400×933)

A shot of the front 19×9.5in SSR Professor SP1 that never made it to print… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Published shot of the Wilwood big brakes… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Unused shot of Cooke’s rear 19×10.5in SSR SP1… | Larger Version (1400×933)

This was the wheel shot that made the cut… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Rear quarter shot that went to print… | Larger Version (1400×933)

The rest are shots of Chris Ortez’s white G35 6-speed sedan…

Unpublished shot that I took the second time we met up. You can tell because Marcus’ shots are with the sun setting in the back while a majority of Ortez’s photos were when the sun was coming up…. | Larger Version (1400×933)

Another unpublished front quarter shot… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Unused front bumper shot showcasing Ortez’s ARC oil cooler… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Published engine bay photo… | Larger Version (1400×933)

The one that didn’t make it… | Larger Version (1400×933)

More detail shots that just didn’t fit into the print feature… | Larger Version (1400×933)

A lot of the times, the stories are trimmed to fit more photos but since the story was of both cars and both owners, the photos had to be sacrificed for the sake of story telling… | Larger Version (1400×933)

This went unused as well but I’m sure people quickly recognized the underlying theme of the engine bay… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Abbey Road Company everywhere…This too was unused | Larger Version (1400×933)

Unpublished engine bay shot from yet another angle…I took a variety of angles just to give the staff some options depending on how they wanted to lay out the story… | Larger Version (1400×933)

A shot of Ortez’s Bride Stradia II buckets that didn’t make the cut… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Snap of the custom Bride door panels that wasn’t used… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Unpublished photo of the Bride-wrapped rear seats and custom Bride baby seat. The one you saw in print was actually a vertically cropped shot and not wide like this photo… | Larger Version (1400×933)

This was the interior shot that ended up in the print feature… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Would have been cool if this shot of Chris’ rare Nismo 6MT cluster made it to print… | Larger Version (1400×933)

You can see some of the old Honda influence in Ortez’s build with the use of black suede and red stitching. In this unpublished shot, you can see his custom wrapped center console, shift boot, and Tommy Kaira Hebi Bebi shift knob… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Unpublished rear exterior shot… | Larger Version (1400×933)

This was the shot that went to print… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Uncropped version of the wheel shot that was published… | Larger Version (1400×933)

Below are some behind-the-scenes photos that I took randomly during the shoot. I always like to get a couple of these to throw up here on the site…

Random capture while I was getting a shot of Chris’ engine bay with the duo putting Marcus’ hood back on his G35… | Larger Version (1400×933)

DPK David was actually standing somewhere in the background in this shot by the truck but I cloned him out of the shot to make it a better photo of the car and owner…If you look closely you can probably see where I ‘shopped him out. I didn’t spend too much time on it so it wasn’t the cleanest work… | Larger Version (1400×933)

My strobes were acting up at one point during the shoot and this outtake actually came out pretty cool, despite the lights not working and all the natural light that crept in… | Larger Version (1400×933)