It’s really nice to see and hear all the positive responses I’ve been getting from the whole concept of this “ARCHIVES” series. The idea was just a little random like everything else that I do but I’m happy that it is working out. We are just one post into THE ARCHIVES but everyone seems to be excited about what is to come. I’m sure it helped that we kicked things off with a great build like Neema Tabrizi’s but I promise you that there is still a ton of great, classic, content to come. I’ll bring you guys some show coverage, some more old print features that never transitioned back to digital media until now, and who knows, maybe there will be some more surprises along the way. I just want to be able to give you guys a look back into some of the history of our community with great re-mastered photos. Don’t get me wrong, I love how everything has progressed over the years but I do feel at time that I really miss the “good ol’ days” and how some cars were built before. As I’ve said before, a truly timeless build will always be relevant in our community and will continue to be a source of inspiration for years to come…

For today’s look back into THE ARCHIVES, Gene Tjin has come through huge once again with another great feature from 2006. This feature dropped a month after Neema’s did in the now defunct HCI Magazine and details one of my favorite EF Honda builds ever. Back in 2005/06, I was deep in the midst of building my CB Accord and was all about the chassis. I always loved how Civics and Integras looked in general when they were done right but I never really did have a deep appreciation for the EF chassis until later on. Now I absolutely love them and everything about them and one of the key reasons why I really started to turn my attention towards the EF platform was because of Ferd Natividad’s Civic build. Ferd aka “FERDONE” is an original member of ATS Garage and this EF was one of the builds that really helped to put that crew on the proverbial map, so to speak. Like me, a lot of guys who were never into EFs before really took a liking to Ferd’s build and even a ton of non-Honda guys later became Honda-faithful because of it. Gene even mentioned that this was one of his favorites at that time and I think at that point he wasn’t really messing around with Hondas either. Ferd’s grown-up a lot since then and his projects have become much more intricate and detailed but it is great to see one of his older builds to remind him and us of where he came from. If you don’t know, he finally debuted his Integra this year at Wekfest San Jose (CLICK HERE) and once again received an overwhelming amount of positive responses. He’s always had a very good sense of style and with some help from Fred Chapman, their execution has always been top-notch on all of their builds. With his EF build, I really liked his color selection and how everything comes together. On paper, you really wouldn’t think that the tan, white, red, blue, yellow, and a little bit of green would all work together but when used with subtlety, it all just flows seamlessly. Ferd took a minimalist approach to this classic chassis and really made it his own. Many have attempted to replicate this look years later but all the die-hard Honda enthusiasts all know of this car (better known as “Peanut”) and have a great deal of respect for it. Today, we get to relive this build once again in remastered, high-quality, digital format. What you’ll recognize (if you don’t already) is that all of the ATS Garage builds have a sense of uniformity about them, in that they all sort of “match”, if you get what I’m trying to say. Take a moment to think about how all of their cars look now as a group and how they all looked like back then and you’ll realize that the cars flow together as a package. It really makes them look like a true car crew because mostly all of them work on their cars together so they are all mostly executed in a very similar fashion. I’m sure it doesn’t need to be mentioned but this EF was also a major inspiration for another ATS Garage EF build that came a couple years later. “Rusty”, ATS Mike Jones’ EF project, is about as close to Ferd’s EF as we will get in 2013…that is, until the day that “Peanut” is resurrected…. Enjoy the photos guys and thanks once again to Gene Tjin for not only supplying the photos, but also allowing me to process and re-edit them for the site…

As always, click on the photos if you want larger versions of them. Please do not alter them in any way or remove my watermarks and repost them on your own page as your own. It takes time to bring these photos back from the dead and to clean them up so it would be a shame for you to alter them in any way without my expressed permission.

If you missed any of the other posts from “THE ARCHIVES” series, I’ve attached the links below for you for viewing…

THE ARCHIVES: Neema Tabrizi’s Honda Civic From HCI Magazine Sept. 2006…

Thanks for looking! More to come from “THE ARCHIVES” soon….