What’s up everyone. I’m knee deep in a shitload of emails and FB messages and what not regarding the YEAR//FIVE event this weekend but I wanted to get some new content up for you guys to look over until then. I want to remind everyone that many of the questions you may be wondering about or wanting to ask me about in regards to the event are already answered above in the link at the top of this page entitled “YEAR//FIVE ANNIVERSARY REGISTRATION/FAQ“. Please look through it before sending me any emails or Facebook messages about the event, thanks…

Today, we’re going to be taking a look at some unpublished photos from one of my favorite all-time Honda builds that I had the pleasure of shooting for Super Street earlier this year. Much like Steve Kwan’s Super Street feature, I started out wanting to shoot the car with no intentions of having them published in print. I was on a business trip in Seattle, WA and had some time to spare, so I wanted to shoot some of these great builds for The Chronicles. Both Toto and Steve’s builds are some of the best ever in terms of well-rounded Honda builds so it was a real pleasure to see them in person finally. I wanted to make sure that I had at least some shots of their cars before I came back home to California and they ended up being full-on, detailed, photo sessions. When I got home, I showed some samples of the photos to Super Street editor-in-chief Jonathan Wong and he liked them so much that he wanted to run them in the magazine. They had both been featured in print prior but it’s been a couple of years so JDM Wong felt that it was a good time for a refresher and to show some of the newer generation what great Honda builds should look like. What you should understand about Toto De Leon’s Civic is that it was built years ago and has just been carefully maintained over the years. He’s currently rebuilding the entire car I believe but his Civic has stood basically in the same condition since around 05-06. That is a testament to the quality of his build and proof that De Leon was a little ahead of his time as his car would still be very “current” in relation to what you see now in the Honda community…

I love everything about this car, from the parts selection, to his color choices, and most importantly, his overall execution. Everything comes together and flows very well. Another interesting tidbit that I should add is that this is Toto’s first car. Meaning that he purchased this Civic brand new and has been modding it ever since. That’s great to know considering how many fly-by-night builds you see these days where people build the cars quickly, get them featured in magazines, and then part them out right after. Toto has never been about that life. He’s built his car for himself and has always been a quiet guy who really just keeps to himself. If it weren’t for other people being anxious to get photos of his Civic, you probably wouldn’t know all that much about it because he rarely ever posts photos of anything. Today we get an opportunity to see it in detail. Admittedly, the shots aren’t the greatest but again, they weren’t ever meant to be shot for print. They were just photos I shot for fun and you can see that I was running out of natural sunlight by the time I finished the shoot…

As always, these are not only the unpublished shots, but also included are the digital versions of the same photos that you saw in his November 2013 feature in Super Street magazine. Click on the photos to take you to larger versions of the photos. Save them for your own personal collection but if you plan on reposting them, please do not alter them in any way. I’m strongly considering just disabling the download feature altogether in the future because people love using these photos for their own personal gain. All these lame ass Instagram accounts now where all they do is post content that doesn’t belong to them in an effort to make money off merchandise that is advertising their IG accounts. It’s the newest form of digital piracy and it is getting worse by the day…

Anyways, thanks for looking and enjoy the photos….

Thanks for looking…