It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these… For those that don’t know, I’ve collected some images over the years from various car features and events from the past which I’ve kept for my own private archives. I decided to upload them up on the site periodically to pay homage to some of these builds as well as offer a glimpse into the past for the current generation of car enthusiasts to study and enjoy. There have been times when I think that photos like these were lacking because either the images weren’t very common to the public back then or were uploaded to sites but the servers had since gone dead, making them no longer available for viewing…

Many of these photos are also from print features that are also very hard to come by unless you actually collected car magazines during those years. I have a pretty sizable collection of tuner magazines as well but I just don’t have time lately to really go through them. This whole “Archive” series is pretty difficult to build just because images are so hard to get a hold of in 2015. Last year, my buddy Gene Tjin of Tjin Edition-fame sent me a whole stack of CDs that he had kept during his years shooting feature cars for HCI Magazine. Both Tjin brothers were heavily involved in putting that magazine together back when it was around so they had built a pretty big collection of images. Unfortunately, many of the images that have been burned into these old CDs no longer work. Many are corrupted because of age but luckily, I was able to salvage some of it. The images that did work I went and took the time to converting over to my PC and then re-editing them. These photos were all in RAW format so they were straight from the camera that Gene was shooting with at that time. Technology has changed quite a bit since those days so I had to reprocess these images for use on the web to match what you’d be used to seeing in 2015. I was pretty happy that Gene was so helpful and was willing to offer up his images and I hope that someday I could maybe get some more from other photographers out there who were shooting during the early 2000s. I’m not getting my hopes up but you just never know. I actually did some shooting myself back then but it was with an incredibly shitty 4 Megapixel camera that was considered “decent” for that time. All those images went into my PC that one day crashed and sadly, I lost all the data. In any case, we have guys like Gene Tjin who were smart and actually backed up their work…

With that said, today, we’re going to take a look back at one of his and his brother’s personal projects that was actually one of my favorite builds from that era. I don’t remember the exact timeline but if I remember correctly, this car debuted roughly around 2005-2006ish. It had a great run and was one of the more recognizable import builds out here in the West Coast during that time. The Tjin brothers were already on a great roll by then and were producing great cars but for me, this was probably their best work. I loved everything about it. We didn’t have that many Skylines floating around then and it was just insane to see a ER34 Skyline Sedan with a full URAS widebody kit on it and a fully-built RB26 GTR motor. The bay was tucked away and incredibly well-done and the car was just incredible. Many would even say that it was ahead of its time because it is just one of those builds that would still be very relevant today. The last time I saw the car was when the Tjin brothers brought it out for my two-year anniversary event in 2010. It was in its final, more subtle, light gray-stage by then and I believe they sold that car the following year. My favorite stage of the car will always be when it first debut in its two-toned BASF green colorway. I will always remember seeing the car for the first time at a Showoff Classic event and that feeling of awe that I felt looking over the car. You just didn’t see many builds that were that intricate back then. It even had air jacks and everything…

Below are photos of the ER34 Skyline during both its green stage as well as the later black/gold/cranberry stage. Gene Tjin shot these images for various features that ran years ago but I have since taken the RAW images and processed them for use here on The Chronicles’ Archive Series. I didn’t do anything crazy with them. Just some quick edit work and tone adjustments. Again, this was one of those instances where the CD was filled with many images that were corrupted so these are the best shots that I could salvage. Either way, I think it is pretty awesome to be able to see these shots again in high-resolution in 2015. Enjoy…

For reference, CLICK HERE to see the Tjin Edition ER34 Skyline in its final stage before it was sold….

PHOTOS BY GENE TJIN (2006 and 2007)
POST-PROCESSING BY STICKYDILJOE (2015)