Wekfest Houston 2018 Coverage… Part 1…

By stickydiljoeOctober 18, 2018

The Houston leg of the Wekfest tour was particularly interesting. Last year, because of the hurricanes that hit that region, the Wekfest event was delayed completely and pushed back until December. That sent us to another venue altogether and things just felt out of place. Sure, we saw many of the same faces and cars but being at NRG Stadium during the holiday season just felt….off. Houston is usually one of our best shows annually so when everything fell into place and we found ourselves back at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Downtown Houston, we were excited. I think the vibe is just so different there because there just seems to be so much going on surrounding us with Minute Maid park and the Toyota Center within walking distance. It also helped that we got to get a little bit more sleep than on our other stops on the tour because the hotel we stay at in Houston is physically connected to the convention hall where the show takes place…

For the most part, it has been a great run for Wekfest in 2018. We celebrated ten years and the last few shows have been pretty spectacular. Morale is high, everyone seems to be in good spirits and Houston seemed like it would be amazing. Other than the hurricane last year, this show has always gone incredibly smoothly, so with everything set in place as it should, there’s no way things could go wrong, right? We go in with confidence, hit that proverbial homerun, and then watch that ball sail out of the park and go home happy…. or so we thought…

An hour before the show started, things felt a little weird. It seemed like a big chunk of the show was missing as many cars who had registered and paid for their spots were nowhere to be found. We’d concentrated so hard on making enough space for everyone to park and the back end of the building was absent of vehicles. What happened? We asked ourselves. Even many Houston residents and regular show attendees were left scratching their heads. Not that the quality of cars were lacking, just the cars themselves were…about a 100 of them to be exact. Chatting with some Houston locals, we’d heard that things had been a little sketchy down there lately. A few had notified us that people were walking around purposely putting nails and screws under peoples’ tires to sabotage them, for no particular reason other than to fuck with people, and it had been a growing problem in recent time. Houston is always a little interesting so theft was also something people were worried about. Earlier that morning, someone who was on their way to the show from a nearby hotel was actually car-jacked at gunpoint! How crazy is that? You hear about these things but never really understand the gravity of them until they actually happen, and I think that situations like that might have spooked some people from coming to the show from out of town. People were worried about where to put their cars because they were legitimately scared of getting robbed. The biggest issue, however, was the hurricane that had hit the South-Eastern region of the country. Some cars either couldn’t escape the crazy weather or they were just too scared to drive through the storm. We were notified that there were some cars that were just held up in traffic even from the storm that had hit and some cars were even totalled from accidents due to it. One of the familiar faces this year at the Wekfest events, a guy named Yoel who brings his Mugen-themed Integra Type R to most of our stops, narrowly escaped the storm and made it to the show. All these outside factors ultimately didn’t change the feel of the show too much, as it was still a great event, but we did notice a few familiar faces that weren’t there to showcase their vehicles, and that’s something that changes the following year. I’ve always been very high on the car community out in Texas and I hope things improve for them in terms of the theft and vandalism. That’s something that will ruin any car community if it continues to go further. Just ask Florida how detrimental it was for them to have to deal with so much theft. It’s crazy…

In any case, we made the most of our trip to Houston. We ate plenty, visited a shop, attended the annual Wekfest Pre-Meet hosted by our friends from Mayday Garage, and had a blast at the show. Below is Part 1 of 3. Enjoy…

One of our first stops this trip was to check out Shinku Classics, a shop out in Houston that deals specifically in importing vehicles from Japan to the U.S. They had some cool stuff there but the car that caught my eye was this white NSX on Advan Sienna Generation II wheels which once was a shop car from Advance, a popular NSX tuning company in Japan. It now resides in Houston with the guys at Shinku Classics. I didn’t take many photos here but I did cover a lot of it in an upcoming Vlog I’m planning on uploading this weekend…

The following afternoon was the official Wekfest Pre-Meet, hosted by the guys fro Mayday Garage at The New Potato, a new location for the meet out in downtown Houston from previous years. One of the cars posted front and center was this Ferrari 348TS with an Rauh Welt Begriff kit, which is only one of two in existence. The two widebody Ferraris were actually put together by Akira Nakai for himself and a friend years ago. One was later gifted to one of his closest (We saw it last year at Osaka Auto Messe with a ‘Supreme’ livery on it) and the other one was sold and resides in Houston. Both have the same SSR Professor MS1 wheels and kit, both are also red…

Lexus SC coupe wearing some BN Sports aero cruising down the block…

Following close behind was a fully-caged Onevia also sporting BN aero…

Another angle of the RWB Ferrari 348, with food trucks in the back serving up the eats for Pre-Meet attendees…

I wonder how this guy got around on the rougher parts of the streets downtown, sitting so low on mismatched wheels and big aero…

One of my favorite cars of the entire weekend was this BN Sports-equipped R32 Skyline sedan running an S15 SR20DET swap and bronze Volk TEs…

Another favorite was this beautiful Lexus IS300 Sportcross bagged on gold BBS LM wheels. I have a particular affection for the Sportcross so I always enjoy tastefully modded variations…

Sufficient amount of vents for maximum cooling efficiency…

Super cool 1985 Toyota Mark II Wagon sitting on rare, rebuilt, 15-inch SSR Casablanca wheels…

Porsche 993 on classic BBS E88 wheels…

White JZA80 Supra Turbo running a Ridox front bumper, TRD hood, front fenders, and sides, along with a set of gold-faced limited edition 19-inch Top Secret Volk Racing TE37 wheels…

Black turbocharged Supra running what looks to be a Wings West front lip…

A couple of guys hanging out by an NA1 NSX in red running CCW Classic wheels…

John Peterson from Mayday Garage having a quick chat with Brad Burnett in his 280Z…

Wide over fenders that wrap all the way down to the body line, painted a satin black to offset the satin white paint and bronze RS Watanabe wheels…

Golden hour in the beautiful city of Houston, Texas…

Nothing but good vibes…

We stuck around for a little bit before heading out to dinner and calling it a night. The next morning, we were up bright and early for the annual Wekfest Houston event…

One of the first cars to roll-in that morning was an NSX that we had become familiar with just days before…

Still can’t get over how great those Advan Sienna Gen. II wheels look in those specs…

NA2 face with just a simple front lip, small front splitter, carbon canards, and vented hood…

Turbocharged LS-swapped S14 Kouki from Team Apokalypse…

George R. Brown is definitely one of my favorite places to shoot at with the grungy environment and early morning sun peeking through the pillars of the highway overpass…

Interesting to see this Skyline sedan here as it isn’t usually a ‘show car’ per se, and just recently competed at the Super D drift event in the Midwest…

It’s been a long road for Ricky and his EF. Nice to see its continued evolution and great to see it at its most current state, sitting nice and low with a meaty Toyo tire set-up paried with black TEs…