Wekfest San Jose was a whole movie…literally…


Wekfest San Jose was a whole movie…literally…

This would happen the moment I land…

A friendly reminder…

As I get older, I’ve learned to appreciate the more subtle moments. Like moments you’d disregard or just accept as normal when you’re young. Something as simple as just going on a short cruise with your friends in the cars you don’t have much time for anymore. When you’re younger it’s just like an every day thing or an activity you do whenever you see your friends. If you love cars it’s just fun to go cruise around in them, make some noise, talk some shit. There’s no thought of just going in one car cuz it’s more convenient. Convenient isn’t fun…

On the list of “Random things I never expected to see in Japan” was this incredibly-rare Lancia 037 Stradale sitting outside in the rain in Wakayama…
For those that aren’t aware of what an 037 is, don’t worry you’re not alone. The Lancia 037 was a mid-engine sports/rally car built in the 1980s to compete in the FIA Grouo B World Rally Championship. It is notable because it was the last RWD car to win the WRC, which it did in 1983. Because of Homologation requirements in the WRC, Lancia had to create a minimum of 200 street-able production cars to compete. From ‘82-84, a total of 207 are known to have been produced…

Back in high school I used to know a girl who had two older brothers who were big car guys. This was in ‘99 so the import scene was still very much in its infancy compared to what it is today. I guess you can say those were the most fun of times though because we didn’t know what was out there yet. Anyways, the brothers had some pretty nice cars, even the the sister had an Integra that was nice. I often saw it the parking lot at school. Before she could drive though, I would occasionally see her brothers come by to pick her up. One of them was named Lawrence and he had a Z32 with a crazy body kit on it—I’d never seen anything like it. Even the car itself had this wild orange/copper iridescent hue to it. The body kit was from a Japanese company named “VeilSide” and he was from a car club known as the 935draggers. These guys had some of the craziest cars I’d ever seen back then, like mind-blowing. It didn’t matter how they made their money then but to be able to acquire a VeilSide kit back when the word “JDM” had barely been coined was a feat in itself. Like how did they even get in contact with a Japanese company and import a whole body kit back in the late 90s? It must have been a fortune…

A rare quiet evening in Osaka Amerikamura. One of those ‘work all day, grab a quick dinner, and go cruising with your friends’ type of nights…

Adobe just released this new AI-based noise reduction feature for their Lightroom program and it is just ridiculous in how good it works. This isn’t even an ad or anything, I just think it’s noteworthy to show you guys. Photos shot with mirror-less camera bodies tend to produce quite a bit of noise, from my experience, but the amount of megapixels nowadays create such large digital images that you don’t really see the noise when the photo is compressed for viewing on say, a smartphone…

With the fall season now here, it seems like we’re making great progress at the shop! Mosquitoes are still everywhere but it hasn’t stopped us from working on the cars. Der has been here on weekends working on his Civic and finally finished his 5-lug swap. That means we can finally get rid of those Watanabe wheels! He mocks-up the new set-up so everyone can get an idea of what’s coming. There was also a freshly-coated valve cover just sitting around for the longest time that he hadn’t bothered to install. While that was going on, Kristian came over with a couple of Bride XERO series seats to show us the differences between them before installing a XERO CS into the GR86! It’s nice to finally have a bucket seat inside the car to go with the roll bar and the car is starting to look pretty complete!

It’s been non-stop lately with all these Wekfest events happening every other week. Feels like we just came back from San Jose and it’s already time for the Los Angeles show. Before that though, we stopped by Cafe 86 on 8/6 Day to hang out with our friend Kam and I finally found time to put my new wheels on the IS300. I’ve had these wheels sitting in Japan for over a year now and they’re finally here in the States! A day after the install, it was time for Wekfest Los Angeles. This stop is always filled with interesting cars of all types but the special focus at this event for me was Alex Alfaro’s Integra Type R. He always collects the rarest of parts for his ITR and this year, he pulled-up with a newly-built JUN Auto B18C engine with TODA ITBs and some wheels you absolutely must see!…