My hectic month of October continues as I’m hired on to shoot a very special project reveal for Acura and a few days after that, I’m on a plane and headed to Florida for the final Wekfest event of the year!
Tag Archive for ‘Integra’
Beefy 1000+ HP Supra, An S14 Sedan?, +15 Offset TE’s On Der’s Civic, & The ITR Is Alive!!…
Not gonna lie, it feels great to have regular Vlogs going again now that things are picking up here at home! Over the weekend, I was invited to bring our GR86 out to Formula D Irwindale to participate in Pit+Paddock’s Performance Car Invitational. The weather was looking pretty damp that day but we had no idea a whole storm was brewing! The event itself presented some pretty interesting builds including our friend Hubert Barnum’s Supra and Rodney Moenadi’s KA24 Turbo sedan. The following day, Der got right back to work on his Civic to fit his 16×8 +15 Volk TE37 wheels. Would they fit? Would the jack come down faster than we wanted it to and make the wheels fit? See for yourself!! Oh and Chuy makes a surprise visit to the shop!!
Honda Collective NYC 2022 in Photos… Part 2…
When we last left off, myself and the rest of the enthusiasts who had gathered for the Honda Collective were preparing to move to our next stop. The Riverside Drive Overpass was a fantastic location to shoot at but we were all looking forward to see what photos we could get in one of New York City’s most iconic locations; Times Square. I had shot cars there in the past but it was always during the late evenings. We had similar gatherings before whenever Wekfest was in town but it had been a few years since we had done a pre-meet in the city. Those photos always came out pretty epic so I wondered how it would be during the day…
Honda Collective NYC 2022 in Photos… Part 1…
A few days after I returned home from my trip out east for Wekfest, I was contacted by my friend Edwin from Prime NYC about possibly attending a Honda event out there. The first-ever “Honda Collective” happened last year around this same time and I was interested in seeing it for myself. The Honda builds over there have vastly improved over time and a couple of them had definitely captured my attention. Out here in the West Coast, the Honda community has seemingly cooled down and most of the serious builds have gone back into hiding. The younger enthusiasts have their eyes on BMWs and other makes now while the older diehard Honda enthusiasts generally keep to themselves, building their cars away from the social media spotlight. There are still really fantastic Honda builds here at home but I’d be lying if I said we had any sort of ‘collective’ here. Times are just different now so seeing a committed grouping of Honda guys in a different part of the country was of interest to me. We chatted about possibly collaborating on an event together but the winter season came and went while I was busy working on things at home so nothing ever came to fruition. I always thought that it would be cool to have a Chronicles anniversary event out there but I’m having enough issues with trying to have something again out here so my focus was strictly home-based…
Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi 2022 Coverage… Part 3…
Well, here we go! Time to wrap-up this coverage on the Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi event. In the coming days, I’ll have some more event coverage for you guys from Japan as well as the photos that I shot from my shop visits out there. Some of the photos you’ve probably seen already but I actually shot a lot more photos at each different stop. It’s easy to forget about the photos since I will often post up the Vlog episodes first but my bread and butter has always been photos. As such, I would like to have them hosted here on the site for people to see and for enthusiasts to enjoy later down the line when they are searching for content on the web. The last event I have to host here is the Chan-Oka Honda Meet. That one is a multi-part set of photos too and I would really like to get those up before I fly out to Seattle this weekend for the first big U.S. Wekfest event of 2022. Everything is done, I just have to put it all together. Those photos consist of all Honda builds, unlike this last set from Stancenation Aichi. I think there might be only two Hondas in this batch. Everything else is Nissans, Toyotas, and some other unique builds. There was just so much variety at this event that it was hard to just focus on one brand or genre of car. I have no idea when I’ll be able to attend another one of these but I’d definitely love to go back again to enjoy it. It’s legitimately a great automotive event in Japan. Thanks to the people from Stance Magazine for extending the invite…
Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi 2022 Coverage… Part 2…
Looking back on everything now, I’m so glad that I extended my stay in Japan this time around. I was able to see and collect so much content that it has kept me pretty busy. It’s almost been a month since I got back and I’m still trying to get all this Japan content up. The last few months have home has been pretty stagnant in terms of doing car stuff. We have our usual meets and gatherings but nothing major is happening just yet. Summer is starting and that means that the car show season will kick-off shortly so that’s nice. If I hadn’t gone to Japan or just stayed for a week, I think my content flow would be pretty dry. I’m also glad that I decided to create and upload all the Vlog episodes while I was in Japan. Not only did it provide my viewers with an experience as if they were there alongside me, it also helped to build a consistent flow of content throughout. I imagine that if I had waited until I got home to edit all the video, we’d be log-jammed with not enough time to push everything out without it feeling forced. The way things are progressing now with almost daily uploads, it should lead us right into the Wekfest Seattle event, which promises to be a good one…
Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi 2022 Coverage… Part 1…
This event was another one that came completely unplanned until I was already in Osaka. Not only did I not plan to attend, I actually didn’t even know about it. Yasu and I were walking around Wekfest Japan when we ran into our friend Akio Hirano. He’s a pretty well-known photographer in Japan and shoots for publications like Option and Stance Magazine. We call him “sandal guy” because he seems to always have sandals on no matter where he is, whether it be an event in Japan or shooting cars in California. The guy just doesn’t like shoes, lol. Anyways, he mentioned that the Stancenation G Edition event was happening the following week and was also in Nagoya. It isn’t too far away from Osaka, just a couple of hours, so Yasu asked if I wanted to check it out. I’m not going to say no of course because I’m in Japan to see as much car-related stuff as possible. And the Stancenation event is right up my alley because it’s a HUGE car show. I’ve never been. From the photos online that I’ve seen, it always looks like they have a very diverse selection of quality car builds so I’ve always wanted to see it for myself. Obviously, the car builds are catered more towards the “stance” side of car-styling and modification but I think people are misconstrued when they think that it ONLY has stance-y cars. At least the Japan version anyways. There’s just so much more to this show, especially considering the sheer number of custom car builds that it hosts…
Wekfest Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 3…
As I found myself going over the photos I shot from my visit to Top Fuel late last night, I decided that I would wake-up, eat lunch, and head to the office to get the final portion of this Wekfest Japan coverage up. I know for many of the Japanese, this coverage comes a little later than expected but hey, let’s just say we are saving the best for last, okay? Lol. As if these photos would be the finishing touches on yet another great year of this event. It’s a shame that I missed last year’s show, since it was the only one that I’ve missed since we started doing this back in 2014, but I’m glad a lot of the spectacular car builds returned from the 2021 event so I could see them…
Stancenation G Edition Japan Has Some Crazy Good Builds…
Hope you watched the previous episode because this is the second half of our journey documenting Yasu and I bringing the old Phaze2 Integra from California to its (possibly) final major event at Stancenation G Edition Nagoya. I’ve personally never been to this show before but I’ve always heard good things about this event series. There are usually A LOT of cars that participate in this series, with this Nagoya event featuring over 700 cars. Yes, you read that correctly. I went in with no expectations thinking that I’d just take this event as a new experience and I was pleasantly surprised!! I take you guys on a walkthrough of the event while also simultaneously covering all that was happening with the Integra. I don’t know how many Americans have been to this show before or how many have documented it but here is a very rare look at what a Stancenation event is like in Japan. It’s so different than what we have in the U.S. and definitely features way more than just the typical “stance” builds you’d see in North America. Japan just does it different, and more importantly, better. The quality, the details, the quirkiness of Japan…
Yasu Said It’s Time To Retire The Phaze2 Integra…
It has been quite a journey with the Phaze2 Integra. I watched the car come together, be sold, re-purchased, rebuilt, and sold once again in the span of the last 17 years. Though it has never been my car, I’ve always had a connection with it. I’d say this car is very much a part of my legacy. To this day I think the Super Street cover of this Integra is my favorite cover that I’ve ever shot. When it was sold to Yasu in Osaka, it felt like the perfect home for it. In Japan, it developed its own history. The car was maintained by Yasu for some time, sold to a friend, and returned to Yasu’s ownership. Recently, the car has been in storage and starting to show some age. The motor itself is not doing so well, and some parts on the car could definitely use a refresh, but… there just hasn’t been time. Yasu is super busy these days with other projects but since I was in town for the month and the Stancenation G Edition event was happening nearby, Yasu decided he wanted to pull the car out and make it look fancy again for one final major event…