Tag Archive for ‘ryan der civic’

We Bring Der’s Civic Project Out For The First Time On NEW Wheels!!…

We Bring Der’s Civic Project Out For The First Time On NEW Wheels!!…

Leave it to Der to stress and take months trying to figure out how to fit his TE37 wheels on his EK only to change them a week after he makes it work, lol!! Sometimes things fall into place and happen unexpectedly which is exactly the situation here. Not gonna lie, dude was stressed! But an immaculate set of wheels just popped-up out of nowhere and Der leaped at the opportunity. The Mag Blue mismatched Volk wheels were never going to be the final phase of this build regardless so it wasn’t a difficult decision to ditch them. After the new wheels went on, Der decided that the weekend was a perfect opportunity to bring the car out for the first time!!…

Finally! Some Major Progress On Der’s Civic Build!!…

Finally! Some Major Progress On Der’s Civic Build!!…

It’s been a while but we are back with some major updates! After coming back from Japan, I took some time off just to recover and get back into the swing of things here at home. There wasn’t a whole lot going on so I just stayed lowkey and hung out here at the shop. Before Der met up with me in Japan, he actually was at the shop every weekend working on his Civic. A lot of big changes happened while I was gone so when I came back home, I came back staring at almost a completely different car! Over the last two weekends, we finally started on something that he had been dreading; installing his Safety21 roll cage. The main thing was getting all the parts over the to shop but once we did, Der tore his whole Civic apart again so we could fit the bolt-in cage. I thought it was easy but I also spent most of the afternoons watching sports and only jumped in when he needed a second hand, lol. If you’ve been wanting to see what’s new with Der’s EK, this is the episode you need!

Extras, Outtakes, and More Details From The Meguiar’s 2000s “Import Tuner” Shoot…

Extras, Outtakes, and More Details From The Meguiar’s 2000s “Import Tuner” Shoot…

I had an unnecessary amount of fun putting this project together. From start to finish I couldn’t have been happier with the results. To be fair, it was quite a bit of work and a lot of planning involved but it’s oh so satisfying when everything comes together the way I envisioned. Once I figured out what photos I wanted, how the cover needed to be laid-out, and all the little details, I had a good feeling it would be well-received. Everybody loves nostalgia, especially car enthusiasts. Just to be able to look back at a time when everything felt new and their were no rules is amazing. The early 2000s represented a very different time in the automotive tuning community. There were no ‘standards’ set and people were really free to express themselves with their cars. Now it seems like more of a popularity contest than anything. Everybody just wants to be ‘someone’ on social media. Everyone wanted to stand-out and be someone back then as well, but there was no social media yet. The only platform for comparison was real life interaction and you didn’t have thousands and thousands of people to compare yourself with everyday. There was less pressure amongst your peers because the sample-size was much smaller. Sure the styles were a bit over the top back then but honestly, it’s not like everyone has it figured out in 2021. We’re all just in a bigger pond now thanks to the internet. I don’t want to go too far off into a tangent about this entire subject so let me get back to the Meguiar’s project…

“Import Tuner” Shoot & I Might Get My Car Back?!… CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #13

“Import Tuner” Shoot & I Might Get My Car Back?!… CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #13

Yes, bald Joey is back for this very special, highly in-depth, look at my latest work for the Meguiar’s “Portrait of an Icon” series. The theme for this month is “The Furious 2000s” which obviously, is dedicated to the automotive culture during the 2000s. For me personally, I wanted a seamless transition from my 90s-era shoot to this one, which theoretically would have taken place in 2001-02. This was a very special time in the import scene because Import Tuner magazine and all of the insane cars they featured were all the rage. The Fast and The Furious had just come out so the import tuning community was still very much an underground thing. For the shoot, I wanted to pay homage to this period in time and re-create an Import Tuner magazine cover shoot. Luckily I had some great friends who were willing to help 🙂

If you follow me on Instagram, then you’ll have already seen the results from this shoot. Now you can take a look into my creative process and how we were able to execute this whole entire shoot from the very beginning. It’s a fun one and a rare glimpse into how something like this becomes a reality.

Meguiar’s “Portrait of an Icon” 90s-Era Shoot and Unpublished Photos…

Meguiar’s “Portrait of an Icon” 90s-Era Shoot and Unpublished Photos…

Earlier this year, I was contacted by Meguiar’s and invited to be one of five creator’s to be on their “Portrait of an Icon” campaign to celebrate their 120-year anniversary. I was honestly a little surprised at first to hear from them since there are so many good content creators out there in the industry but was deeply honored when I got the details of what the project was all about. It was to be a generational piece, spanning five-decades from the 1980s to the 2020s, each themed according to the time period and the main caveat being that there had to be a “Meguiar’s Easter Egg” hidden in the photo. Each photo must have one of their products, that existed during that particular generation, present. It didn’t have to be blatant or in your face, and just had to appear somewhere within the photo. Think “Where’s Waldo” type of hiding, which is basically hiding in plain sight. The more it blended-in with the photo the better. It didn’t take a whole lot of convincing for me to agree to be a featured artist in their campaign because I was presented with absolute freedom to do whatever I wanted. Over the years, I’ve been offered and turned down a number of projects because I felt it was too restrictive in what they wanted and expected from me. When I feel that type of creative ‘stunting’, if you will, I shut off and just can’t find myself wanting to produce anything. This project was the opposite of that. I could get a check and have creative freedom doing what I enjoyed? I’m in…

Time-Traveling Back To The Nineties… CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #12

Time-Traveling Back To The Nineties… CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #12

On this episode, I take you guys back on the road with me on three different photoshoots throughout Southern California for the ongoing project I’m working on for Meguiar’s. You guys got a short glimpse of the 80s-themed shoot I did for them with a E-AT Civic a few episodes back and the next one I’m shooting is dedicated to the 1990s. If you’re a Honda guy then the nineties will undoubtedly be your favorite era. That’s when Honda made the best cars and the import scene was still in its very exciting early infancy. Being that it was a shoot focused on that era, many tiny details had to be incorporated into the shoot that were plucked from that time and obviously, the cars themselves as well. In-between shoots, we also found some time to stop by Unit B to celebrate our good friend Kristian Wong’s birthday. This is a good one and I hope you get overwhelmed with that nineties feeling while watching!

Surprise Car Meet At The Shop And I Got A New Job!! CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #10

Surprise Car Meet At The Shop And I Got A New Job!! CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #10

We haven’t done a Chronicles & Coffee gathering at the shop in a while but since Memorial Day weekend was coming and we didn’t have any plans, I decided to go ahead and set one up last minute! So in this episode, you get a glimpse of what happened that day and whether or not people actually showed-up or not! Before that however, I give you guys a glimpse into what I actually do as a freelance photographer and bring you guys along on a new gig I recently got for Meguiar’s “Portrait of an Icon” series!!

The Civic Interior Is Finally Complete & Ly Stops By In His Integra!! CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #9…

The Civic Interior Is Finally Complete & Ly Stops By In His Integra!! CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #9…

If you’ve been waiting for updates on Ryan Der’s Civic build, this episode is perfect for you! He’s been putting in a lot of work on the car lately while paying particular attention to finally finishing up the interior. He’s got all kinds of cool little details in the interior as he’s been collecting parts over the past few months. It’s crazy to see the interior all wrapped-up because all we’ve been doing since he got the car is talk about all he has planned for it. While all that was going on, our friend Ly came by with some friends to hang out for the day so that I could shoot some photos of the brand new Exceed by Mode Parfume front lip on his Integra. The 94-97 Integra front lip is brand new and barely arrived in the U.S. recently so we wanted to get some good photos of it and Ly’s car seemed like the perfect choice!!

The K-Swapped Ferrari We Never Knew We Needed + Our Parts are Finally Here From Japan!!! CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #8…

The K-Swapped Ferrari We Never Knew We Needed + Our Parts are Finally Here From Japan!!! CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #8…

Well this one is gonna be interesting!! We stop by Stanceworks in Costa Mesa to meet up with my friend Mike Burroughs so he can finally introduce us to one of his wildest ideas yet….a Honda K24-swapped FERRARI 308 GTB! Some of you are probably wondering why, many of you Honda guys will know EXACTLY why, and the rest of you have most likely already been following this time attack build through his channel (@StanceWorks​ ).

After we let Mike educate us for a few hours on his reasonings behind this wild build, we head back to the shop so Der can continue working on his Civic while Yuta and I go through some parts from Japan that we finally received after our shipping container was released. I can finally say that I have all my parts for my IS300 build! I’m pretty excited…now if only I can get my car back soon from the body shop….

The ITR Is Leaving, Der’s M3 Finally Runs, I Drive My Q45 & MORE!! CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #7…

The ITR Is Leaving, Der’s M3 Finally Runs, I Drive My Q45 & MORE!! CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #7…

SURPRISE! Here’s a brand new episode for you sooner than you probably expected!! That’s because so much is going on at the shop lately that I was able to compile a good amount of content all in about a week’s time. Major changes are going on in the back of the shop so we actually went and pulled all of our cars out—and that hardly ever happens! The departure of Chuy’s ITR may have been the catalyst to this change, but honestly, it was time for Yuta to figure out ways to make more space with so many projects coming in and out. Der’s been wanting to get his M3 going so he can finally sell it and while my Q45 was out, I just decided to clean it up and drive it around for the weekend. On top of all the cars getting moved around, we also stopped by a couple of meets and ran into some pretty interesting builds. There’s some classic Japanese goodness in there, some super cars we’ll never be able to afford, and we cap things off at the annual “EF vs DA Meet” hosted by Oldskoolhonda and Kenji from GReddy Performance. This one is a real treat if you’re a car enthusiast and an even more interesting video for those who have always wondered what our cars looked like outside. You don’t want to miss this one!!