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Posted
Nov 19 2009, 03:01 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 23 comment(s)
Back in September when I was at Billetproof 2009 in Antioch CA, I kept my eyes open for interesting low cars to spotlight this month. I found all manner of slammed customs and rods, but none were as crazy as the '59 Rolls Royce pictured above. Seeing the world's most prestigious luxury car and scraping the ground is one of those things that just grabs you, and I knew I had to include this sled in our monthly features....
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Posted
Nov 19 2009, 01:53 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 20 comment(s)
This past August, I was invited to be a guest judge at a local drift Drift Mania West event, held at Western Speedway in Victoria BC, Canada. As you can expect at typical North American grass roots drift event, the majority of the cars competing were S chassis of various types. But one drifter chose to break the mold with his choice of car and went in a more old school direction: his name is Chris Scremin and this is his 1985 SR-86. Chris is one of the top drifters in the west coast Canadian scene...
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Posted
Nov 19 2009, 08:27 AM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 37 comment(s)
There is just no denying that many top Japanese tuners have fully turned their attention to ECO cars. The Honda Insight and Toyota Prius are gaining in popularity so the tuners have been quick to hop on this trend. Aimgain has set out to personalize the Toyota Prius with a full workout including the exterior, interior, wheels and suspension. Aimgain went the familiar VIP route for which they are famous for. The car has been dropped using a complete adjustable suspension system and not with the familiar...
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Posted
Nov 19 2009, 02:15 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 40 comment(s)
On my way up to the Drift Matsuri on Friday I stopped over at Nikko circuit as I heard there was a drift track-day going on, organized in collaboration with T&E. I'm so glad I did take the little detour as I got to see some fantastic cars, total grassroots stuff being driven hard around the track. One car that grabbed my attention was this unmolested GX71 Cresta Super Lucent slammed onto some sexy vintage JDM wheels. The whole body has been left stock, the 80's looks enough to make this...
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Posted
Nov 18 2009, 03:12 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 34 comment(s)
Back in January when we did Mazda month, we ran a spotlight on this IMSA-styled SA22C RX7 out of Japan. At the time the car was done in semi-gloss black, but it's since been repainted in a glossy red. The guys from the 22C Works website sent us some photos of the remade car, and we knew for sure you guys would want to see them....
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Posted
Nov 18 2009, 06:00 AM
by
Linhbergh Nguyen
with 38 comment(s)
What has always fascinated me is that a hunk of metal can make a person do the most irrational or illogical things. Why is it that many of us would get up at the most ungodly of hours only to climb in to a car and spend a day's festivities surrounding none other than cars? Or what is it that makes us wake up so eagerly for a car, yet we have to literally pry ourselves out of bed on most other mornings? Or to even drive a car with literally zero creature comforts across the country, just to spend...
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Posted
Nov 17 2009, 04:00 AM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 16 comment(s)
When living so close to ‘The Ring' you sometimes feel spoiled as the high performance cars you'll encounter at the track become normal. For example, Porsche 911 GT3s are nothing special to see when Speedhunting at the Nordeschliefe. So you start searching for cars that are less obvious to satisfy your car craving. On my last visit I spotted this BMW E36 touring which certainly grabbed my attention. It has been painted in Porsche green, the same color you can find on the GT3 RS version...
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Posted
Nov 13 2009, 03:15 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 26 comment(s)
Yesterday we took a look at a custom '67 Camaro from Japan, and now it's time to look at another SEMA Camaro of slightly different type - the Grunewald Racing drift Camaro. It was only a matter of time before someone took to drifting the big Chevy, and Conrad Grunewald will be doing just that next year in Formula Drift. The car was built by a shop called BR Racing, and by all appearances it looked ready for action at SEMA. This thing is far the from the mock-up that most "new" drift cars start as....
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Posted
Nov 13 2009, 10:48 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 32 comment(s)
Four or five years ago, I was at the SEMA Show when I saw a black VIP Style Y33 Infiniti Q45 in the Falken booth. As I looked at the car, I was wondering what the hell it was. Surely it was some sort of JDM-only luxury car imported for the show. Only after a closer look did I realize it was a USDM Q45. Up until this point I'd never seen a modified Y33 in the flesh. With it's stock wheels and suspension, this model Q45 could almost be mistaken for a Mercury or a Buick, but as I found out, a few simple changes completely transform this car.
That brings to me this ultra-sexy Q45 I spotted at the Autofashion meet last weekend....
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Posted
Nov 13 2009, 08:46 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 31 comment(s)
Ok this is my last SEMA car spotlight. I think Mike has a few more cars to showcase but this is the last entry for me. For this blogpost, I thought you might be interested to have a closer look at Vaughn Gittin JR's new toy: the Mustang RTR-C. The RTR-C stood out amongst all the various customized 2010 Mustangs on show at SEMA last week. Rather bolt on huge 20 inch wheels and ungainly wings, JR and the crew at ASD took it upon themselves the daunting task to completely reskin a donor Mustang...
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Posted
Nov 12 2009, 05:08 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 20 comment(s)
After reading John Leigh's blog earlier today about his Top Secret-built Infiniti, I figured I'd follow up with a similar story, yet in reverse. While John was able to have his JDM tuner car displayed at Tokyo Auto Salon, Akira Yamamoto of Kyoto, Japan had his prized '67 Camaro displayed last week at the SEMA Show. There's been tons of Japanese-built vehicles shipped stateside for a variety of reasons, but this is the first American muscle car that I can recall. As we walked around SEMA last week, I immediately recognized this car after seeing at Tokyo Auto Salon and in Custom Car, one of my favorite Japanese magazines....
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Posted
Nov 12 2009, 03:30 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 24 comment(s)
This giant scaled up Hot Rod is the latest creation from the Southern Oregon based Blastolene shop. These are the same crazy minds responsible for Jay Leno's tank car.... It's a connection which immediately makes a lot of sense! Designed by Randy Grubb, the Blastolene design philosophy is based around finding unusual large displacement engines and building up drivable "sculptures" around them. The 12v71 Detroit Diesel with twin 671 superchargers is an industrial application engine...
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Posted
Nov 11 2009, 03:12 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 37 comment(s)
Of all the "new" pony cars on the market today I like the look of the Mustang the best. In my books, it's the only one of the three which doesn't look over bloated and fat compared to its original version. SEMA itself was filled with modified 2010 Mustangs, most of which didn't do much for me though. I also didn't pay much attention to most of the big wheeled Pro Touring "Stangs either... But there was one Mustang that caused me to stop in my tracks: the JM Enterprises...
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Posted
Nov 10 2009, 12:10 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 21 comment(s)
Last week at the SEMA Show parked amongst all the WRX's in the Subaru booth was this 2010 "VIP" Legacy Sedan. Now you can argue for days about what makes a true VIP car, but the people putting this Legacy together certainly did their research. Even the official info Subaru provided about the car says "VIP style is known for a clean, yet heavily reworked luxury theme with an emphasis on impossibly-low ride height and aggressive wheels."...
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Posted
Nov 07 2009, 01:22 PM
by
Patrick McGrath
with 25 comment(s)
When I met Darren for his headshots for the DMac retrospective , he had only just put the finishing touches to the latest incarnation of the MCNSport AE86. It's been several months since I last saw the car tucked away at the MCNSport shop; before that it was at an AE86 trackday at Mondello Park. I'd heard a few rumours circulating around for a while that the guys were planning all sorts of different engine conversions for the lightweight Trueno. 20V's and Formula Atlantic 4AGE's were...
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Posted
Nov 06 2009, 03:19 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 30 comment(s)
I was browsing one of my favorite forums, ClubRoadster.net the other day when I found a thread about an LS1-powered Mazda Miata drag car out of Mississippi. Now any time you combine a light weight rear-drive car with a powerful V8 the potential for awesomeness arises, but I noticed something about this car that I don't think the builder intended - it's likeliness to sports car-based drag cars of the '60s....
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Posted
Nov 05 2009, 04:42 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 40 comment(s)
Fall is coming in hard in Holland, leaves are dropping and it seems like the rain never stops. But when it does stop and the leaves are dry you can shoot some incredible pictures. Mike Gilbert thought the same and shot this Audi A6 in this amazing setting. The A6 had a small makeover with a new nose that was taken from a S6 version. I love this shot... The car has been factory fitted with an Oyster gray metallic color. Just to think that at my recent Nürburgring trips you see these cars everywhere...
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Posted
Nov 03 2009, 06:58 AM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 41 comment(s)
I can remember way back, I always followed a website called Teamrice.org after it was featured in a edition of the HCI magazine. They always showcased amazing looking cars and had a video that accompanied each feature. I always loved that site until it went offline. But thankfully this was followed up by an affiliate site called DOHCresearch.com and after checking it again not too long ago I came across some fine automobiles from Hawaii. I'm still amazed at the quality of the builds they have...
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Posted
Oct 28 2009, 12:21 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 48 comment(s)
I'm not quite done with my Garage Boso features yet, here's one more Boso-built car you guys might be interested in. The RA21 Celica above is owned by Option Magazine and Tokyo Auto Salon founder Daijiro Inada - a very well known personality both in Japan and abroad. Dai spends a lot of time in LA visiting his brother and taking part in the automotive culture here, so he decided to build a car to enjoy in sunny SoCal. After picking up the project, Dai brought the car over to Garage Boso where the guys got to work on transforming it into a modern kyuu-sha hot rod....
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Posted
Oct 20 2009, 11:24 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 22 comment(s)
A couple weeks ago when I was at the Japanese Classic Car Show in Irvine, parked alongside the classic RX7's in Mazda's display I spotted this wild-looking MX-6. The normal MX-6 was a front wheel drive coupe that shared a platform with the Ford Probe, but the IMSA GTU race version was a just a bit different....
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