CENTER STAGE> Pat Cyr, DMCC Winner with AE86!
As I write this, Pat Cyr of Drift Posse is sending me a text message from the DMCC – Drift Mania Canadian Championship - Round 2 on Sunday, June 20 informing me that he has won the event! Congratulations Pat!
When I think of the hard campaigning privateer, there's no one that comes more quick ly to mind than Pat. He and his team bring the perfect mix of heart, dedication and style to every event - and it shows. Read more...
When I think of the hard campaigning privateer, there's no one that comes more quick ly to mind than Pat. He and his team bring the perfect mix of heart, dedication and style to every event - and it shows. Read more...
ARCHAEOLOGY> Super Silhouette Pics from Japan
I just love Japanese Super Silhouette cars from the late 1970s to the mid 1980s. I actually saw these photos posted sometime last week on the Team Obscurity website, but didn't get a chance to post them up until just now. These Super Silhouette cars were said to have influenced the Bosozoku/Yanki style of crazy aero kits, fat lip wheels, and humongous front chin spoilers... obviously!
Just check out this famous S110 Nissan Silvia, which was raced by legendary Japanese racer Kazuyoshi Hoshino's team, Impul. Hoshino-san has reached God-like status amongst race fans in Japan because of all his HISTORY. He actually raced in two Formula 1 races*; both of them at Japan's legendary Fuji Speedway - the old school course, with the famous old (and dangerous) banking, which is now closed and sits on the side of Fuji Speedway as a holy relic of the Shizuoka prefecture's glorious racing days of the 1970s and 1980s. In fact, I'm still kicking myself because I had the opportunity to chill out in the Impul/Calsonic Super GT pit area when I attended the Pokka 1000kms Super GT race at Suzuka Circuit, and Hoshino san was standing right freaking THERE... and I didn't even take a photo with him or ask him to autograph something. What an IDIOT I am. I still regret it. Read more...
Just check out this famous S110 Nissan Silvia, which was raced by legendary Japanese racer Kazuyoshi Hoshino's team, Impul. Hoshino-san has reached God-like status amongst race fans in Japan because of all his HISTORY. He actually raced in two Formula 1 races*; both of them at Japan's legendary Fuji Speedway - the old school course, with the famous old (and dangerous) banking, which is now closed and sits on the side of Fuji Speedway as a holy relic of the Shizuoka prefecture's glorious racing days of the 1970s and 1980s. In fact, I'm still kicking myself because I had the opportunity to chill out in the Impul/Calsonic Super GT pit area when I attended the Pokka 1000kms Super GT race at Suzuka Circuit, and Hoshino san was standing right freaking THERE... and I didn't even take a photo with him or ask him to autograph something. What an IDIOT I am. I still regret it. Read more...
COVERAGE> Formula D Fun at Long Beach
I know, everyone has been waiting to see our first installment of Formula D Long Beach pics. So have I! We just had to get some other deadlines out of the way before we could begin posting our images from this weekend's Formula Drift event on the Streets of Long Beach!
This past weekend was certainly an exciting one. I was excited to see all the new cars that were debuting at Long Beach, as well as seeing a lot of good friends from different parts of the world, even if it would be only for a brief moment. Unfortunately, when you're working at the event like I am, you're usually hustling about, going from one spot to the next, and you don't have as much time as you'd like to just chill and spend time with good friends. This event was definitely like that for me.
I was trying to juggle shooting photos for the website while overseeing the Motor Mavens Crew's event promotions efforts. Not an easy task! Also, on the Saturday of the event, I was asked to help out with the filming of The Grid, which is a UK-based motorsports television show that airs in 120 countries around the world! And... on top of all that, we debuted the new MotorMavens X DSTROYR "Follow The Leader" shirt at our booth, which was managed by super designer Jon Chase, the creative genius behind the brands DSTROYR and Famous Stars and Straps. I and the entire Motor Mavens Crew definitely had our hustle mode switched ON this weekend! Read more...
This past weekend was certainly an exciting one. I was excited to see all the new cars that were debuting at Long Beach, as well as seeing a lot of good friends from different parts of the world, even if it would be only for a brief moment. Unfortunately, when you're working at the event like I am, you're usually hustling about, going from one spot to the next, and you don't have as much time as you'd like to just chill and spend time with good friends. This event was definitely like that for me.
I was trying to juggle shooting photos for the website while overseeing the Motor Mavens Crew's event promotions efforts. Not an easy task! Also, on the Saturday of the event, I was asked to help out with the filming of The Grid, which is a UK-based motorsports television show that airs in 120 countries around the world! And... on top of all that, we debuted the new MotorMavens X DSTROYR "Follow The Leader" shirt at our booth, which was managed by super designer Jon Chase, the creative genius behind the brands DSTROYR and Famous Stars and Straps. I and the entire Motor Mavens Crew definitely had our hustle mode switched ON this weekend! Read more...
RANDOM DOPE> S30 Fairlady 240Z by Jan Trondsen
HOLY FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. I'm currently trying to recompose myself; you wouldn't believe how hard my jaw hit the floor when I first saw these renderings. I must have been shaking my head, muttering expletives for a good 20 minutes.
AMAZING. Now THIS is what it's all about. This is a 3D sculpted rendering of a 1972 S30 240Z, which apparently has ZG flares and a standard Z432 nose with a BRE front chin spoiler.
The artist behind all this is actually an old school friend of mine; his name is Jan Trondsen (pronounced yawn, like you're sleepy), and he is first and foremost a car guy that's passionate about vintage Datsuns, and he has been that way since the first day I met him, over ten years ago. Nowadays, Jan is an alumnus of the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and a professional 3D sculptor working for a major car company... but it wasn't like that when we first met. When we first met, we were just a bunch of super broke car enthusiasts from the SF Bay Area that frequented the illegal street races, hardly able to scrape together enough funds to buy rebuild kits for the Mikuni 44phh carbs we wanted for our cars.
Nothing makes me happier or more inspired than seeing good people like Jan progress in their careers, all without losing focus on what made them passionate about cars in the first place. Let's face it. There are WAY too many corporate schmucks working within the auto industry; men and women that don't give a rat's ass about WHY people devote their whole lives to cars, or what makes cars cool. There are way too many non-car-people out there that scored jobs at big car companies just because they had degrees and were looking for a big corporate job with benefits after college. Jan is definitely not one of those. I'm glad to see there are still some folks out there who are intensely passionate about cars like all of us are (by all of us, I'm referring to the MotorMavens readers). Read more...
AMAZING. Now THIS is what it's all about. This is a 3D sculpted rendering of a 1972 S30 240Z, which apparently has ZG flares and a standard Z432 nose with a BRE front chin spoiler.
The artist behind all this is actually an old school friend of mine; his name is Jan Trondsen (pronounced yawn, like you're sleepy), and he is first and foremost a car guy that's passionate about vintage Datsuns, and he has been that way since the first day I met him, over ten years ago. Nowadays, Jan is an alumnus of the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and a professional 3D sculptor working for a major car company... but it wasn't like that when we first met. When we first met, we were just a bunch of super broke car enthusiasts from the SF Bay Area that frequented the illegal street races, hardly able to scrape together enough funds to buy rebuild kits for the Mikuni 44phh carbs we wanted for our cars.
Nothing makes me happier or more inspired than seeing good people like Jan progress in their careers, all without losing focus on what made them passionate about cars in the first place. Let's face it. There are WAY too many corporate schmucks working within the auto industry; men and women that don't give a rat's ass about WHY people devote their whole lives to cars, or what makes cars cool. There are way too many non-car-people out there that scored jobs at big car companies just because they had degrees and were looking for a big corporate job with benefits after college. Jan is definitely not one of those. I'm glad to see there are still some folks out there who are intensely passionate about cars like all of us are (by all of us, I'm referring to the MotorMavens readers). Read more...
WEBMINING> Hawaii Loves Old School Toyotas
Things have been extremely busy for the Motor Mavens Crew over the past two weeks. We’ve been turning our attention to some general “housecleaning” operations and important meetings to plan for future expansion of the site. Unfortunately, these things were extremely time sensitive and had to take priority over website updates for the past week. Pretty wack, I know. We should be back to our usual schedule after this; thanks for being patient and for your continual support!
We have some cool features to post this month, but before we get into all that, I wanted to turn your attention to the 808 state for a bit. This past weekend, many of my friends from Hawaii’s island of Oahu got together for an Old School Toyota meet. People might not realize it, but there are lots and lots of really amazing cars in Hawaii. All the local braddahs over there have much love for vintage Japanese cars.
Just look at how many clean TE27s came out to the meet! I’m drooling over two especially… a particular blue 1973 1600SR and a clean orange 1973 1600SR. More on these cars in the near future!
Props to Justindabull for his video work. Justin is really, really young (still in high school?), but he’s been hanging out with all the old school Toyota guys in Hawaii for years, because his dad, Mike, has owned some pretty awesome vintage Toyotas. Good job Justin! And congrats on getting your video featured on MotorMavens! Can’t wait to see you all again!
Shoots!
:: Antonio Alvendia
WEBMINING> Créme Fresh Levin!
While some of the other members of the Motor Mavens Crew are busy putting together their photos from this weekend’s Formula D Pro Am event, I thought I’d show post this scan of a car I’ve been admiring.
There are some blogs that I check out frequently, and I came across this scan from a 1999 Battle Magazine that Rob from Roadster:DRIFT posted up. The AE86 Levin has always been one of my favourite cars, so when I saw this, my jaw dropped. To some this might just be another Levin, but for me looks wise this is the PERFECT Levin! Just clean and simple with a Goodline front bumper and bonnet, TRD rear wing, and a few nice subtle touches like the kouki spec rear bumper, foglights minus the grill, and what looks like stock arches rolled and flared. It’s also sitting on a set of gorgeous RS Watanabe Type R wheels in 14x8J -6.
Like I said before, for me personally, this is the perfect Levin. But AE86s are cars that can have so many different styles applied to them and I’m sure any fan of the AE86 has their favourite. We’d love to hear from our readers what your favourite style is or even a particular car e.g., Katsuhiro Ueo’s famous D1GP Trueno.
Let us know!
:: Daniel Bridle
GALLERY> More Scenes from JCCS 2009
Cressidas and Levins and Sprinters and Skylines, oh my! I was just clearing out some images on my Mac and transferring them to one of my terabyte drives when I stumbled upon these images I shot at the Japanese Classic Car Show last month. Before I transfer them to the HD archive and forget all about them for another year or so, I thought I'd just share some more pics of these awesome Japanese nostalgic cars! Read more...
COVERAGE> Japanese Classic Car Show 2009 Pt.1
I know many have been eagerly awaiting our photographic coverage of this year's Japanese Classic Car Show in Irvine, CA. I would have wanted to post up our photos immediately on Saturday night or on Sunday, but it has been an extremely hectic weekend full of photo shoots with out of town cars!
There were TONS of people at JCCS this year. I really need to give props to Koji and Terry Yamaguchi for creating this show and making it better and better and better every single year. Instead of droning on and on about the history of the JCCS show and talking about how many people traveled from all over the USA to bring their cars to this event, let's just dive into the photos of the cars! After all, that's what you came here for! Read more...
There were TONS of people at JCCS this year. I really need to give props to Koji and Terry Yamaguchi for creating this show and making it better and better and better every single year. Instead of droning on and on about the history of the JCCS show and talking about how many people traveled from all over the USA to bring their cars to this event, let's just dive into the photos of the cars! After all, that's what you came here for! Read more...
CENTER STAGE> Garage Autohero Datsun 510
Whenever I hear the words Datsun 510, I picture either a fully restored and super clean car or a moss-covered, stock car that has been hiding under bushes for the past 10 or more years. Either way, in my opinion, this is one of the most amazing cars built to date. These days, everything possible has been done to modify them including SR20DET, KA24DE, and VG30 swaps. But, no matter what kind of fancy wheels or paint jobs they may have, they are always a dime in my eyes. Apparently the guys at Garage Autohero feel the same way.
The story begins with Ray Stonehocker and his desire to build a daily driven showcase car for his shop - Garage Autohero. He wanted something completely different from everyone else so he stayed away from the obvious Nissan Skylines or Toyota Supras that are crazy fast with the very expensive paint jobs. Ray wanted to take a step in the opposite direction. He chose to go with the Datsun 510. He had a chance to buy an old 510 from a friend not too long ago - but not in pristine condition. The 510 had some rust issues, fading paint, and the years had just taken a major toll on the poor car. That didn't stop Ray though. In fact, it was exactly what he wanted. Read more...
The story begins with Ray Stonehocker and his desire to build a daily driven showcase car for his shop - Garage Autohero. He wanted something completely different from everyone else so he stayed away from the obvious Nissan Skylines or Toyota Supras that are crazy fast with the very expensive paint jobs. Ray wanted to take a step in the opposite direction. He chose to go with the Datsun 510. He had a chance to buy an old 510 from a friend not too long ago - but not in pristine condition. The 510 had some rust issues, fading paint, and the years had just taken a major toll on the poor car. That didn't stop Ray though. In fact, it was exactly what he wanted. Read more...
PAPERCUTS> Before Rauh Welt, it was ROUGH WORLD.
As I was looking through my bookshelf today, I noticed one of my favorite issues of Hashiriya Battle Magazine laying out. It was a special AE86 issue from 1997, and even though there were always lots of AE86s in BM in general, they somehow figured out how to stuff more AE86 issues in there! God bless you, Takahashi san (BM's henshucho, or chief editor) and Battle Magazine. Battle Magazine has brought joy to my life.
Many of you might roll your eyes after reading that statement... but seriously, if it weren't for BM and my other favorite Japanese mags, the only publications my friends and I would have been able to flip through all these years would be the American "import car" magazines, which always featured bright colored, custom stereo-with-neon, non functional rollcage-having, widebody-without-wide-wheels showcars on their covers. (The US magazines have improved a little bit since then... but just try to dig up an old import magazine from 1997 and you'll know what I'm talking about.)
Anyway, this particular AE86 special issue of BM is one of my favorite magazines in existence because of a feature on the legendary AE86 crew, Rough World. Of course, I couldn't read the text, but what was presented to me in color photographs really messed my head up. I didn't even know what it was at first; I just thought the cars looked so cool. At that point, I hadn't even figured out it was because of the perfect blend of camber, stretched tires, wide wheels, and slam that made the cars look so cool. Read more...
Many of you might roll your eyes after reading that statement... but seriously, if it weren't for BM and my other favorite Japanese mags, the only publications my friends and I would have been able to flip through all these years would be the American "import car" magazines, which always featured bright colored, custom stereo-with-neon, non functional rollcage-having, widebody-without-wide-wheels showcars on their covers. (The US magazines have improved a little bit since then... but just try to dig up an old import magazine from 1997 and you'll know what I'm talking about.)
Anyway, this particular AE86 special issue of BM is one of my favorite magazines in existence because of a feature on the legendary AE86 crew, Rough World. Of course, I couldn't read the text, but what was presented to me in color photographs really messed my head up. I didn't even know what it was at first; I just thought the cars looked so cool. At that point, I hadn't even figured out it was because of the perfect blend of camber, stretched tires, wide wheels, and slam that made the cars look so cool. Read more...
COVERAGE> Nisei Showoff Grand Finale, Part 1
I know that many people have been waiting for our coverage of this weekend's Nisei Showoff carshow, which made its final show in Downtown LA/Little Tokyo. Since I knew I'd run into a ton of old friends at the show, I knew that it would be smart to come to the show early; that was a very good decision. Travis brought his Canon DSLR and his video camera to help capture the event too, since we knew that it would be hard for me to make my way around the whole show, in between saying hello to all our old school friends that come out the woodwork just for the Nisei Showoff. For some reason, some of these guys don't go to Formula D events or Just Drift events, but they always make it to Nisei. So for many of us, Nisei Showoff is a time for us to reconnect and chill with good friends who we don't have the pleasure of seeing all the time, due to the busy work and travel schedules that we all have.
I was happy to see several media outlets at the event covering the show as well; I'm hoping that all the magazines and websites out there run coverage of the show. Super Street Magazine and Project Car Magazine both had a strong showing at Nisei, with booths and a build-off competition of the magazine editors' personally owned cars. I also saw people from Import Tuner, Japanese Nostalgic Car, Urbanracer, Auto Otaku/Speedhunters, DSport, even an ex-Jtuned guy and several other media outlets out there to support and shoot photos of Nisei Showoff. Make sure to check out their coverage of the show as well.
For any other media outlets who weren't able to make it to the show, but still want to run coverage of the event, please contact us at motormavens(at)gmail.com and we will supply you with photos for free, just to help out our friend Ken Miyoshi who runs the show.
While it may seem to some outsiders that we've been hyping this event quite a lot, it's only because Nisei Showoff really is a big deal to those of us who go there with our friends and family every year - it's a tradition that we've all kept up for the past nine years.
In fact, the very first time I ever put my own AE86 in a carshow was at Nisei Showoff in 2000 - the first ever Showoff event in Little Tokyo. That year, I linked up with several of my other AE86 friends and old school Toyota heads, and we lined our cars up all in a row, parallel to 2nd Street in Little Tokyo. We all thought it was so cool to be in a carshow in that area, since we would always hang out in Little Tokyo after work. My friends and I were always there, whether we were buying Japanese drifting magazines at Kinokuniya Bookstore; renting Japanese car videos at J-Wave; getting ramen at Orochon or Daikokuya; buying Japanese market limited sneakers at the shoe store inside Japanese Village Plaza; or of course, getting drinks at Oiwake. Read more...
I was happy to see several media outlets at the event covering the show as well; I'm hoping that all the magazines and websites out there run coverage of the show. Super Street Magazine and Project Car Magazine both had a strong showing at Nisei, with booths and a build-off competition of the magazine editors' personally owned cars. I also saw people from Import Tuner, Japanese Nostalgic Car, Urbanracer, Auto Otaku/Speedhunters, DSport, even an ex-Jtuned guy and several other media outlets out there to support and shoot photos of Nisei Showoff. Make sure to check out their coverage of the show as well.
For any other media outlets who weren't able to make it to the show, but still want to run coverage of the event, please contact us at motormavens(at)gmail.com and we will supply you with photos for free, just to help out our friend Ken Miyoshi who runs the show.
While it may seem to some outsiders that we've been hyping this event quite a lot, it's only because Nisei Showoff really is a big deal to those of us who go there with our friends and family every year - it's a tradition that we've all kept up for the past nine years.
In fact, the very first time I ever put my own AE86 in a carshow was at Nisei Showoff in 2000 - the first ever Showoff event in Little Tokyo. That year, I linked up with several of my other AE86 friends and old school Toyota heads, and we lined our cars up all in a row, parallel to 2nd Street in Little Tokyo. We all thought it was so cool to be in a carshow in that area, since we would always hang out in Little Tokyo after work. My friends and I were always there, whether we were buying Japanese drifting magazines at Kinokuniya Bookstore; renting Japanese car videos at J-Wave; getting ramen at Orochon or Daikokuya; buying Japanese market limited sneakers at the shoe store inside Japanese Village Plaza; or of course, getting drinks at Oiwake. Read more...
ARCHAEOLOGY> Ebisu Drifting Matsuri AE86s
It's about 5:00am and I haven't slept yet. (I'll set this to publish later on during the day though) While the rest of us in the West Coast prepare to make the trek up to Seattle for Formula D, on the other side of the world, another big drifting event is happening...
This weekend, Ebisu Circuit is holding its Summer Drift Festival. In celebration of 8/6 Day, I just thought I'd post up some AE86 photos from my favorite place on Earth... Ebisu Circuit. Read more...
This weekend, Ebisu Circuit is holding its Summer Drift Festival. In celebration of 8/6 Day, I just thought I'd post up some AE86 photos from my favorite place on Earth... Ebisu Circuit. Read more...
