Some photos I forgot to post of Ryo’s last day in America.
Also check out this bag we made for the HOODRATstuff line.
You know this post is old when you see John’s GS .
The homies.
We’ll miss you Ryo!
Felt like shooting some photos of my car before it goes into another make over..
Sad days aren’t permanent. .
It’s insane how much sleep you lose when preparing your car for an event, whether it’s a track day or just a car meet. Making your car up to your expectations takes quite a bit of time and effort. Most of the crew had to get their car ready for our annual Royal Origin meet in Las Vegas. Not only did they have to get the car ready to floss, but they had to get it ready for a four hour trek into the desert.
Ryo, one of the crazier guys in our group had to get his fenders pulled and space our his rear wheels, so it doesn’t rub against the frame anymore.
Crazy, how he’s planning to drive this car to Vegas.
Meanwhile, I was just playing around putting my Work CR-Kai’s on my SC. Doesn’t look that bad in my opinion.
Air master Vinh was trying to put together his air suspension for his STI.
The pieces to a very complicated puzzle.
Vinh’s garage buddy, Bryan’s M5 on DPE wheels.
Since the SC got some wheels now, I decided to put the Meisters back on my IS for the meet.
Damn, I miss driving around like a boss.
Speaking of bosses, Kevin from Boss Company came by to hang out with his LS400.
Sadly, this car will be sold soon..
More of Ryo’s Q45.
Dem camber specs tho..
The master teaching the student.
Decided to practice light painting again and well it didn’t come out that great. It was most likely because it wasn’t dark enough and the amber lights didn’t help either.
I wasn’t trying to be artistic and deep with the black and white. The only way this photos would come out decent if it were in black and white…
More behind the scenes coming soon… Probably tomorrow.
It’s never a dull moment when we’re out and about even when it’s just for an ice cream run. Becky tagged along with us and even though she think she’s not model material we thought it would be cool to shoot her in the alley of down town Orange.
We haven’t really brought our cars out to play lately, so it was cool to have a car to shoot in this area.
This would be our background for the night.
Becky trying to break out of her robot personality.
She said she was internally screaming every time I asked her to get in front of the camera.
I think she did pretty well even with a crowd of people watching us shoot her.
The HOODRATstuff version 2 beanie.
Available: http://shop.royal-origin.com/product-p/hrs-beanie2.htm
Best facial expression.
Becky also rocking the OO hoodie.
Available: http://shop.royal-origin.com/product-p/oo-hoodie.htm
Vu with that BTS.
The tones in this photo. So good…
On the way here we saw this cool market with a nice big green neon sign and thought it would be a sick place to shoot for some profile photos.
Praying to base god.
Shavi the green doctor.
Meet me at the south side market girl.
Some car photos since I haven’t been providing much of this content lately.
Every late night adventure should end at the fast food drive thru.
Vinh’s garage is where most of our cars have been worked on or fixed and usually we come back the next day because we messed up on something. We’re not perfect, maybe Instagram makes it look like we have perfect cars, but we don’t. It actually takes a lot of work to build a car that we would be happy with. A suspension drop, wheels and a lip kit doesn’t really count as a build for us. It’s definitely a start, but what separates the car scene kids to the true enthusiast is the attention to detail and the never ending thirst to build a complete all around car.
From Lexus to Nissan now Subaru, Vinh is trying to catch them all. He has always been able to build some unique cars with his simplistic style, every car he has built had it’s own way of grabbing your attention without it having something crazy to it.
Vinh’s room mate, Bryan’s M5. Shit’s packing heat with 500hp.
Henry’s freshly bagged GS on Loc’s Work CR Kais. They’re for sale for $1,900.
Today’s project is Abbitt’s Subaru, we were getting it prepped for a tune. Abbitt is not about the details of his car, if it works and looks good, it’s fine for him. He still builds some pretty cool cars though.
Love/hate relationship for Vinh and building cars. He likes building cars, but he hates being broke from buying the parts.
Henry was trying to fix his air leaks all day. #airproblems
John’s been a rut trying to sell his Work VS-TX. Seems like people now a days don’t want to be a gangster.
Holy camber, Batman!
Sunsets and slammed cars. Even though cars can be a headache, nothing beats seeing your hard work put into a car with the sun setting in the background. Do it for the love of the build instead of Instagram likes.
One of the best things about traveling is making new friends. Our new friend Kevan who is originally from San Bernardino was one of our new friends made in Japan. We were introduced to him by Zee and he was one of the drivers that took us around for the day we had the car meet at Daikoku PA. After the meet, he suggested for us to come down to Yokosuka, so he could show us around on the base.
We woke up and once again took the first train down to Yokosuka. JR pass is key to worry free traveling in Japan.
Yokosuka is home to a United States Navy Base which makes the surrounding areas pretty Americanized with burger joints and taco restaurants.
Kevan picking us up in his gangster Chaser.
When we arrived on to the base, the first thing Kevan did was take us to the Auto hobby garage where most of the people on base can get their car worked on.
Inside the shop you can expect to see some cool Japanese vehicles being worked on like this R32.
This is where you can spot some nice rides like this mint S14.
Here is Kevan openly rocking the FTP shirt and showing us his little shed of cool JDM parts.
This is parking lot is literally JDM as fucked.
The combo breaker.
Jeremy’s Chaser who has been living here in Japan since the 90s. He even met his wife through the drifting scene here in Japan.
Jeremy is the king of Yahoo Auctions and is the go to guy for some of the guys here to find parts.
After exploring the base, Kevan took us to go get some legit ramen. It was so good that I forgot to take a photo of it, but here are some cool shots of Kevan’s chaser.
Crazy to see kids walking in the middle of the night and not worrying about getting kidnapped or cops beating them up.
Goodbye Yokosuka, you were good to us. Thanks Kevan for showing us around!
– NGU ASS
I feel like I’ve been covering Formula Drift Long Beach for a while now. Not much has changed, maybe different cars but the same vibe. Seems like every year I get less and less content because I end up having other priorities on my plate. This year it was the first time I was working with a company that had a booth in the vendor aisle. So my deepest apologies if there isn’t that many photos. Just kidding, I don’t really care what you think. Enjoy the photos though.
The trance style lives on through Angelo’s Z.
The Barney mobile.
Thao coming out hard with the new Cosmic Racing wheels.
The talk of the show. Static FRS with superb fitment from Street Faction.
This car is so hot we needed to put a water bottle in front of the car to cool it down.
Now for some bad quality photos of some drifting..
Back to the vendor lifestyle…
Me and Vinh doing work at the JDM Chemicals booth.
Todd’s Minty XB. His first time at Formula Drift Long Beach. I’m glad I was there to share this special moment with him.
Mike’s crazy GS300 front bumper from Thailand I think.
BMW of the year.
The show area was packed full of fan boys.
Styling on you fools.
Very clean Audi on 3SDM wheels.
RWD DAILOW.
NSX from last night.
The amazing Boogs.
Baller ass wheels..
Back to more crappy drifting photos…
Vendor village.
A cop posing for this guy’s Subaru. We should stop hiring models and just bring out the whole PD. They seem to get more media attention haha.
Started with Angelo’s Z and ending it with his Z. Because I can.
-NGUASS
The Friday night staging for the show area for Formula Drift Long Beach.
IG – NGUASS
Some people would say the BMW 7-series is the European counterpart to the Japanese Lexus LS. Why is this? Just look it. It is screaming big body VIP.
Such is the case with Marc’s E38 (750i), who is no stranger to the BMW brand.
Marc has an E36, E39, and E38 (what you are seeing right now), all of which he loves dearly.
He was able to transform an unappealing E38 into a visually stunning thing. Who would of thought a E38 could look this good? Not many, that’s for sure.
Marc’s current shoe of choice for the E38 are Work Brombachers, which are basically VS-XX looking wheels for European cars.
VIP accessories. Junction Produce Neck Pads and Junction Produce Luxury Curtains.
Something most people do not know about this car is that it is bagged on Universal Air bags in the front, which allows Marc to air up and not constantly destroy his oil pan, which hangs pretty damn low on these cars. However, the rear is still static, since Universal Air bags have no room to fit back there. Bagged and static all in one car.
Photos by Keith Cheng (@k3ychain)
www.flickr.com/keychain/
Some of my favorite photos from a hella flush feature I did recently with Shavi. Check it out here http://fatlace.com/2013/12/fatlacetv-tailored-fd-rx7/. I’m having that itch to go shoot photos again so if you have a pretty cool car or a cool location to shoot a car just hit me up! On instagram @nguass or ngu.minh@ymail.com
Bonus shots of Mark Arcenal’s BN Sport S14 at Illest OC.
Bigger sizes in the gallery 😉
-NGU ASS
As some of you know, I started working for Illest Orange County since June and now Big Vinh works there as well. Mark Arcenal was down here visiting the shop, so we had to show him Big Vinh’s S13.
Mark was pretty excited to make an Instagram video of Vinh’s car.
Vinh’s S13 was very bright and shiny today.
Mark in Instgram mode, check out that stance for steady sliding videos.
Another Marc came to visit us too. The fucking limo of BMW’s.
Jay wanted to see Vinh’s tattoo really bad and couldn’t wait for him to take off his shirt.
Our new Set the Sun bumper sticker. You can get it here.. http://shop.royal-origin.com/product/set-the-sun-box-sticker
Crazy how a set of wheels can change a car so much. Vinh’s car was pretty cool before with the Varrstoens, but with the XD-9’s it totally changes the way you view this car. I don’t know if it’s the design of the wheel or the color, but Vinh has made me fall in love with his S13.
After chilling a bit, we decided to roll out to the uselesss meet at Beach Burger.
Edris is always telling us DBAP and come out to the meet. If you don’t know cool internet lingo, DBAP is “don’t be a pussy”.
John couldn’t find parking… Yeah that’s three parking spots on the left.
Man these cars are TC… (too cool).
Jimmy’s car looking good on the Work Equips.
O WHALES.
Jimmy had a Cosmo mag in his car… He actually reads it for the articles.
Elvis singing in a empty room.
Royal Origin street racers. Coming soon…….
Good night, I had fun with you today.
