With car shows in full effect, everyone is getting their cars ready with their newest mods. Yogi from Fatlace recently started his Lexus GS430 project and already it has changed quiet a bit.
The never ending projects stay never ending.
Thanks
-Shavi W.
Unfortunately for me I wasn’t able to join everyone in Vegas this past weekend. It seemed like everyone was out in the desert cruising the strip, sipping on drinks, and rolling the dice. Instead I stayed back in Irvine and set my plans to go to the Formula D Tech Day at the Source Interlink Media office.
The day started nice and early for me. The event was scheduled to start at 10AM but I decided to arrive early with my cousin to help the organizers with the parking arrangements. We pulled into the lot at 8AM and there were already people arriving to get their desired parking spots. I’ve always thought that if people are showing up 2 hours early to an event, it’s pretty safe to assume that it’s going to be a pretty good turnout. I definitely wasn’t disappointed.
Amir’s Porsche 911 – As the pictures depict, this car is no joke. Real aero, real chassis enhancements, and real sticky tires. One day I’ll have something like this to beat around the track.
Before barrage of cars started to arrive I was able to spot a nice red DC2 Integra on Rotiforms rocking a HOODRATstuff sticker. It was great to catch up with a supporter especially when I figured everyone would have been in Vegas. Turns out that he had attended the Royal Origin Vegas meet the night before and then headed down to Orange County right after it was over.
As the morning ticked away a lot more cars started to pull in to take over the empty parking lot. GTR’s definitely showed a great presence at the meet.
A couple of Fatlace cars also showed up. One of which was Yogi’s GS that was only put together the night before. Excuse my crappy picture taking skills. It doesn’t do this car any justice.
Spotted this clean G35 sedan on some Rotiform SNA’s. Something like this has always been my dream daily driver.
Awesome sticker on the fender-fucked fender as well ;).
Regular CSL styling and stock sizing fenders wasn’t enough for the owner of this car. He took the “whale-tail” and widebody styling to a whole ‘nother level.
There were a lot of nice EVO’s in attendance as well.
Kenny Chieu’s awesome looking MR-S. Catch this car getting sideways in the Top Drift competition this year.
Another awesome looking MR-S parked right next to it, this one looking more grip inspired.
The popularity of the FR-S chassis has spread like wildfire. A reasonable priced car, well developed chassis and big aftermarket support has appealed to a lot of people and it showed at this event. Although most of them are either performance inspired or rocking played out Rocket Bunny kits this car gave off a very different style. Slightly wider wheel fitment and a little more drop would make it looking clean and perfect.
The whole point of the event was for this year’s Formula D contestants to have their cars inspected to follow the championship regulations. Time for some drift car porn!
Mike Essa’s new E46 . Brand new build for the 2013 season. I can’t wait to see it complete and competing at the first round in Long Beach.
Taka Aono’s refreshed Corolla. Although some cars arrived incomplete, it was good to see some of the new changes in livery and modifications done to the other cars.
Joon Maeng’s and his team were also there with their competition car for the 2013 season. One thing that I would like to point out is that Joon was there nice and early, and even after the car was finished with the inspection, his team set up a tent and stayed all day answering questions and hanging out with the fans. Now that’s an awesome guy!
Defending champion Daigo Saito’s car. I can’t wait to see this thing go at it again this year.
I noticed a line forming towards the front of the event so I went over to check out what was going on…
Sandra Wong had arrived.
Throughout the whole day cars were leaving and more cars were pouring in so I decided to do a few more strolls through the aisles.
Then I spotted this. A HAKOSUKA GTR! YES!
These days, it’s not a good car meet without some food trucks. Dos Chinos, Dogzilla, Sexy Burger and Tropical Shave Ice were there to provide food for the hungry.
Whether it be one an apex eating track car or a VIP styled ride, TE37SL’s look good anywhere, anytime, on anything.
Towards the end of the event this R34 arrived. I had spotted him out of the street and wanted to take a snap of it. He cheekily flipped his license plate as I pulled up my camera.
Despite my sunburnt face and getting a “no-front-plate” ticket while leaving the event, it was a pretty good day. I tend to grow tired of car events when I see the same old cars over and over again but the Formula D Tech Day always had something going on to entertain me.
To the idiots who thought it was a 0-40mph competition or who wanted to show off that their piece of shit cars had an exhaust, I’d like to thank you for ruining the meet by gaining the Irvine PD’s attention. Although the police allowed the event to continue, they weren’t shy about pulling people over towards the end of the meet. I’ve been around long enough to know that this will always happen at large gatherings but I had always hoped that people would grow the fuck up. It’s amusing because the cars that are properly built and that are actually impressive tend to leave events in a proper manner, whereas the piece-of-crap jank cars always leave like they have something to prove.
About a week ago, Lowballers Japan came out to Cali for a little visit. We actually threw a small meet for them so they could get a feel of what the car scene is like out here. Unfortunately, I arrived to the meet on Filipino time so I wasn’t able to snap any pictures. A couple of days after the meet, we took the Lowballers out for the night. We decided on Past Memories in Garden Grove. It is a small Korean restaurant that serves bombdotcom Soju and pretty good Korean Food. This time, I had my camera with me, so I was ready to snap some pictures of the infamous Lowballers Japan, but stupid me got too buzzed to take pictures so I ended up forgetting to take my camera out (I’m sorry).
Shortly after dinner, the Lowballers went back to their hotel because they had an extremely early flight the next morning. Vince and Yogi from Fatlace/Illest decided to come out and chill with us that night, and Vince brought out his Gangster of Gangsters Honda Odyssey. Nimo also came out that night and brought out his super dumped IS300. Since we were all together and Yogi also had his camera, we decided to do a photo shoot of Vince’s car and the rest of the cars that were there.
We started the night off at a DIY car wash. Vince, looking sexy as fuck, washing his car.
Vince making sure the van is spotless.
Minh tried to be sexy like Vince, but failed.
Nimo decided to dump the shit out of his car so he could shit on June Choi…lol jk.
Nimo now eats the pavement for breakfast.
Minh thinking to himself, “mehhh, that was me two years ago.”
My little sister DD for me that night, she’s awesome. Keep a look out for her STI this year. It’s going to be crazy.
Yogi about to do some magic with his camera.
Unfortunately all the pictures I took of Vince’s car came out like shit. All of them were super grainy or too dark. I messed around with one picture in Photoshop and this is what I came out with. Like I said before, this van is super gangster. I believe it is rocking a set of Work Meister’s s1R on one side and a set of SSr MS1 on the other side. Don’t quote me on it though because I am not 100 percent sure.
Yogi’s photographer stance.
Jeff came out that night as well, and brought out his RSX. This thing will always make you drool.
Nimo and Young decided to park hard as fuck at the underground parking lot.
Neel’s Honda Accord with a fresh set of Work Emitz.
Neel’s Accord has to be one of the most underrated and overlooked cars in the car scene. It definitely needs more publicity because his car is just neckbreaking!!
Vinh’s new wheel set up 3 pc Work Meisters. So glossy.
5 spoke swerve.
Mr. Shumai poppin in for a visit.
The guys talking about how Vincent’s car is so low that we could put our penis’ on the roof.
That pretty much sums up the night we had. Until next time, everyone!!
-Anglelow
Photos by Angelo and Minh
Instagram : angelocalderon
Royal Origin and IMKING are hosting a pre-meet for the upcoming show “THE INFAMOUS” by Hellaflush and Canibeat. It will also be a photo exhibition displaying photos from some of the infamous local automotive photographers in the area. There will also be discounts to shop in the store and food trucks. Come out if you enjoy photography, bomb food, and of course, cars!
This year’s Autocon 2011 in Irvine, California was a huge success with over 4,000 attendees, 450 cars, 30 vendors, 15 food trucks, and many models who came out that day. We would like to take the time to thank everyone on the Autocon staff that helped put this event together. Even though, the focal point are these cars at the event, it is mainly about the donations and donated toys that this event was able to accumulate for the less fortune for the holiday season.
Here is my video coverage of the Canibeat and Royal Origin collaboration. Over 30 cars met up very early in the morning; we were even able to see the very last lunar eclipse of the year at the same time! Then drove down together as a group to roll in and organize at the show. Once again it was good meeting all our old and new friends to enjoy the day together, even if it was a very long day at that. This was an excellent way to end the year, before the show season starts up again in 2012.
