When I’m bored at work, I constantly listen to MP3s and surf the web. The other day, I decided to look at Volkswagen related videos because I was interested in finding more cars that looked similar to my friend Zach’s Well Dunn Passat.
I stumbled across this older video from Wagenwerks Productions, that featureda Volkswagen Jetta GLI owned by a guy named Brandon Nero. I think this video is sick – the music went well with the feel of the video. The Jetta is so simple and clean, yet it’s so aggressive! I gotta hand it to Brandon Nero, he made one dope looking Jetta! I obviously love the car’s super low stance, and the fitment of the BBS mesh wheels? Perfect.
While replaying the video about 4-5 times, I read the comments on the Wagenwerks Vimeo account and saw that they used roller blades to get all the moving camera shots! No fancy rigs or easy dollies used here! I can go on for days about how good this video is, but I think I’ll just shut up and let you watch. Awesome, right?
I made the short trek last weekend to the Winter Park section of Orlando. It was cold out by Florida standards, but was at least warmer than it had been the past two weeks. Last Sunday's event was the first of it's type (for this area) and the title stated it clearly. Simply Clean..... Proper stance, perfect wheel fitment, quality paint job.... Almost everything a car enthusiast should dream of! There were of course big horse power cars, so they filled in the missing link that we gas mileage savvy people left out. But lets think about this for a second. One one-thousand... Do you really need 500 horsepower when your car sits 1 inch off the ground and has a 95% chance of losing a bumper at every divot? Well, I know I sure as hell do! I can't think of anything better than the ability to yell louder than the passenger screaming in the seat next to you "SHUT UP! I F*CKING GOT THIS!" as you drive over your front lip, while laughing hysterically... Read more...
Recently my buddy Dave Mucci made the trip from Chicago to Ocean City, MD, all for the love of automobiles! I figured it'd be pretty whack of me to write an article about H20 International since I've yet to go myself, so I asked the man, the myth, my buddy Mooch, to provide some guest commentary. Some of you may be familiar with Dave's work in 0-60 Magazine, doing detailed engine illustrations. The kid is one hell of an artist, but he isn't a writer by trade and I'm not much of a grammatical genius so bear with us. Hopefully you will be too engaged with the dope photos to give a crap. For the photography, Dave enlisted the help of Patrick Mizenko who took tons of killer photos, only a sliver of which you'll see here, the rest you can check out at Patrick's site. Thanks again to you both!!!
I was reading Yoshi Shindo’s Passat story the other day and it really jumped off the page at me when he said he had “never been the greatest fan of VWs”. Not that there's anything wrong with liking what you like. It just reminded me of something my boy Steve told me about the VW scene awhile back. He said (I’m paraphrasing): “There’s nothing new about aggressive offset and rolled fenders. VW guys have been doing that for over 30 years.” Read more...
Looking through the terabytes of photos in our Motor Mavens photographic archive, we noticed these photos from our last trip to Florida sitting in a folder, never before published and never before seen on our site.
It was one of those perfect Florida days, with the tang of fresh salt water in the air and the sun seeming to just chill and hang out like an old friend – warm and breezy in a “no worries” sorta way. So, what does one do in Paradise? That’s right... check out the cars. We were in Florida to attend the Scion Exposed 6.0 event in Sarasota anyway, so we thought we'd do a little carspotting at the show. That’s where we saw our favorite car at the show - this clean, minimalist, emerald gem, owned by Nick Rico of the bB Squad. Read more...
Most Motor Mavens readers have been following Antonio’s photos and stories from Nisei Showoff, so we’ve decided to release a video of the event as well! We really wanted to highlight something that impressed us at the show – the fact that so many of these great cars are stepping up their game with aggressive offset and negative camber!
Forget the trophies – for us, the super slammed cars with the best wheels, stance, engine mods and paint jobs were the stars of the show. Nisei Showoff wasn’t about the models (although there were a few that showed up, haha); it was about the hottest street cars. Events like this are becoming more and more rare. We feel privileged that we were there to support Ken Miyoshi on his last Nisei Showoff, because of the great feeling that this show produced. Props to Ken and the Mainstream Productions crew for bringing us an awesome day of street cars and good friends in the middle of Little Tokyo.
We hop you enjoy the video, and don’t forget to leave comments!
While I was in Seattle on business for Japanese Nostalgic Car Magazine, I happened to pass by Moss Alley Motors just as Braxton Santos' 1989 BMW 325i was pulling out of the driveway.
The E30 was only the second generation of the now legendary BMW 3-Series and the chariot of choice during the Yuppie Age. Along with tennis rackets and boat shoes, E30s were frequently used as shorthand for preppiness in 80s movies. But nowadays it's a different story. E30s can be found for less than three grand, making them ripe for the type of customization that Chet down at the country club would never consider. Read more...
