While recently trying to dig up photos of this car, I realized this article was never published. Somewhere along the way, it became buried beneath all the other drafts and never resurfaced. I love Nick’s car too much to allow that to happen, so here is the article in it’s entirety, written and photographed in April of this year by international superstar Joe Ayala himself. Joe, take it away!
“Some of you may remember a few weeks ago when Justin Shreeve snapped a quick photo of Nick Rodrigues’ BN Kitted IS300 as he was making his way through a crowded parking lot. Well, we had the opportunity last weekend to meet up with Nick for a photo-shoot. Unfortunately, by the time Nick ended up getting off work, it was dark, which left us with only a few spots to shoot. Since we were heading to Pacific Grand Prix in Kent Washington the next day and I didn’t know when I would be back in the area, it had to be “now or never”. So, we headed to a near by parking garage that seemed to be decently lit, and set up to shoot his car.
But finding a spot wasn’t nearly as challenging as getting there! We followed the Stance coiled & BN kitted car, watching it maneuver around speedbumps and zig zag up the ramps to the garage.
As Justin said in the previous post, Nick has gone through 3 sets of wheels and is sitting on a set of XXR 521s to save up for some SSR Viennas. At times, I could hardly tell because I was so drawn to the aggressive kit along with the perfect stance.
I don’t see too many well put together IS300s on the street, and seeing this one made me notice so much more about them. For instance, so many body lines that I never saw before seemed to just pop out at me. All that going along with his subtle window visors and roof wing instantly made his car one of my favorite daily driven rides.
As we parted ways, I remembered Nick mentioning that he’s almost sold his car a couple of times to start new project, but something about the car keeps bringing him back. “I couldn’t possibly think of what that might be.” I thought, as we watched him drive away.
:: Joe Ayala
TANDEM OF DIE”
