SpeedHawaii.com | Hawaii's online auto showcase & lifestyle magazine.

WTF Passat

REB — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:17:09 +0000

You’ve seen Ken Block tear up the slopes in his TRAX WRX STi now check out this piece of work from some guys in Estonia with their VW Passat. The video is a bit harsh and you will probably only watch 10 seconds on it, but gotta give these guys credit for probably being bored of of their minds and coming up with this beast!
[Via Gizmodo]

HellaFail: Tsunami Kings Pt. 2

b5boy — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:52:00 +0000

*Note – Be prepared to read/scroll through one long ass post!

Click, Click, Click. That’s the sound of my Canon 1D Mk IIn after I get it working. I’ve recently been getting the Error99, but just can’t figure out the reason, but i’ll save that for another post. I got to my meet 15 minutes late, I personally greeted everyone who came as well as thanked them for coming out. About 50 somewhat cars showed up, and it was all fun and chill all the way til the end. Here is a post with all the pictures I took that day; Basically the sequel to the post made here.

Why I was late that day? I’ll save that story as well for another post. Just remind me if I forget to post it. The turn out for this meet was much better than what I expected. I made a few calls to see if people would be down to have a small meet due to complications that weren’t thought through very well, and then made a second wave of calls to confirm that I will be having a small meet.

As I arrived into the lot, I was surprised at the turn out. An easy 20 cars were already present, and were already much more than I expected. What got me going even more was the fact that throughout the two hour period that everyone just chilled, people kept rolling in. Car after car… it all started to add up. The reason why I wanted to have a meet was not only because I wasn’t going to be here on Sunday, the day HF4 was rescheduled for, but because someone made the decision to go to the same facility to have the show with out proper permission. No one confirmed that the facility would even be available, which I thought to be wrong. Luckily, I notified Eddie and he made a special call to ask if it would be available and it was. All I’ll say is, lucky it was because if it wasn’t, Hawaii would have been in for another interesting day, and not in a good way.

What kept getting to me was the array of cars. The only meets I’ve gone to before were that hosted by Lance, the founder of Kyusha Kai, but all these cars were just so… different. I mean, I know I called about 3 people, and posted it on my facebook status, but damn, I’ve never even seen some of the cars before that day. It’s funny how word spreads so fast. It was like a wildfire.

Phone calls and a facebook status was the only way notifying people about this meet because my primary concerns were to keep it off of ForumsHawaii to prevent immature kids from coming out, acting dumb, and getting everyone in trouble. Everyone was already restless that because of the potential Tsunami as well as spending long hours the night before for a show that was canceled. It was a good time to actually enjoy the nice day that it was.

I started my venture around the lot looking at cars with this civic. A nice EK hatch sitting on some mesh wheels. Very simple and clean. I also started off the shoots with harsh sun light behind me creating big shadows!

Teeheehee, I liked the collection of Hello Kitty plushies in the back seat. Cool random touch. I recall seeing this car in HF4 as well. Maybe he had different wheels or spacers though?

Soon enough I noticed Oliver’s EK hatch sitting behind it. oO! Haven’t seen the dude in a while.

He was running new wheels and a new front lip! I asked why he changed it up and he just replied that he got bored with the look. I guess thats a good reason though. Check out how it used to look like here.

And just like my partial front shots, I ended up doing the same for the back of the car. I really like the contrast between the pavement, the blue sky, and his red car… Nice mixture of colors! haha

I felt like I should have gotten an interior shot way earlier when I did the private shoot with his car, but completely forgot. I sort of got De Ja Vu that day and did so. It was also that white lettering in the background that caught my attention. Look at how clean it is!

As I stood up, I saw this SC back out, and I thought he was about to leave. So being the ninja that I am, I snapped a shot. It turned out that he was just moving his car to park by the SMG crew. His car sports a swapped 2J Turbo. Thing must be animo! I don’t know why, but he put an OEM bumper on as well as primered the rear one. Maybe he’s going to repaint soon?

Then I saw this car roll in… Another LS on AME Shaolins. I was pretty fricken happy cars just kept rolling in!

I then stumbled upon Chris and his EF again that day as well as Vince, the dude who owns the Q45 next to it. Check out Chris’s EF post that I made here. His car bra just makes his car look that much more factory!

His car was sporting his older Yakima roof rack holding his Bianchi Fixies. Man, his bike was just as nice as his car! I was looking at Bianchis at the end of last year but just never came across to buying one!

A side shot of Vince’s car sitting on his deep, and rare, ass wheels. Sooo motha fkn clean! Sorry for the horrible use of word choice, but there is just no other way to describe it! haha

The two sitting next to each other. Whats even crazier is that this is how both these guys drive their car… daily! Neither are on bags nor care about them. Their just ballas like that.

Next door sat two more Q45s. One the same generation, and the other the one before. These also looked nice.

Making use of that DOF…

The black Q45t shown above was sporting this ‘EMPIRE’ sticker. If your from Hawaii and don’t know what it is, get out from underneath that rock your living under! For non-Hawaii people, I think it’s just a group of friends who started a car crew that was VIP themed. These were some of the first guys to be doing it in Hawaii and did so hard! Yakuza cars in Hawaii for sure!

Just look at how nice and clean they are! If I had enough money in the world, I’d have these just to display… along with all the cars and lenses I want as well.

AME just blew up! They must be making serious bank. But they deserve it for making such a nice wheel design.

Another shot of Vince’s fitment + newly stretched tires. He literally rides the side walls of his tires and goes through them every two months. Talk about dedication!

Next to the set of Q’s were the SMG guys. Sorry I wasn’t able to shoot these cars nor the 3rd Q, but maybe some day I will… I saw Kahi leaving the lot and had to say farewell.

He was supposed to be in HF4 as well, but Titanium (local wheel repair shop) didn’t finish his wheels in time. The expected finish date was Friday, but they failed to meet the due date… Talk about let down. I’m sure a lot of people will avoid them based upon the stories I’ve been hearing. Sorry for the flare being on your face Kahi! haha

Kirk then arrived with a bang! Literally. He pulled a Paul Walker and mashed his lip into the curb thing.. Why, I dont know. This is the Kyusha Kai support vehicle though if you didn’t already know. Thanks to lance, it sits on one of his many sets of LongChamps.

Behind sat Julian’s Celica Supra. Lance did a write up of it a while back, check it out here. This is also where my HDR phase kicked in again x]

Next to him were the Rothwell brothers and their Subarus.

And another Subie. I liked the front lip on this one Hopefully I’ll get to spend some time with this car in the future as well.

Brice also came out… Well he was one of the people I contacted to help spread the message. Thanks for doing so man, it really helped!

Because of him, I was able to meet Justin as well. I saw his car a few times, but never was able to meet the guy until today. I liked the little shades above the headlights, it added a nice touch to the front.

I got in touch with Jerome to come out as well! Unfortunately this is the only shot I have of his car from that day, but check out the small post I made about his ride here.

Here is Dylan’s Del Slo slammed to the ground! I don’t even know how he drives it because it’s so damn low! Check out the posts I wrote for him here and here as well. Thank you Dylan for rounding up your pasi and bringing them as well

Also gotta thank Vince and Chris for coming out. Especially Chris for helping spread the word. Thanks man!

Kahi’s car sitting on his Purple Work Equip 03’s… Man, it would have looked sick if the wheels were actually done on time.

And Joey doing his karate kick.

And lastly, Kirk peacing out which is what I’m about to do now. I’m tired a fk and have a lot ahead of me. Shoots world and take it easy! This was my coverage of my meet.

Head on over to my blog for even MORE pics!

Once again, big thanks to everyone who made it possible! SMG Crew, Mansu, iClub guys, and the Kyusha Kai guys, Thanks!!!

Readers Rides: Kentos 2006 Porsche Cayman S

Joe-Wii — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:21:34 +0000

Speedhawaii features a ride from the land of the rising sun! JDM (sort of) after the jump!

I was really surprised and pleased when I opened up the Speedhawaii inbox to find a reader’s ride submission from Japan. I guess we’re spreading around the world! Kento from Okazaki Japan shared with us a few picks of his Porsche Cayman S.

The Porsche Cayman S is considered by many to be the best feeling sports car on the market today. While the styling is certainly subjective, the driving feel almost certainly isn’t. Nothing beats an engine mounted in the mid-rear powering the rear wheels. Some say that the Cayman is an even better chassis layout then big brother 911!

Here in Hawaii (and across America I should add) we go mad-crazy for JDM. We want JDM everything for our rides: JDM ashtray, JDM carpets, JDM parking sticker, etc. Which is why I always find it amusing when people in Japan modify their cars with USDM kit. Kento did that with his Cayman a bit, adding a USDM rear bumper, sunvisors, sidemarkers, and mirror glass. And because he’s a huge fan of Hawaii, he added a safety check sticker. Wow, not sure if Kento knows how much we HATE safety check here, but props for repping Hawaii!

And of course, as a loyal follower of SH/FH, you can’t forget the Fh sticker! MEAN!

Thanks to Kento for submitting his ride! And remember, no matter where you are around the globe, you can still submit your ride (I’m looking at YOU Europe! I know we have some European readers!)!

Jerome’s 240 Vert & Sean’s LS

b5boy — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:16:41 +0000

My buddy Jerome, whom I met previously at a few shows, messaged me when I was back asking if I could shoot his 240vert and his friend Sean did the same. Coincidentally, both knew each other and were good friends, down to do the shoot together. I don’t know who’s idea it was, but it sort of worked. We planned to meet up at Home Depot in Pearl City and hoped for it to work out from there, and it did… well sort of…

The reason why we met up at PC Home Depot was because I’m not too familiar with Waipahu, but who cares. After a few minutes of waiting, I hear them roll in and we begin having fun As they rolled in, I spotted a few containers just sitting at the corner of the lot, and bam, it all fell into place!

Sean’s car was dropped on coils and sat on some shiny, pretty, AME Shallens and Jerome’s car smalled on some legit Work Meisters.

A closer picture of Sean’s wheels. VIP madnesssssss

Soon enough, we were asked to leave by the Home Depot workers…

It’s not that they didn’t mind us doing a little shoot, but they told us that we couldn’t park between containers… So being the nice, humble, people that we are, we moved.

We’re not the type to argue, and we respect them laying down the law to protect their asses. Here’s Jerome moving out. His car was so low that his whole car literally fit under the container minus a few inches of his windshield.

We then ended up moving to the opposite side of the container. The poke on the 240 vert gave it a nice touch while Sean’s LS sat pretty behind.

And a little front shot of their cars. By this time, it was about a half hour since we arrived, and unfortunately the yard people started to weed wack above us… All the grass were flying on their cars.

A small shot of their wheels…

As I stood up, I noticed the clean collection of stickers on his LS… This is one part of the car that I liked the most. I usually don’t like cars flooded with stickers because it usually turns out tacky, but with the simple and clean font that was used, the car pulled it off perfect.

And you can’t have a car VIP’d without the curtains right? Junction Produce holds this game down really well.

The Fusa and Tuna knots are also essential to pull of the VIP look… I remember seeing them back in my high school days when no one even knew about them, but now they are so played out… being on cars that don’t even have that VIP emphasis… It’s a shame. I’d still have one if I had a VIP car though, so thumbs up to Sean.

Jerome’s car actually was parked partially under the container for a good amount of time. They said we couldn’t park between them, but nothing about being under them. One of my plans for a future shoot is definetely to shoot a car completely under the container

And a shot of Jerome’s wheels. Look at that dish! And realize that these are the ones on the front of his car! Also, look at the remains of the sticker that used to sit on his front fender… To whomever reads this: Give him shit about taking it off!

And another of the AMEs. Man, wheels have become the new essential part to your car. A swear, a few years back, no one would have even had that much of an emphasis on the wheels they had on their car.

The emblem on the b-pillar on the vert. I would have never noticed that if I hadn’t got to shoot their cars. Nifty.

Our day then came to a close as I got a phone call to pick someone up. I guess it was urgent because we couldn’t do legit rolling shots on Kam Highway, so we did some pans in the parking lot.

Although some of the shots came out nice, I didn’t feel that the shoot was adequete, so until next time, this will suffice. I’ll be sure to reschedule another for when I visit Hawaii again… And maybe these cars will look even better than they did that day!

http://eseeramorihs.wordpress.com/

Random Shot from HellaFlush Pre-Meet

monochrome.fav — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:03:29 +0000

I took a bunch of random pics at the pre-meet and I like most of them, but this one stood out the most. The lighting at the time (around 5:30 pm) wasn’t the greatest, but it did cast bold shadows on all the cars and presented me with a great opportunity to shoot with abstract lighting. So I did so and believe me, its hard to get a decent shutter speed when the entire car is in the dark.

More or less, I think it came out pretty decent!

Thanks to Tyler for supplying the B-E-A-UTIFUL Mugen! ^^b

BMW Tablecloth Trick

Joe-Wii — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:06:29 +0000

Just thought I’d share this cool video I found via Youtube. A BMW S1000 pulls off the old tablecloth trick. Sure, it might be a glorified commercial, but that doesn’t stop it from being cool!

GTR’s in GT1

monochrome.fav — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:11:26 +0000

Browsing around and stumbled upon this article (on Jalopnik) about the GTR’s competing in the GT1 World Championship. This isn’t surprising news, but it’ll sure be exciting to see how well they do! GTR + GT Racing wing = epic!

Stay tuned for the results!

Chris’ 91′ EF Hatch

b5boy — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:39:18 +0000

The day before I went out to Hawaii, I had a few people inquire about HF4 private shoots while I was back. One guy that I linked up with was Chris. I’ve seen his car a couple years back prowling the streets of Salt Lake and again at SS09, and it has to be one of the cleanest running EF Civics on the island. He daily’s his car and had many tricks up his sleeve for HellaFlush4.

As soon as I got in to Hawaii, I got in touch with everyone and scheduled where I could, but this one was hard. Well actually all of them were. I’m such a indecisive person that we ended up doing his shoot at the spur of the moment. Being both from the leeward side, I wanted to do one there so I wouldn’t have to travel far, but we ended up venturing to 3 different photo spots, each having different characteristics.

This was the first, a loading dock in Mapunapuna. When we first met up, I was happy I could spend some time that day staring at this machine. Now onto his car. It is a Honda EF9 (89′-91′ Honda Civic SiR for those who don’t know much Honda chassis codes) sporting a TON of JDM parts. But aside from it’s full wrap around of JDM bumpers, side skirts, lights, and everything else, the thin side moldings is that small detail that sets this car off.

His car sits on some 15″ Enkei Roders, wheels you rarely see. The things are a work of art. Flawless… Well aside from the small water spots there. They even have the original decals on the inside and lips on all four as well as the original tire stems. Its nice to see someone straying away from Works and SSRs; Not to say that I don’t like them, its just something different.

The rear of his car sports a crap ton of in4 stickers as well as other miscellaneous ones. But he has one new addition that is missing from this picture… The Kyusha Kai one!

Not only his wheels are flawless though, his interior is also squeaky clean. I was surprised to see how nice it was for a car being almost two decades old already! Another cool thing no one realizes is that his AC works and blows nice cold air! It is rare to come across a 199x car with AC at this day in age, so you respect that!

Ok, well maybe he fixed his AC and flushed the fluids or whatever you need to do to do it which requires brains, but this guy isn’t just smart, he has common sense! Look at that nice spare tire in the back Even with a flat, he can still roll around without looking stupid. Well thats not the reason why he has it back there, he actually has it because of weight. More weight = lower to the ground = flusher? haha. He had some other misc junk back there, but this shot will do.

As a result, Waa-la! Not too shabby eh? Going to the next topic, I really like the OEM ‘VTEC’ stickers that come on the doors of civics that do have them. Yeah, this one has, so don’t worry. The side of the EF is so simple and so clean.

Here’s another shot of his rear. The location was completely random and not planned out what so ever but we both liked it. Chris gauge a nice little section on that incline when he was moving his car, so even though it doesn’t look that low, it is, believe me.

Here are a couple stickers that he had on the left side. The JDM parking sticker also added a nice touch to the car.

After taking that shot, I went back to the front. I took this along the way lol.

I spotted STANLEY too! Is that supposed to be like the light cover manufacturer? Because I also spotted Stanley on my civic.

You can’t have a proper automotive shoot without having one with just the front fender forward! I’ve been liking these shots a lot lately. The bottom section of the trailer gives his car a nice contrast. His car is also dropped on fully adjustable coilovers with neuspeed front and rear struts.

After a few front shots, I finally got one. I spy that one lonely illest sticker. haha, yeah, that was an easy find, but so what! He used to have a Honda ‘Primo’ banner, but replaced it with a JDMSpeedWorx one the night before the shoot.

Yeah, this is what I meant when I said after a FEW front shots. The camera kept focusing on the ground, but it still came out pretty nifty.

A shot with his hood open after we were looking at the heart of his car which also captures his fitment… Kinda. This is why I was surprised his AC still worked. He went through a few engines, and has finally settled with this one. Super low miles and a super old air intake.

I circled the car once more, put my lenses and camera away, and was ready to move on with my day. But this doesn’t conclude the post.

I had to take one more picture of his wheels of course! Look at how clean and nice they are! Great example of how simplicity is the new complexity. We then moved on…

This was the next spot we went to. I’ll just call it this. I’ve wanted to go here for a while, and actually stepped foot on the pavement that day. It was like a man on the moon, we were both astonished at how perfect it was!

But even though the spot was perfect, the snaps I took here weren’t. Some came out nice, while others were meh. If you’re a local, you probably know where this is already… Pau game

I was able to take a few shots that I could only take here that day though due to physical constraints. In the first location, the containers would be in the way. In the second, I just couldn’t. This was actually the third spot that day.

Honda.

Stanley. I mean, another partial front shot.

And another. Man, the thin side molding + Roders + DOHC VTEC + how clean his car is just sums up to super win already! haha. I hope to see him at more Kyusha Kai hosted events.

This shows his car sitting nicely for HF4 which was supposed to be taking place the next day. A last shot before going onto the second place.

This was the original place that we were supposed to shoot his car, but I’ve never been here before to tell you the truth. I probably have, but just don’t come here often enough to remember it. Queen Street in Downtown. A 4 lane road with 2 lanes going each way. No meters, and no place to stop. Yeah, thats him parked there. Ah, this is the definition of perfect timing.

The road runs parallel to King Street in Honolulu. That and Queen St have to be two of some of the busiest roads in Hawaii. This shot is pretty cool because it doesn’t even look like we’re in Hawaii anymore. Sweeeeeet! This thing is actually a white Honda Teleportal!

I’m not going to lie, pulling this off was pretty difficult. After many minutes of waiting, we finally got it; something I don’t think he expected to do, and something that I’ve always wanted to do. All I’ll say is this: doing it while there is peak traffic during the middle of the day + being a friday +timing everything = hard!

A little on the wider end. The red building really warps you out of Hawaii. Both me, and Chris loved the location. Literally, right in the middle of the road = win!

Kabam! smack dab in the middle of the fricken road! You can see The Bus coming in the background haha. I really like the skyline as well.

This shot concludes my post and day with Chris and his EF Hatch. It was a fun day and nice venturing around and trying new things. I’m sure he has many future plans for the car and is not even close to finishing it the way he wants it to be.

“Lots of thanks to Mark (Streetribe), Kevin, Vince, Chris (lsveee), Bryan(89hatcher), Sherman from N1concepts, Rob from Sonic, Jeannie.” -Chris

If you want to get a wallpaper sized version of Chris’ car, hop on over to my blog for that, random stuff and car shoots before I post them here on SH!
http://eseeramorihs.wordpress.com/

SHOOOTS!

HD1 RC Drift Series: Round 3

Joe-Wii — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:34:25 +0000

Another exclusive from our friends at HyperDrift! Pics and a vid after the jump!

First, I must apologize for this being so late! With all the HellaFlush things going on for the past couple of weeks, this particular feature slipped my mind! Better late than never I suppose! Credit goes out to the boys at HyperDrift Hawaii for the article/video/pictures!

“Hyper Drift is not a team, it’s a movement.” Pretty much sums up what we’re about. It’s not about the individual, where your from or who your krew is. Just a group of guys with a passion that we wanted to share. And so the movement began.

We are in our inagural year with our first R/C drift season dubbed “HD1 RC Drift Series”. HD standing for Hawaii Drift. We took a few elements from D1 and Formula D to offer an assimilation that is easy to follow. We just finished round 3 of a season consisting of a total of 6 rounds. With round champions leading to the final season champion.

Round 3 took place at Sandy Flemming’s on the last Sunday of January. Thanks to Dave (The owner of Sandy Fleming’s) there for allowing a spot for the comp. It was a day full of heat not just from the sun but also from the battles of competition. A few rivals from the defeat of round 2 offered some redemption, as well as opportunity to for some to score big with the overall season scoring. With 22 guys entered, The top 16 qualified ending in the finals between Justindabull and Marshun. The child prodigy (Just 15 years old) Justindabull took round 3 from the 1st round winner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOmPMyyN1nY

*Special thanks to Cool Rolla for majority of the pictures

HF4 Pre-Meet

REB — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:16:32 +0000

Yea, I am still a bit tired from working HellaFlush IV and I am only now starting getting back into the grind. On the day of the tsunami, as with many of you, I was bored out of my mind. I didn’t do jack sh*t or was in any way productive. It wasn’t because I didn’t care, it was because it was such a depressing day! The weather was absolutely beautiful so it just felt off that we were advised to stay at home. I ended up playing video games all day rather than going into a panic and buying water and spam.

As soon as we got the all clear, Reese decided to try and make up for the day by calling up pre-meetup for HellaFlush IV. Through the magic of social networking, everyone met up at Central Oahu Regional Park to show off what they got. Many of the cars that showed up was either in the show or in the parking lot. I would say a total of 25+ cars showed within a 2 hour period including cars in SMG, Mansu and Garage JS4KIX. You gotta give technology credit, it all started with a Facebook update.

I took a few shots here and there but not many so I will just keep this as a preview as what to Reese has shot. I even caught some craziness such as Kirk ramming his front lip of his xB into those parking curbs!

Just tidbit, there is a car show hosted by someone new this August so lets see what everyone’s got this summer!