By Antonio Alvendia

Antonio Alvendia

When I think of Mooneyes and their Annual Christmas Party at Irwindale, I normally think of hot rods – rat rods, traditionals, kustoms, roadsters… things of that sort. However, as I was trudging along the Irwindale Speedway parking lot with soaking wet jeans (and even worse… wet socks. Grossss!) from the torrential downpour that Mother Nature subjected us to… I noticed this small grouping of Volkswagens, and immediately began making my way toward them.

These Vee Dubs had their own sense of style. The color and rust spots on this blue Deluxe VW bus reminded me of the Volkswagen Single Cab from Miami that we featured just a few months ago when we started this site. I’m admittedly not a maven of VW knowledge, but I do have a strong opinion on what I think is stylish and what’s not. Continue reading and view more photos on MotorMavens!

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Since Christmas is almost upon us, I’m writing this from my parent’s house outside of Tampa. The funny thing? Even though I flew here from Los Angeles—not Seattle, like previous years—the weather in La La Land has been so crappy that the climate change felt remarkably similar. Totally funny. Anyway, the winner of this week’s contest is kmckeever77, who came up with; “Great, now I can use them ejection seats!” Eagle-eyed readers will notice that I corrected the spelling/spacing/punctuation errors in that submission, but whatever. Happy Christmas. Tune in tomorrow for the next installment of our eggnog-sodden Caption Contest!

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Great story. Big props to everyone at Fiero.com Via Jalopnik

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Nope, there’s no good reason to mount a switch-activated bottle rocket launcher to your sport bike. But hey, if we only highlighted mods that had practical value, this blog would be kind of of dull. And how cool does it look when he fires on the freeway?

By Antonio Alvendia

Antonio Alvendia

Two weekends ago, my friend Scott Toshima invited me to come out to a meet he was hosting at Norm Reeves Honda, off the 605 freeway in Cerritos CA. I’ve never owned a Honda in my life, so I never had a reason to go there previously, but I was definitely down to support whatever function Scott was throwing… plus, he said that several of the best offset Hondas in Southern Cali would be attending.

Well, Scott wasn’t lying. I was honestly quite impressed with the level of the cars that came out to this gathering, which wasn’t even a major carshow or anything; it was just a simple Honda meet in the parking lot of a local dealer! Even though it wasn’t some sort of big event like Import Showoff or something like that, the H crowd showed up strong to show off their new wheels!

That’s right, I said wheels! It seems that there are more and more Honda owners catching on and joining the low offset/stretched tire movement, and I think that’s a good thing. Sure, there are a lot of people who hate on this new trend in the Honda scene, saying that it makes no sense to stretch the tires and camber the rear wheels on a Front Engine, Front Wheel Drive car… but hey, Volkswagen guys have been doing it for years, and their cars are FF too! Continue reading and view more photos on MotorMavens!

By Michael Berenis

Tampa Sports Car Examiner

I’ve seen some crazy stuff in my day, but I have never seen someone drive off with a gas pump still attached. Leaving the gas lid open is one thing, but the whole pump? Wow! Captured by a fellow sports car enthusiast, read more about the gas pump drive off at Tampa Sports Car Examiner.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

In the past we’ve shared our opinions on the Nurburgring as an odd marketing tool for domestic auto companies, but that’s not to say we don’t respect and recognize the fact that the track itself is insane. BangShift.com forum member Mr4Speed tipped us to an awesome video of Corvette racer Jan Mannussen beating the daylights out of a ZR1 around the “Green Hell.”

This video is addicting. We’ve watched it like ten times. The sound alone is worth the pice of admission but watching Magnussen do his thing behind the wheel, and looking as relaxed as a grandmother driving to church, is what really keeps us glued to the screen.

Note the guy who looks back at the camera at the start of the run. He’s apparently sans helmet. Hopefully he’s wearing an adult diaper because we know we would have whizzed our pants riding shotgun on this blast!

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

One of the things that has never gotten old or played out for me is my love of titanium exhausts. To me, quality wise Amuse is still king, but there are lots of cool and high quality exhausts out there worth talking about. And I often do…

But today I wanted to talk about custom titanium exhausts. There are some shops in Japan like Heat Magic who are producing some really crazy exhausts in Titanium that are full one-off (custom jobs).

The lead in picture is a 4 exhaust custom setup on a Suzuki B-King. I’ve never seen anything quite like that. Hopefully you like it as much as I do!

Continue reading "Titanium Custom Exhausts – 4 Cannister Sport Bike" »

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

Around this time, the new issue of Sports & Exotic Car is hitting mailboxes, with a short item in the News section on Bill Coffey’s Garage Party. It’s an invitation-only affair in Gainsville, Florida, and Donnelly’s pal Louis Galano was there on October 24 this year. Continue reading at Hemmings

By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

I never realized how clean a FD would look without a spoiler. It really shows the timeless design of the Mazda FD.

-Jeroen Willemsen