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 Jim Brennan

UDMan

With a lot of the manufacturers that are MIA, or didn’t even bother to show at this years SEMA, it was good to see Honda in attendance, stronger than ever. The theme at this years event is the history of Honda, with some cool vintage iron, along with a number of historic racing vehicles. Lets take a look at some of the Vintage Machinery, starting with a Honda N600, and going on to a CRX, and the recently discontinued S2000. More photos and video after the jump.

Continue reading "The Honda Booth at SEMA 2009: Honda History Illustrated" »

I must admit, I started my craze for JDM tuning like most Americans who were never so lucky as to have the classic early Evos, Subys and GT-Rs… I started with Honda. Maybe if I grew up in Japan, I would have been all about Nissan from my birth, but being an American in the mid 90s, Honda were IT. The first car I modified was a ’93 Prelude VTEC and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Mugen was the pinnacle of JDM (and still could be, depending on your perspective) and the exotic and impossible to access nature of Mugen’s parts was the kind of story reserved for legend or urban myth. I don’t think I ever felt as cool as the day I bought a set of Mugen pedals for my girlfriend’s Honda Accord. We were both crazy excited about that purchase (looking back… some stupid overpriced pedals). Those pedals were like JDM gold back then, and they cost about as much as well.

Recently, I stumbled across this vintage 1991 Mugen catalog and it brought back so many memories of the ultra-elusive Mugen tuning parts of that era. Just looking at it now, it still feels really special to me, in a way that modern times with our widespread internet access will never allow me to feel.

Enjoy my random internet find, and credit is ultimately due to someone named Romeo who has these on his google picassa account. Hopefully he doesn’t mind me sharing this now historic gem! More pics after the jump.

Continue reading "Vintage Mugen Catalog from 1991" »

Check out this burly little Honda Fit that Japanese Honda tuner Mugen was showing off at the Tokyo Auto Salon last week.  That’s a 147 hp supercharged 1.5 throbbing beneath the hood of that weency little microcar. 17" aluminum wheels, pizza-plate sized disc brakes on all four. Could be fun, yeah?

If you’re a Honda or Acura fan, then you know who Mugen is. If you don’t, Mugen is to Honda what AMG is for Mercedes. As the tuning house for Honda, they offer aeroparts and performance upgrades for almost the entire Honda line—including the minivan. Yep, even your mom’s grocery getter can be souped up for the streets. The Stream isn’t available in the states, but it falls somewhere in the "crossover" category—think minivan meets station wagon—and Mugen offers two distinct bodykits for it. You can either go with the "Coupe" package for a sports car look, or live a little more luxuriously and get the "Sedan" styling for a more refined, yet still edgy feel. These crossovers get my hatchback blood pumping—I’d rock either one. One thing to note, Mugen didn’t improve performance with these upgrades, they’re solely for visual appeal. Nihon Car had this great video of the Mugen-equipped soccer-mom mobiles, check it out.

Well, Jason seems to be "too busy" to bring you guys the news, so I’m stepping in until his schedule clears.  He’s saying something about having to save the world… or his job, I dunno, one or the other. On to the News:

• Seems the kids at the UAW and Chrysler just can’t seem to play nicely. It’s reported the 4-year contract hit a few snags as four plants have now rejected the current version. Un-cool, guys. I hope this doesn’t delay my Jeep Compass delivery. (Detroit News)
• Mugen, Honda’s official factory tuning house, got their hands on the Honda Fit. They now offer some great aero parts and basic bolt-ons that make this green machine a much more aggressive little street monster.. Well, ok maybe more of a Muppet than a monster. (Carscoop)
• F1 finished the season with Kimi Raikkonen stepping into the World Champion title after Lewis Hamilton couldn’t quite cut it in Brazil. (Autoexpress UK)
• One of my personal favorite race teams is pulling out. Cadillac has decided this will be the last year for the CTS-V team, citing a need to focus on the their luxury market without racing. If it wasn’t for the success of CTS-V race team, I don’t think I’d even have noticed this bad-boy BMW-fighter!(Autoweek)

My wife has a ton of shoes, and that’s okay. She has dress shoes for work, Vans for playtime, and running shoes for, well, running. It’s a lot of shoes. I guess I’m like that when it comes to wheels, as our garage currently houses a bunch–Koseis, Volks, Rotas, American Racings, Knigs, Superlites and more.

Here’s my latest find, a set of Mugen CF-48 wheels. They showed up on our message board last night with the tasty price of $200 for the set. The seller is a friend and happened to be passing through town this afternoon, so that made closing the deal a no-brainer. Sure, at 13×5.5 inches they’re kind of small by today’s standards, but on the plus side they’re way cool. I’ll put them on my CRX, but they would have been perfect on my old ’86 Civic Si. Too bad they also didn’t come with a time machine.

Wow! Honda guys really are slow…when it comes to paying taxes! Japan Times Online is reporting the prez of Mugen is getting locked up for some serious tax evasion. Maybe they’ll come out with a Type-R shank? Well if he’s gonna get traded for some smokes, at least they’ll have charcoal filters.