Archive for the ‘Feature Car’ Category

Wraptivo CLS and Vorsteiner BMW E92 M3

Saturday, March 19th, 2011

One of the exciting new trends in the automotive market is wrapping a car. It allows a consumer to change the color of the car relatively easily while preserving the OEM paint. Changing the color on a car can cost upwards of $4,000 or more and take a full week, while wrapping a car can often be done in an afternoon for less than $1,000. Meguiars has introduced a new product called Wraptivo, which is a series of designer car wraps that can be applied to any car. They have a bunch of cool colors and designs, but their flat colors have been the most popular in their pre-launch phase.

Through some phone calls, I was able to line up a pair of the cars for separate photoshoots. I met up with Peter from Vorsteiner and Brett Coca in Irvine where we cranked out both shoots in record time. For Peter’s BMW, we chose a commercial complex with a draub red tone to it, which should help add some contrast to the simple color spectrum of the BMW. When it came time to shoot Brett’s car, we simply moved down the street to another commercial area which included some blue tints, again providing some contrast against Coca’s car.

First up was Vorsteiner’s E92 M3, complete with an Active Autowerkes supercharger, full Vorsteiner aero and wheels, Brembo brakes, and a matte silver colored wrap. This car will be featured in Performance Auto and Sound magazine.

The second car was Brett Coca’s Mercedes CLS. If this car looks familiar, it’s probably because this car was originally white and built by RJ DeVera. DeVera sold the car to his good friend Coca, who changed the look up with a matte battleship grey wrap that really goes well with the black and carbon accents.

This feature hasn’t been comitted to anyone just yet, but has interest from several outlets.

Ray’s 13B-powered RX4 Wagon

Sunday, February 13th, 2011

I have a standing call out to several people for feature-worthy Mazda’s to be featured on Mazda’s corporate site, and through Efrain from Shift Communications, I found this awesome 1974 Mazda RX4 Wagon. The car has been modernized with a turbocharged 13B rotary engine, Mazda FC suspension and FD Brakes, and a Ford 8″ rear end. I knew this would be perfect for the site, so I arranged to get the car shot as soon as possible. We ended up shooting at one of my steadfast locations in San Pedro, CA, and exchanged stories of watercooled Volkswagens during the shoot. Overall, the shoot went out quite smoothly.

Looking at the profile of this car, it’s hard not to fall in love.

I’m a sucker for a Wagon!

The special 13B that powers this monster. With such a light chassis, this car really moves! The motor has been moved back 9 inches and sits below the rain tray, but this shot of the engine bay shows off the turbo piping and intercooler tucked behind the radiator.

The feature will be up on Mazda’s website shortly.

Atsushi Kuroi’s UNPUBLISHED Riverslide 180SX

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

With the drifting season just around the corner, I was looking to shoot a feature on one of the many cars in the area. After a few phone calls, I found out that Atsushi Kuroi’s competition car from the D1 Grand Prix series was still in town, being stored at a warehouse locally. I jumped at the chance to shoot this car as it is one of my favorites. I brought my Speedotron strobe setup to get some more experience shooting with the lights on some cars, I’m still getting the hang of it.

I started with your basic front 3/4 profile shot

Then I moved around to the front head-on shot. The car looks so menacing from this angle!

This RB26 engine puts out more than 600 horsepower with the help of Nitrous!

These custom pop-up headlights look awesome in drift!

The amount of smoke Kuroi puts out is amazing! Here’s a shot of the car in action from the last D1 GP event at Irwindale, CA

Here’s another of Kuroi in tandem with one of the famed Team Orange cars.

Unfortunately, this feature never found a client. The original publishing magazine went out of business before the feature ran, and no other magazines took up any interest in the car.

Even more unfortunately, Kuroi passed away since this car was shot. R.I.P. to one of my favorite drivers in D1 Grand Prix.

Fausto Merida’s 2006 VW GTI

Sunday, February 25th, 2007

Fausto Merida’s 2006 Volkswagen GTI turned  heads at the 2006 SEMA show, and I got the opportunity to shoot the car for a feature in PAS Magazine. Fausto has been a good friend since his days working at Overboost.com, so it was great to spend a morning shooting his car. I chose to do the shoot at a pretty infamous spot near downtown LA which has a view of the downtown skyline. Because of the overcast weather, we had some awesome equal light, which allowed us to shoot the car in any direction and make the most of the location.

Shooting towards the city

Shooting to the East, towards a black gate and some ivy

Shooting to the South, against a red brick wall with some graffiti

Chris Rado UNPUBLISHED Hero Card shoot

Sunday, February 11th, 2007

In the week leading up to the first Redline Time Attack event of the 2007 season, one of Chris Rado’s new sponsors had contacted me about shooting a hero card for them. Rado’s World Racing Time Attack Scion tC was breaking records, and Rado has long been an innovator of motorsports, so I was excited to work with him. Prior to the event, we exchanged several emails and a few phone calls discussing the details of what they were looking for, and some pricing was exchanged. Although a final price wasn’t agreed upon prior to the shoot (at the time we were still waiting to hear back from upper management, but I had no reason to believe the price wouldn’t be approved), I showed up to the event to shoot some action shots of Rado’s car as well as some hero shots to be used in the card.

After the shoot, a few proofs were sent to the company. I informed them that once I got confirmation of the pricing, I would send over the high res files. Several weeks went by, and my emails and phone calls went unanswered. In the end, these photos never saw the light of day, which is unfortunate because I was particularly proud of some of these shots. You win some, you lose some.

Nokturnal’s Yukon Denali w/ Rolls Royce front end

Sunday, January 28th, 2007

Nokturnal Car Club is a car club that can usually be found at DUB and other similar shows in Southern California. This particular car was featured by Visionik Audio in their booth at the 2007 CES show. Visionik was advertising in PAS at the time, so I was sent out to the San Gabriel Valley to snap some photos of this unique car. Each door opened differently (Driver front door was Lambo style, Driver Rear was draw-bridge style, Passenger Front was normal, Passenger Rear was Suicide), and the front end features an authentic Rolls Royce grill and headlights. The interior had quilted suede, mink, and other lush fabrics, combined with a real hardwood floor and a 15″ screen integrated into the dash. Although this car isn’t everyone’s taste, it is very unique and has a ton of work into it.

Team Hybrid Scion xA Feature – Scion HQ

Saturday, January 13th, 2007

For my first feature shoot of 2007, I was contacted by PAS Magazine to shoot the Team Hybrid Scion xA designed by David Huang. This car won the inaugural Scion Challenge at the 2006 SEMA show in Las Vegas. I traveled to Torrance, CA to the Scion Corporate Headquarters to do the shoot. Unfortunately, I was limited on location as the car wasn’t street legal. Also, as with many show cars, the engine wasn’t running right at the time, so we weren’t able to get any rolling shots. I still feel the shoot came out good. PAS ran the car in their 2007 Buyers Guide.


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