I bought a ton of new toys for my shelf recently and had to rearrange everything yesterday. With that being said I decided to document/blog about the upgrades to my living room shelf. I am going to add a new shelf soon to expand the collection. Soon, I am going to pick up all my old toy cars from when I was a little kid to add onto the shelf as well.
I bought a Assembly Line Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR from Maisto which was a blast to build. This is my favorite Mercedes made in history so it was great to add to the shelf with gold wheels.
Here is my Kyle Busch cup garage collection. My three large die cast cars are his #18 M&M car, Snickers Car (First Toyota to win NASCAR cup race), and the Vote M&M car. I am working on getting some more #18 car stuff for this section.
This is my other Kyle Busch garage for non cup die cast cars. The Doosan #20 Nationwide car won the Corona, Mexico event back in April 2008 with Kyle Busch behind the wheel. The #51 Electric Sunglasses car is Kyle Busch’s Prelude of a Dream car. The #30 NOS Energy Drink car in the middle is actually Stanton Barrett’s old Nationwide car from 2008 signed by him on the roof.
Here is my Falken Tire Pit that I mocked up with some products I have collected over the years. I just got this sweet Falken Tire rig thanks to my friends over at Falken Tire recently! You can actually buy the Calvin Wan Infiniti G35 or Vaughn Gittin Jr. Ford Mustang die cast in our store.
Here are some small Hot Wheels cars I have including a Nissan GT-R, Flat Black Lamborghini Gallardo, Tesla Roadster, a Hummer H2 that Toyo Tires gave us at MPMC, and Sam Hubinette’s Dodge Charger you can score in our Wrecked Magazine store as well.
The 1991 Le Mans winner was the Mazda 787B seen here that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans back in 1991. This was the last Japanese car to win the 24 Hour Le Mans race to this date in history. Bob Hernandez actually gave me this car at my Photo Gallery back in March and I jut love it.
Here are some of my car magazines including some Super Street issues back from 2002. A full collection of C-16 Magazine, and a bunch of random Japanese magazines like StyleWagon and VIP Style.
Here is the first shelf all together and complete for now. I am going to get a second shelf going soon and I need some more magazines! Let me know what you think.
These are two quick teaser videos I shot with my Canon SD1100 photo camera while getting a ride along at Ebisu’s famous Nishi Short Circuit. Wrecked Magazine will have some amazing full video coverage up soon thanks to NOS Energy Drink. For now, here is Chris Forsberg in front of our S14 in that white 180sx with the exhaust bouncing on the ground.
Here is a second video I shot while riding with Chris in his black S14 aas we chased down Andrew from PowerVehicles.com in the video. These are a great preview to how awesome the whole weekend of Spring Matsuri was! A huge thanks is owed from me and Chris Forsberg to everyone at Powervehicles.com and Allen from Tomei for really making our trip amazing!
I know times are tough these days but I would of settled for one queen bed! That foam rectangle you see is wedged between the “two beds” so you don’t notice the huge gap in your King Bed. Well it didn’t quite work but thanks Holiday Inn. You can read more about my adventures like this on Yelp, follow below!
Last night there was a great open house at the ID Agency in DTLA. I had some photos featured in the art gallery along with Estevan Oriol and Mo Satarzadeh. All three of us were on the 2009 Gumball 3000 rally and had some photos featured from it along with some of our other photography.
Here is a display of my photography hung up on the wall.
Here is the DJ with a great crowd going behind him at the Open House. Mo’s photography is stage left and you can see my Vaughn Gittin Jr. print over on the right.
Here is a close up of my T-Pain photograph I took years ago at his house next to Vaughn Gittin’s 2005 Sonoma drifting picture.
Here I am receiving Ricky’s special beer delivery. Not only is Ricky great at beer delivery he is an excellent photographer that does tons of work for Wrecked Magazine! The Corona was for him and the Bud Light was for me. It ended up being a great night and I really appreciate all the support of people who came out. Thanks to Bob Hernandez for these photos he put up on Facebook and I will make new posts when other people send me or put up some photographs.
Before this website I use to be really good at life blogging and lately I am just way to busy to get around to it. So last Thursday I had a really full day so I made sure to document it for the blog. The first photo above is Lucky who is my roommates cat. He is quite a character and greeted me before I left in the morning with him in the “play dead” position. Funny story actually is that the cat use to belong to Daijiro Yoshihara.
I headed down to Orange County for the first leg of my day and off Highway 55 there happens to be a Chick-Fil-A which I grabbed some breakfast at. They only have a few of these in California so when I am near one it’s a must for breakfast.
I saw this 1957 Porsche Carrera on Highway 55 heading to Hyundai. This thing looked flawless and was well maintained and cared for by the owner. It had a great sound to it as he flew by me down the highway.
My first stop was Hyundai North America to pick up some Genesis seats. Miles was a great help finding some seats for a new project we are doing. We will have more on project coming to the website soon.
I had to drop off my Mercedes carburetor to get rebuilt since it has been having some issues after it idles for a few minutes. In the parking lot is a red Mercedes CLK63 AMG Black that looked fantastic. A white M3 was also in the corner of the parking lot when I swung by.
After dropping off the Mercedes parts in Orange County I headed up to Manhattan Beach to shoot some Wrecked Magazine voice overs. Peter from Modified Magazine lives at the apartment we were recording at and had this nostalgic Super Street Magazine cover hanging in the dining room.
Nik did an awesome job with our Wrecked Magazine voice overs. She is the voice of a tutorial we are releasing later this month. This second photo is Nik engrossed in deep thought about her favorite Formula Drift driver Rhys Millen.
After dropping off Nik and heading into Downtown Los Angeles I found some traffic of course.
Here I am crossing the Sixth Street Bridge heading into Los Angeles. This bridge is always empty and has a distinct look and feel that I just love as you drive into downtown.
Coming off the Sixth Street bridge you get a great view of Downtown Los Angeles. It’s also not very often you see clouds around Los Angeles so I really liked this shot.
Sitting on a desk when I walked in to my meeting was a Forza Motorsport 3 Xbox 360. Very few of these were made and it features an Audi R8 and a carbon fiber styled front.
I also scored two gifts while visiting including Halo 3 ODST and a Snoop Dog x Famous Stars Straps 10 Year Anniversary Party t-shirt. The photograph of Snoop Dog was shot by Estevan Oriol.
The last shot comes from the ID Agency where some awesome classic cars are sitting right now. My favorite is this blue Chevrolet truck you can see in this shot. After leaving here it was off to home in lots of traffic.
Vaughn Gittin Jr. swung by our house before having a meeting with an advertiser as he makes his round through Southern California. He brought over a 2010 Mustang convertible in my favorite color grabber blue. Here it is in the driveway next to Project350z!
Just before Vaughn Gittin had arrived my Christmas present finally came in. It’s a full NBA Jam arcade system which can play up to four people. We had some intense battles on the sticks before he finally had to head over to his meeting for the day.
A quick snap before he left of the Mustang and 350z from the front as well.
Don’t worry about me here out on the west coast. I know it’s flooding, pouring rain for the next 70 days and you guys might need boats to make it around but I pulled the weather report for the rest of 2009 in Los Angeles and it says sunny. Cody Wellons from S3 Magazine has even started a website called ATLflood.com which has a photo that looks strikingly like it was from my old house at 1280 West.Thank goodness we moved out west to the drought. I have yet to see a harder rain than a sprinkle in the year I have lived here and it rarely lasts more than 30 minutes, amazing I know. One thing I don’t miss is the stupid rain.
Sorry I have been posting so much non automotive related content but I will work on getting some more of that coming on the blog when I can. I am a huge tennis fan and have been for quite sometime. When I was little my Memere (French for grandmother) would always take me to watch her play tennis and I’ve been a fan every since. Countless travel hours on the road are wasted playing Virtua Tennis 3 and many hours watching endless coverage of the major events.
Watching the US Open I first noticed this girl from Marietta, Georgia when she faced off against my favorite female tennis player of all time, Maria Sharapova. Watching Melanie stay composed and defeat her was truly amazing. Melanie managed to win me over as a fan from her residence in Marietta, Georgia. I grew up right there until I moved to Los Angeles last year and love her representing in the US Open for Georgia.
Appearing in only her second US Open,, Oudin ousted seeded players Elena Dementieva (4), Maria Sharapova (29), and Nadia Petrova (13) on her way to the quarterfinals. Entering the quarterfinals she was the youngest to enter since Serena Williams in 1999. Last night she was defeated by a 19 year-old Caroline Wozniacki from Denmark in a tough 6-2/6-2 set. She shook up woman’s tennis and hopefully the next majors will be as exciting as this US Open ladder.
I just found this video on Digg and had to post it on my blog. BASE jumping has always blown me away but to jump off the Burj Dubai Tower in Dubai (currently the world’s largest building) had to of been insane. Here is a little video of the whole story and make sure to read the text at the very end of the video. I promise I will get caught up on my blogging from my end very soon!
Before I start this whole topic I want to state that I am a proud GM shareholder. Saturn was a brand that was going no where and doing nothing for General Motors except burning billions of dollars with no hope for return on investment.
I made a comment on twitter.com/joeyredmond yesterday “Saturn is dead! Finally some good news in the automotive industry.” I received a blast of e-mails, tweets, and facebook comments bitching that other GM entities should be taken out and why Saturn should survive. Before I get to into the topic let’s have a little history lesson on the great Saturn brand.
Saturn was launched 24 years ago in January of 1985. The Saturn brand launch was GM’s response to “to the success of Japanese & German small-car imports.” The brand doesn’t hold a candle to the dominating sellers in the market segment and they cannot come close to a competitive price point.
Let’s look at the facts:
2009 Saturn Aura XE Sedan: $22,655 MSRP
2009 Honda Civic Sedan: $15,505 MSRP
2009 Mazda 6 I Sport Sedan: $21,150 MSRP
2009 Toyota Camry Base Sedan: $20,195 MSRP
2009 Toyota Corolla Base Sedan: $16,150 MSRP
2009 Honda Accord LX Sedan: $21,555 MSRP
2009 Nissan Altima Base Sedan: $19,900 MSRP
2009 Subaru Impreza 2.5i Sedan: $18,495 MSRP
2009 Mitsubishi Lancer DE Sedan: $15,090 MSRP
2009 Volkswagon Jetta SE Sedan: $21,020 MSRP
I picked the sedan base model Saturn Aura XE Sedan which comes in the cheapest at $22,655 MSRP. I listed 10 cars that were similar in category and either Japanese or German origin. You know those “small-car imports” that Saturn was created to beat and destroy, maybe even save America!? Ironically I picked 9 other cars that were Japanese/German sedans base models like our Saturn. They were carry a cheaper MSRP and I would rather drive all of them before a Saturn.
Without a price point lower than it’s competition and some lucky design what is the motivation for purchase? The car has no real culture or adoption from a segment in the market. Aftermarket support for tuners is out of the question and way behind many other cars on the list. Most people purchasing a car use it to identify with a person brand they believe themselves to fall in (or want to fall in). Running that list above most of those cars fall into a category of purchasers or stereotypes that most people put the owners into. When I see a Saturn no branding, thoughts, or ideas come into mind. I don’t put Saturn into any category or relate to the owners because of any culture behind the brand.
On my last note let’s also remember Saturn was a failure from the start. It was launched as a property outside of the GM super machine. Saturn even had it’s own dealership network at first. Then as sales faltered and never met expectations it was brought in as another badge under GM. Sadly the public and shareholders do not know how much Saturn has lost in recent years because they don’t report the figures separately (or at least where I can easily locate them.) A general figure I can find is that Saturn has lost over $1,000,000,000 in recent years on it’s own. Next time GM wants to beat Japanese car companies perhaps they should focus on quality, performance, and durability while scrapping the plastic body. Just my two cents but a $22,000 plastic paneled machine on four wheels doesn’t seem to be luring me into any dealerships over the next year or two. Perhaps they need to steal some guys on the new Hyundai project because they have clearly figured something out.
