I always want ahi poke… I eat so much ahi poke, I got mercury poisoning. Anyway.
Whenever I eat Hawaiian food I somehow always think of how I used to visit TeamRice and Dohcresearch religiously, back around 2003ish.
That was my first taste of the Hawaiian car culture. Just as their food is a mixture of different cultures, the way they style their cars has a mixture of different cultures as well. It’s like a cross between JDM style to Islander style with a little mainland love somewhere in there.
Even if the car looks mad ghetto to some, it’s still mad fresh.
Like the car seen here that belonged to a member of Team Ultraspeed back in the day:
Whether there was a meaning behind it or if they just did it to do it because “why not?” it’s something that stands out and catches my eye of interest (maybe they did it to be ratchet?). The fact that it’s rugged and boro boro, that’s what makes it appealing to me. It’s something you do to a car that will be used to take abuse on and off track. Kind of like how kanjozoku’s treat their cars.
That was when Hawaii still had a racetrack…
Another thing about Hawaiian style of tuning that will always attracted my attention in photos is the background. The cars are the cherry on top and the background is the icing. It’s almost like seeing these cars in the wild type of feeling.
Team Ultraspeed is a Virginia based team, but they expanded beyond that. To Hawaii for example. I remember a team profile of them on some old 360vm issue back in the day.
A well known Hawaiian member of Team Ultraspeed owns this famous golden EG
Him and his team owned the blue rugged and raw EG seen above as well. The “boro boro” Civic ended up throwing a rod through the side of the block at a track day. I don’t know what happen to it after that, but I do believe some of it’s parts remain floating around…
“In the early 2000s there were almost no social media, no YouTube how to’s, basically no internet. Hawaii basically was blocked off from the world. We got our inspiration from going out there and experiencing other cultures and bringing back home what we thought were cool. A melting pot of ethnicities also became the melting pot of car culture. Also technology wise, it was and still is, expensive to get new things done and what not, just because we’re out in the middle of the Pacific. So if you see something replicated here like let’s say a k swapped MR2, when they became popular, then chances are, that person went far wide to get it done.” – PVT La Rosa
Amen to that homie.
Thank you Hawaii for always and continuing to inspire me.
Peace.
