In June 2005, roughly six months after I moved out to California for the Modified Magazine job, I made my first trek to Falken Tire headquarters to shoot their RX-7 drift twins. Back then, the cars wore the names Tony Angelo and Seigo Yamamoto on the doors, though if you followed the scene, you know other Falken drivers hopped behind the wheel of them over the years. That first visit ended up mattering a lot more than the photos did.
My first few months on the job were all about visiting shops and shooting cars to keep advertisers happy. It’s just the nature of the business, and since Modified was one of the smaller magazines at the time, it was hard to compete with the bigger books that wanted exclusivity on features. Part of my job was building relationships so we could land cover cars before other magazines got to them. The problem is that at many of the shoots I attended, the company would just have some random person drive the car wherever I wanted to shoot it. Most of them wouldn’t say much, and some didn’t know much about the car or the build itself. They were literally just there to move the car around when I needed it and to help push it for rig shots.
So when I went to Falken to shoot the two drift RX-7s, I expected similar treatment, especially from a tire brand that size. Instead, that visit is when I met Nick Fousekis, who not only took the time to talk to me about the cars and Falken’s campaign into drifting, but told me before I left that if I ever needed support on a project car or build, I should reach out to him. I won’t mention names, but Falken was not the first tire manufacturer I had dealt with, nor the second, or even the third. It was the first that seemed to care about more than a single shoot.
I took Nick up on that offer for my Scion tC project car, and over the years he supported all of my project cars, including personal ones that weren’t guaranteed press anywhere, and long after I was no longer with Modified Magazine. Falken also always gave me a nice, cool place to hide at ridiculously hot Formula Drift events, and that was always priceless.
All of that is why this shoot is special to me, because this MR2 belonged to Nick himself. I went back to Falken in September 2006 to shoot it, and by that point I was experimenting with lighting, which made a car covered entirely in chrome an interesting subject to work with. As always, Nick was very accommodating on the shoot, and I believe this is also when I met John Choi, who would go on to collaborate with me on several other Falken projects, including when my BMW E92 appeared in the company’s ads. The feature itself ran under the title Midship Conservation in the December 2006 issue of Modified Magazine.
The finish that made the car so hard to ignore was Alsa Paint’s Mirra Chrome, laid over a Border/Toms full body kit and paired with a carbon fiber hood, an HID sleek headlight conversion, and a Cyberous hydraulic engine lid prop. Behind the cabin, the 3SGTE received a GReddy TD-06 turbo upgrade along with GReddy’s side mount intercooler, joined by a Blitz intake, a NUR spec exhaust, a blow off valve, an ATS throttle body inlet, an SX fuel pressure regulator, and a set of 2s R Us hex valve cover bolts. Engine management duties fell to a Blitz boost controller, an HKS FCD, and an A’PEXi S-AFC II, with the combination putting down approximately 300 whp.
Getting that power to the ground is an Exedy Hyper single clutch, backed by a B&M short shifter, a Speedsource stainless steel clutch line, and shifter base bushings. Suspension is kept simple with JIC Magic coilovers and strut tower bars, while the staggered rolling stock consists of 18×8 HRE 546R wheels wrapped in 215/35R18 Falken FK series tires up front and 18×9 HRE 546Rs with 235/40R18 Falkens in the rear. A Rotora front big brake kit sits behind the HREs, with the red calipers doing their best to compete with the paint for attention.
The interior follows the same coordinated approach, with MOMO handling both the seats and steering wheel, joined by a carbon fiber shift knob, perforated leather door inserts, and a leather shifter boot. The audio setup runs through Rockford Fosgate, with an in-dash DVD tuner, a component set, a 10-inch subwoofer, and an amplifier.
This, to me, is what the industry was always about: the relationships you make and build through the years, through a shared passion for car culture. You can go years, even decades, without speaking to some of these people, but they’ll always respond to an email out of nowhere. Well, at least Nick does.
GalleryPhotos by Jason Siu
