This will probably be the last wrap up post. There’s no point in wrapping up what just happened in the last few weeks.
This was pretty much the end of summer. chilly nights and mornings, breezy days, cars were getting put away again. We managed to get some shoots in here and there when we were up for braving the cold weather.

After this, we’ll be going back to our normal broadcasting schedule. It’ll be slow around here for the next few weeks with me being gone in Vegas next week and then Christmas right when I get back. I’ll try my best to post what I can, but when the new year comes I’ll be back in full force!…. Hopefully. lol

Anyways time to wrap this up.
The illmotion Sunday School video was finally finished.

iM Film: illmotion Show & Shine 2012 from illmotion on Vimeo.

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This was the coldest shoot I did all year. Finally got around to shooting Eric’s 240 before he put it away for winter. Running around in the freezing cold shooting pics is not easy, and rolling shots are even harder lol. But we got ‘er done and it turned out great.

Inside the shop getting ready to go. Rich is being a creep.

Getting ready to go.

On the way to deerfoot. Getting some rollers.

Off ramp to Deerfoot. You can see Rich’s new Advan RG’s too.

At the location it was perfectly smooth pavement. When we were finishing up, we all sat in Rich’s car and knew he couldn’t resist…

This is how low he actually is. His kit drags on the ground everywhere. Pretty gangster.

And finally – my favourite shot of the night. You get so used to shooting perfectly clean cars that all the drift damage and zipties adds enough character to make it look bad ass.

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Did another round in Richard’s FRS after he had broken it in. The first time I took it out, we took it easy. Also shot it with JC’s corolla 🙂

At Richard’s house.

We went to go for a quick car wash before we took some shots.

Into the carwash…

Waiting around. It was cold as F

A quick roller. Always.

A random shot of JC’s fifty shades of grey stick haha

Looks kind of like a Forza shot. I hate the wheels that come on these so much. It’s like they put all their effort into the design of the car and then said “let’s put the ugliest wheels on this. And to top it off, let’s make it a 5×100 bolt pattern”. *FACEPALM*

Last shot. FR-S and Corolla together. It’s like the Corolla’s step brother.

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We were lucky that we had a few nice days here and there so we took the opportunity to shoot Ricky and Adam’s car all in one day. Both sick cars that I’ve been wanting to shoot but never get around to. The thing with us is that we hang out all the time, but we never shoot each others cars. Either because we always see each other and never think about it, or because we’re looking for something fresh and new to shoot. But when we do finally get around to it, it’s always sick.

Once again – we meet at our chill spot. I showed up and Ricky was already waiting. I am driving my Civic now cause the STI is parked and it’s so brutal driving around with everyone in it. I don’t actually miss driving the STI (yet), but I do hate driving around in the winter car while everyone else is still driving around in summer mode. I’m like the ugly duckling in the pack when we drive around… It’s so sad.

Look at that spectrum silver.

Adam finally showed up. He was actually there but he was lost and ended up driving by us so many times never bothering to look the other direction. Ricky and I were standing there laughing at him because he was driving so slow and still missed us. hahahaha

A nice shot of his car.

We ended up at Oceana and Q. Haute. Getting in he scraped a bit, and it’s usually more difficult to get out than it is to get in. JC, Ricky and I all made bets that something would break off coming out. Unfortunately, nothing scraped and we all ended up being disappointed. LOL

We went for some rolling shots and ended up turning off somewhere and made our way into a parking lot. This bad ass M3 was parked all by its lonesome. We saw it from the road and when I saw that it had one of my favourite wheels on – BBS FI’s, I wanted to take a few shots. This has to be one of the nicest and cleanest M3’s in the city.

White Brembos.

And the obligatory rolling shot.

On our way to do rolling shots, of course!

Check out the symmetry. lol

Another shot of the spectrum silver. It’s rare to get a glimpse of how it actually looks. Most of the time it’s just gunmetal, but if you’re lucky and catch him driving by in the sun, you get to see this.

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The most depressing time of the year for me is when I have to put the car away. Regardless of whether or not I’m bored of it – it just sucks knowing you have to go back to driving your winter beater and that the cold is coming. At this point though, I had the intention of finding a new car.

Still dirty. When I took this pic, I was really just so lazy that I almost walked back inside and left it till next week.

Most of it cleaned. Wheels and barrels all washed up. Interior all done. Exterior all done. All that was next was to remove the bumper.

After a few pain in the ass clips, I got it off. The reason I took it off was because I had cracked the lip a few months back when it was still dumped. I was careless and the lip smacked the driveway and needless to say, it’s been needing some TLC.

Looks gangster without a bumper lol

Bumper off. Next up was to remove the lip from the bumper. T_T

After a few bolts, the lip came off easily.

If you look, you can see two cracks. The first one is right where the lip begins to go straight. Upon further inspection, the lip was actually split all the way down and under. The biggest one was right in front of that second hold in the picture. It literally came apart. I ended up sanding it down and epoxy-ing it together until winter. It ended up holding quite nicely, but it could be better.

Parked away in the corner it shall stay for the next 5+ months and battery removed.

Now that I look at it, I guess it gives me a chance to install some hella horns…

The plate hangs once again.

Bags of bolts. I know it’s kind of lame, but I labeled and even drew the bumper out so I knew where the bolts would go. Right now I know it’s simple enough to remember, but 6 months down the road, I’ll probably be like “uh…” hahaha JUST INCASE

There they are…

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Another sick shoot we got to do was of TJ’s R32. I’ve never really seen many R32’s around and if I have, they were stock. TJ’s was just so mint and nice to shoot for two reasons. It was brand new to me – I had never met TJ until that day and shooting colored cars is awesome. Most cars I shoot are black or white lol.

This location had to be one of the best locations I’ve ever used. It was in some rich people area lol. When TJ had got his car positioned, a guy came out and we were asking if it was OK to shoot quickly. He just kept walking towards us and we all thought we were going to die – I’m not even joking lol. Anyways, he went on to say something about it being some other person’s house but then he told us it was his… anyways, we got our shots and got out of there pretty quick lol. Well worth it.

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JC’s feature was finally up on illmotion. A trend that we’ve noticed is that whenever someone gets an illmotion feature – they get rid of the car and move on. illmotion curse? haha

I’ll just post it all with the write up and everything.
Here’s the link to the illmotion feature
iM Feature: JC’s Toyota Corolla XRS

Here’s the link to when I first posted a pic after the shoot:
Sneak-a-peak – JC’s Corolla

The one thing about JC’s Corolla is that it’s different, whether you hate it or love it – you can’t really deny that he’s gone the road less traveled. For most of us, the first cars that we might think of modifying are Civics, RSX’s, Impreza’s, Lancers, S2000’s – but I’ll be honest, The Corolla, aside from the late AE86 is not a platform that comes to mind right off the bat. But don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s cars like this and people like JC that bring a little flavour to the scene.

An S2000 will always be sick but it seems like it has been done in every possible combination that it’s difficult to make it unique. Civic’s are in the same boat. The thing with those cars is that you really have to go above and beyond what everybody else is doing and do it better. But that’s the good thing about it all – once in a while, you see something totally different that nobody ever thought of and wonder why it didn’t happen sooner. People are always thinking outside of the box but not following through. But that might be the problem – outside-of-the-box thinking will always get you criticism and dare I say, hate. Everybody is so scared of the internet and its gang of keyboard warriors that what “could be” a great idea never actually happens.

Anyways back to JC’s Corolla. While I can honestly say that the Corolla would’ve never been my first choice, JC has really changed the way I see them. While I am an “over the top” kind of guy when modifying my cars – JC’s simple and functional attitude does help me respect the finer things in cars like his. “Less is more” is the only way of describing his car because less is really all you need in this case. An easy way to describe it is “Damn” – the kind of “Damn” that means two things:

1) Damn, that looks crazy.

2) Damn, and he did it to a Corolla.

Props to you, JC for going against the grain and building what you see fit. An example of a combination of quality products, simple taste, and a vision of what the total package should look like. We need more innovation in the scene – not in the products we buy, but in the way we put them together.

Thinking back – the way that JC’s Corolla sits now has been from a bunch of lengthy discussion and debates. I’m even guilty of telling him that I didn’t agree with what he wanted to do and even to remove or add certain things. At the end of the day he goes ahead his own way and takes my opinion with a grain of salt. Even after all that – he still asks for my opinion lol. But that’s how it should be, opinions are just opinions.

VS-XX – classy.

Still blows my mind looking at this picture. A mix of VIP and a car that wants to be a sport coupe.

Cruisin’ downtown Calgary

Boom! Another one in the bag.

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The day that I’ve been waiting for finally came! Corey finished the video that he shot a while back and it turned out sick.
Peep it here if you haven’t seen it already.
Thanks again to Corey for doing the great video work. Love it.

iM Film: Jason’s Subaru Impreza WRX STI from illmotion on Vimeo.

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I was getting ready to put the STI up for sale – but I had to put it back to stock first. Kind of weird to see it back to stock since I hated how it looked stock.
People still ask me why I sold it and the only reason I can think of is that I was bored of it.
I actually got a call a few nights ago asking if the car sold. He was pretty bummed and was shocked I had it up for sale so quickly.

I explained to him that it was a fun car to drive but at the end of the day, I felt that it was just an overpriced turbo 4-banger. Don’t get me wrong, the STI is an awesome car but I probably wouldn’t pay so much for it if I had to do it again. The interior has pretty much stayed the same for years with nothing really exciting. The suspension gets tweaked a bit, but I end up changing it out anyway. The engine is practically the same every year. So really, the only thing that changes is the exterior.

I get bored of things quick if it’s not exciting enough for long periods of time. You get into the car and it’s nothing spectacular – it’s plastic-y and the only cool things were my seat and shift knob which I had to pay for after the fact lol. Maybe that’s why I settled on the LS…

Anyways… pics of it going back to stock.

The stock wing. Minty. But not gt enough. LOL

The last time you guys will see it like this

Bye bye

Wing off

Stock wing back on. Looks so weird to me.

Weird. But still good

Next up was the seat. Easy

Came out in 5 minutes.

OG stickers coming off.

Then this son of a b**** took a little longer. It’s like 80lbs. Jesus.

Interior back to stock

And this is what I have for sale if anyone is interested. Email me.

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Anyways – the rest of the posts for October was for my obsession with the 370z. I mean, I’d still like one but at the moment I’m pretty happy with the LS purchase and I’m stoked to get started on it. Maybe when I have my midlife crisis, I’ll get it. But by then, something new will probably be out again haha

AND that’s a wrap for 2012! Super long posts. It was cool looking back, hopefully everyone can hold out for 4 more months until summer comes again. I get the feeling that this summer is going to be even crazier than this year in terms of everyone’s cars and plans. Stepping it up year after year – what I love to see.
It’s exciting to be surrounded by people that only want the best of the best. There isn’t any cutting corners or doing hype shit like sticker bombing lips.

More notably – a few builds to watch for next year is Ricky’s GTI, JC’s CT200h and quite possibly, Punit’s GS. Ricky is really pushing the VW scene here and the VIP scene is coming slowly.

***End October/Part IX***