Mike McConnell’s Subaru-Powered 1968 Karmann Ghia

October 31, 2014August 8, 2019 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

This was a long overdue photoshoot – Mike and I have been talking about getting together to shoot his Karmann Ghia for probably a year now since he started building it, and ever since then there has always been something that comes up – he needed to tune it, I had an appointment, something needed a slight fixing, I got caught up in other things… The list goes on. I can’t even count how many times we’ve gone back and forth about postponing our shoots. Anyway – we finally met up and with the daylight fading fast, we had to move quick.

Mike’s car is definitely something to see in person – it breaks necks left, right, and center. This is the first Karmann Ghia I’ve ever seen and before I met Mike, I never would’ve known what it was… It is older than me by almost 2 decades! The work that has been put into this thing and seeing the progress over Instagram is amazing and I’m glad I got a chance to capture this through my lens. As my Instagram caption stated – it is probably the craziest car to ever come through my lens to date. It’s hard not to respect and admire this car after watching it evolve through pictures from day 1.

I’ll add in some details as we go – as I’m sure you’re all wondering about it. Admittedly, though – I did not get all the shots I wanted to… It was a chilly night, we were losing sun extremely fast and we had no strobes to back us up if we needed it. All of these were shivering, handheld shots…

JC and I met up, Mike came shortly after and had just washed his car, he hopped out and quickly dried the windows with his sleeve and off we went.

On our way there, we had awesome light – not harsh and very calm – made for perfect color in the clouds and it definitely helped in bringing out the “classic” feel in the photos.

Immediately you’ll notice how damn slammed Mike’s car is – and it isn’t bagged either like you would expect. This is all static and Mike drives with no fucks given – that’s what I loved about this whole shoot – it was very care free and “do what you need to get the shot”.

One thing you also might not know just by looking at the pictures is that this car has been painted by Jesse – Mike’s partner-in-crime, if you will in building this car. This was actually Jesse’s car originally but Mike ended up taking it over and with the help of Jesse and his family, they built it into what it is today. I suppose you could say that Jesse is still building the dream, but with Mike at the wheel.

Another interesting thing to note is that Mike is rocking a set of Porsche “phone dial” wheels – 15×6 in the front and 16×8 in the back. Behind those sit some nice disc brakes as well…

Under that hatch (which I am regretting not getting a chance to show you guys) is a stock 2.2 turbo Subaru Legacy engine… This paired with a Haltech sprint 500 stand alone ECU from VEX gives it the power it needs to get going. There is currently no intercooler so he runs the risk of running hot but that is probably in the works for next year.

There are some distinct points that stand out on the car but to me, they are more like beauty marks rather than imperfections. And it works well on a car like this – it gives it character. Funny how as things age, imperfections turn into “character”. I’m sure you won’t disagree…

Another unique part of Mike’s car is the roof – again, painted by Jesse. There are lot of unique touches on the car that really make Mike’s car stand out and that’s huge these days. You really have to take risks in order to stand out, but you have to be willing to take the potential criticism that comes with it – good or bad. I think this is actually one of the highlights and I enjoy it a lot…

Kind of a rare shot of the master and the project… Especially when you’re a photographer yourself; it’s rare to have a shot of your own work.

JC’s car over to the side like usual under that nice sky.

This shot reminded me of a scene from a gangster movie – don’t ask me which one, it just does.

A shot to see the lines of the car. Truly one of a kind.

One other thing to note about Mike’s car is that all the paint work that was done was done with a rattle can. Mike then polished the car to blend the new and old paint together. I would say after looking at it that it would be a tough task to point out exactly where that is… By no means is it a paint booth/professional job but I don’t think that was the intention – Mike’s intention was really just to take a car that is unique and do something crazy and different with it with what they had, and finally get it to the point where it was driveable and they could just enjoy their fruits of labor.

Shooting a car with brand new parts and paint is one thing, but shooting a car where sweat and tears are a must in order to get to a stage of being able to say “finally” is different. There’s more appreciation and more of those moments where you’re standing there admiring the work more than the car at times. You get that feeling with Mike’s Karmann Ghia and it’s a rare feeling.

A shot to see just how low Mike rolls… There were a few times that we saw sparks fly out from the back and the car is just so low that rocks don’t even get a chance to go under it, it’ll just shoot out the side of the car. Just a little note of caution if you’re driving beside Mike 🙂

Another shot that better shows how low it is. This road was relatively flat and to someone like me, it’s a great road with little issues. But for Mike, he scraped… And he loved it.

Mad tuck. Even most bagged guys can’t get that much tuck.

A nice shot of the rear and his exhaust set up. Under that trunk is a beautiful Subaru 2.2L turbo engine – once again, a thing I regret not being able to capture. But not to worry… I’ll get it the next time we go out for sure.

The roller I posted up on Instagram that same night.

Low shots compliment Mike’s Ghia well just because it hugs the road so tight and we all know how good cars look when they’re slammed AND rolling.

One last shot of the many rollers we took that night that I decided to save for the long winter months. I loved a lot of these shots because we could see the moon so clearly and what better way to capture a beautiful car on a beautiful night.

We ended up stopping back at our rendezvous point and I had to get a few more shots. Even as we sat in the lot, it was breaking necks – and rightfully so…

That exhaust!!

One last shot to leave you all with for a nice and happy Halloween.

This shoot was honestly one of my more stressful shoots because as I mentioned – Mike is a photographer too, and while I was not really losing sleep over what he thought of shooting the car, I wanted to make sure that he loved the photos OF his car. I say this because in many ways, Mike is more than capable of shooting and capturing his own car so that’s where he asked me to step in and take it from a different perspective. I think for the most part, I captured it well even though I didn’t get all the shots I wanted, but at the same time it wasn’t a failed shoot (I do consider some of my shoots failed sometimes).

Thanks for coming out Mike! And I know Jesse is reading this – sorry we missed you! Next time, we’ll make sure we all come out together and do some epic shooting – DUB Dynasty style. Thanks (again and again) to JC for making the trek all the way out to the boonies to get this shoot in the bag with me.

Have a happy Halloween!

#YouCantSitWithUs

August 15, 2013 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

This was right after I went to see Derrick painting his Integra… Decided to put it into two different posts because it doesn’t really have anything to do with Derrick’s Integra…

A while back when we all first started to get our Lexus’s, we somehow started dubbing them the “Mean Girls”. Primarily just because they were all Lexus’s, each a different trim, and it seemed fitting just to do it for fun. Eventually it kind of stuck and so many of the lines of Mean Girls happen to work perfectly for captions on our Instagram pictures. Before we knew it, we were hashtagging the sh*t out of it and we’ve even gone as far as naming them – you may have seen me reference it a few times.

LS – Regina George

GS – Karen Smith

CT – Gretchen Weiners

I know to some of you this sounds totally weird, but for you car people – I know you named your car. It may not reference a movie that adolescent and teenage girls watched, but you still named it. We might have just taken it a bit further than most.

So with that all said, JC wanted to get some stickers made up just for the show. “You can’t sit with us”. Again – it’s fitting for the show, but it’s also quite ignorant lol. I just want to point out that we are not trying to be rude or ignorant in any way. It’s just funny. So yes, you can sit with us if we’re sitting down and a spot is free.

I took some shots of our cars while he was putting the stickers on because it’s been weeks since I’ve been able to do anything car related as you can see from my vacation and throwback posts. I’ll try to get on it soon… Still a crazy few weeks ahead of me.

JC had his on already when I pulled up.

So CREANNN

There is JC all thugged out in his Volkswagen shirt. Not sure why he drives a Lexus. (Just kidding – he works there. But I personally think it would be more appropriate if he would just change into a Lexus shirt outside of work hours).

Boom. Look how dirty my car is. Jesus Christ.

As he was applying – look who decided to roll up with some new coloured shoes too…

Mr. Gopesh. He recently got his wheels powdercoated red. I think I like it better than the green he used to have. It seems a bit more fitting with the pinstripe and all. Head turner for sure with wheels that bright.

Finally moving on over to Punit’s GS. This thing looks crazy from behind if you’ve ever been behind him while driving. Bitches be like “y u ruin Rexus lyke dat!!!”

Love dem AME’s

Look at JC in his friggin Volkswagen shirt. Gopesh should’ve just ripped it off of him and wore it. Whole bunch of confusion and disrespect going on that night.

Boom.

Last shot of the night. I’ll end it here and I’ll see you at the show & shine! Hope you guys are all ready or are getting ready! Last night I spent a few hours washing it and cleaning the interior and I’ll probably spend some more time on Saturday doing some finishing touches. Come by and say hi!

Crossing my fingers for nice weather. Going to be a good show!

Montreal 2013 – Part 2 of 2 The Cars

August 13, 2013August 14, 2013 / jasonhoang / 3 Comments

Well I’m super excited to post this because I was super excited when I saw it going down. I was wanting to go to Gibeau Orange Julep for a long time because a few years ago when I came down, I didn’t get the chance to go since it’s kind of far from where we are. I made sure that we would make the trip this time, and we went sometime in the evening after dinner.

Just a side note – where we are is very inner city and it’s an older part of Montreal, so there are rarely any nice cars driving around unless you go into the Downtown area and it’s all apartments and not one single house to be seen.

So as we came up from the Metro at the stop near Gibeau Orange Julep, there were highways, tons of cars, traffic – it was like a whole different city. As we were walking there, I saw an RX7 with an APR GT wing, I saw a bunch of dumped BMW 325XI’s, S2000’s, an M3 and I thought to myself “DAMN, Montreal DOES have people that do up cars!” and I was excited to see it. Once we started getting close and finally took a seat, the parking lot had some modified cars there too. I remember even saying to Diana “It looks like this is where all the ricers hang out”. A blacked out silver Cobalt SS was there pumping his music… Other oldschool VW’s with checkered pinstriping and steelies a few stalls over…

As we were waiting for our food, the parking lot started filling up very quickly. One after the other – Audi A4 on BBS, A white Lambo, Some more VW’s ranging from matte paint to oldschool and aired out, a 2JZ Soarer… Wait a second. Is this… like Montreal’s version of the “Beyond Meet” that we have here at Chinook mall on the upper parkade? Diana and I sat there for a while and watched the cars roll in one by one and people got out of their cars and started chillin’. You’ll notice there are rarely any Japanese cars here… It’s almost Euro across the board.

Yup – this WAS Montreal’s version of the Beyond Meet and I wasn’t going to sit around drinking Orange Juice without taking some pics. So off we went! I was a little hesitant at first cause I had no car, but once I got in the crowd – who would know? People love when other people take pictures of their shit. I’m that guy.

A shot of the place with some oldschool VW’s parked on the side. It gets crowded here cause it’s super popular. It’s like Peter’s Drive-in… but better.

First up was the oldschool, minty red BMW.

Super clean and fresh VW on air. The paint was immaculate.

The white lambo that pulled in. Crazy. Montreal has a ton of ballers. I think on St. Catherine St I saw R8’s, a Bugatti Veyron, an oldschool Lotus, a bunch of A7’s and S8’s… incredible.

A MK6 GTI on BBS. Clean, but to be honest – I’ve never been a fan of those BBS wheels. They just don’t flow right and I haven’t seen a car that looks great on them. But still clean.

Another MK6 GTI aired out with what looks to be CCW LM5T’s but not sure. Loved his stance though.

Tried to get a shot of his trunk set up, which was super legit. Hardwood all the way on to the backs of the rear seats.

Front shot of it.

Another super clean MK5 GTI on air.

Oldschool love.

This MK5 GTI was probably my favourite one there – unique matte cream colour scheme on MB wheels. Simple, but it stood out like a sore thumb. In a good way.

This BMW was pretty clean. Saw the red/pink wheel bolts and thought it was cool. Up close it was kind of a shoddy job though – looked like it was painted on with a brush. Some areas were missed, some even got onto the wheel. Nice try though.

Another one on bags. Audi TT on MB wheels. God I love the look of that.

And another MK5 GTI on bags. CAN’T GET ENOUGH

This guys car also had fresh paint and on BBS’s. Couldn’t tell if he was on bags though, but at this point – I’m going to put my money on it that he was too.

I think the three most unique and popular cars there that night were the three from Royal Flush Canada. I was surprised to see a following like that over here, even though only three of them showed up. All done up exceptionally well with good all-around modifications. This 3-Series was bagged on oldschool Ferrari wheels. His rear was insane.

Another was the FG Civic on a static drop I believe. Also very clean. Not sure what wheels those are.

And the crowd pleaser of the night was this 2JZ Soarer on SSR Sp1’s. I have a super soft spot for Meisters/SP1’s so when I saw this, I couldn’t get enough. His fitment and everything was perfect. Kudos to you.

Better shot of his stance.

Shot of the rear wheel.

Rear decal.

A shot of the trunk set up of that green VW earlier. So legitttttttt

Was surprised to see a Volvo C30 there. Pretty good fitment, but I wish it was bagged too lol

Matte black VW on matte bronze wheels. The body was nice, but the wheels and fitment needed some work.

One of the confused ones there.

Tried to get a big shot but the girls glared at me as soon as I had my camera up.

Another shot of the matte cream GTI.

Some betters shots of the 3-Series and his rear fitment.

Even unpacked their flag. l need one of those.

So goooooood. check the alternating bolts too.

Where do VW guys get these ideas?!

Tried to get a group shot of the Royal Flush group but everyone kept crowding the Soarer lol. Guy with the long hair is the owner.

I’ll just end it with this one.

The caliber of cars there is pretty much the same here. There is always going to be a handful of cars that stand out and do it right, and there is going to be a bunch that are halfway there, got lost along the way, or are just confused altogether. Either way – it was nice to see a car meet and I’m lucky to have been there while it was happening to take some pics.

I don’t think I have anything lined up until the weekend for illmotion’s Sunday School Show & Shine… but stay tuned. Maybe something will come up!

Favourites: Ricky’s Volkswagen GTI

August 5, 2013August 1, 2013 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

It just dawned on me that I hadn’t posted these shots of Ricky’s GTI from last summer since they were waiting to be published elsewhere. I think a year is long enough to showcase his beautifully bagged GTI.

I’ve followed along with Ricky and his build, put a fair share of sweat and tears, and discussed hours upon hours of his build from the very beginning. The one thing you don’t usually get is the feeling of accomplishment that the owner gets when the car finally reaches this stage. Often times, readers just see the final outcome but they can’t appreciate the amount of work has gone into something. The little things like what needed to be done to fit a certain part, or the sacrifices that had to be made to actually make it to the product you see in photos. Luckily for me, Ricky’s GTI was one of those cars where I can say (I think he’d agree) that I know the process. I think he could say the same thing about all of my builds as well. For those of you that don’t know, Ricky is my cousin – so that’s part of the reason why we’re able to share that pain we all love when building cars.

The unique thing about Ricky’s build – and I use the term “unique” loosely – is because ever since the beginning, Ricky’s GTI has been semi-inspired by a lot of JDM builds. Most of the guys we all hang out with started out with the JDM-phase – building Honda’s, Toyota’s, etc. You’ll see very quickly that there are aspects of his GTI that make you think that Ricky should’ve built a Honda instead. From his SSR Professor SP1’s to the Bride carbon kevlar Gias seats. The mixture of Euro flavour and JDM inspiration comes together extremely well, and while there is some distaste among his fellow VW owners, there’s no denying that this is one of the best GTI builds out there.

The first thing you notice about his GTI is the beautiful set of SSR professor SP1’s in the awesome spectrum silver finish. He was one of the first to finally slap them on and at the time, it was rare to even find pictures of them on the internet. His Oettinger bumper is aggressive and flows well with the lines of the car.

His fitment in the rear.

Comparison shot.

Ricky was also early to the game of bagging his car in the city. There are a few that have done it, but it’s costly and most people prefer just to do static. Thanks to Concept-1, they got his GTI sitting nice and low and looking awesome with Accuair components.

His OSIR carbon fiber duckbill spoiler. This was one of the pieces that we had discussed for a long time about how the paint scheme should be. We talked about painting the whole thing, painting it slightly to show the weave through… Eventually we came up with keeping the bottom unpainted to show the carbon weave and then the top to match with his roof. It turned out awesome and the install took us a while, but the final outcome was worth it. Dave at Screamin’ Paintworks did a great job with the paintwork all around for Ricky’s car.

OSIR carbon insert side skirts as well.

The look of spectrum silver when it’s not in the sun. Simple gunmetal.

A look at the back of his carbon kevlar Bride Gias seats. Again, something that was a little odd to think about adding to the GTI initially, but once they were in – perfection.

Again with the JDM flavour – TI license plate bolts paired with a JDM EGO frame. Perfect!

A side profile shot showing his stance.

The rear with the sun shining right down on the spectrum silver.

Awesome monotone.

His dual chamber Forge carbon fiber intake.

Final shot of the beautiful SSR SP1.

While these shots are somewhat dated, his car still remains the same for the most part. You may remember seeing my post about it a few months back with his car on BBS RS’s as well. You can see it here

https://lifewithjson.com/2013/03/21/enter-rickys-gti/