Event Coverage: 2012 Motion Auto Show Long Beach | Part 1

I have officially memorized how to get to the Queen Mary/Convention Center in Long Beach. Thanks to the likes of Formula Drift, the Toyota Grand Prix, and Toyotafest, I am no longer a stranger to the downtown Long Beach area. So when Motion Auto Show appeared on my event calendar this past Sunday at the Convention Center, I rolled up my sleeves, shut off my GPS, and headed southbound, not knowing what to expect.

To those of you who have never been to Motion (like yours truly until Sunday), MAS is very much a middle ground between the likes of SEMA and Hot Import Nights. At one end, you have a very professional and business-minded show where cars ultimately come second to business. At the other end, you have an event that is less show than it is clubbing – where again, cars seem to come second to the girls, I mean business, at hand. Motion cuts the line right down the middle and swings the spotlight back to what matters most, the cars.  Sure there are still vendors and girls wearing stringy things for the bikini contest, but you get the feeling that here, it’s the sheetmetal that matters most.

Outside, Savini had come out in force and brought quite a few examples of their wheel line up along with the intimidating Team Black di Forza line up.

However, for some reason, they chose to showcase a red AP2 S2K in their booth, promising that track wheels would be coming soon. I stopped by at the beginning and end of the show and still never saw the wheel covers come off. Odd…

Down the line, just past the Savini cars, the Shop had brought out some fine examples of their work and I unexpectedly stumbled onto one of my favorite cars of the show, a beautiful CTS-V coupe.

Running the supercharged 6.2L LSA V8, the CTS-V puts down over 550 hp and roughly the same amount of torque. Impressive numbers, but probably necessary to move the big girl. I still maintain CTS-V coupe could probably use some pilates or something to tone down the size of its rear, but I didn’t seem to care as much with this one.

The blacked out grill, tailpipes, stance, and the gorgeously matched Dynamic Performance Engineering 5-spoke split wheels made me forget for a while that I was here for event coverage, not feature cars.

There’s a bit of a frustrating catch-22 to shooting cars at shows. On one end, if you keep the hood closed, you can capture the shape of the car and the body lines as a whole, but can’t see what sort of machinery is putting the power down. Put the hood up and you’ve sort of ruined any exterior pictures, but lets you show off all your magnificent engine work.

I guess it really comes down to what exactly you have under the hood…

There are some cars and marques that I simply cannot avoid snapping a few shots of. Lotus is one of them. 

The blacked out primary headlights gave this mean Exige a serious case of bumblebee/wasp syndrome.

I’m always amazed that BMW ever pulled this color off. Known as Dakar Yellow, the pale color remains a fairly popular choice amongst Bimmer enthusiasts today.

I understand the appeal of the R35 and the GT-R line. I really do. International supercar-beating capabilities, bargain basement price for the performance, renowned heritage in racing and in film, it’s difficult to fault the car – but I still can’t get over how damn big and heavy the thing is…

I would really love to see how the stock IS-F wheels look with a dash of concave and a bit of dish to them. Imagine it. Do it now.

There’s no way that can be static. What I never understood about the stance movement is how owners could tolerate the sound of their cars scraping. I know it’s a part of the lifestyle, but I just don’t understand how they do it. A little bit of me dies inside every time I hear my MR2 scrape.

I wish the third gen TL had a bigger presence in the scene. My family has one and it’s a fantastic daily driver. The power in the 3.2L V6 has a wonderful sense of immediacy and the third gen remains fairly restrained compared to the girth of the fourth gen model.

Motion Auto Show is no stranger to gold wheels. No stranger at all… (FORESHADOWING)

This owner was putting the final Mugen touches on his GE Fit. Solid choice of wheels and as a former GD owner, solid choice of car.

There was some airport-style security going on at the entrance to the convention center, but all wonders of that were quelled with the first of many FDs to come.

Chevy really did a bang on job reinventing the Camaro. Thanks to the likes of Transformers and the fact that it’s just a good car, the fifth gen Camaro has really caught on in the market – and I could have sworn that half the market was in the convention center. A whole section of the floor was dominated by Chevy’s angularly angry pony car.

It didn’t hurt Camaro sales either that it’s just a straight up devastatingly good car to look at.

Know your roots and respect your elders kids. 

I was actually really happy to see a G8 at the show. One of the cars that I’m mildly embarrassed to say that I want, the G8 brought a kick of Aussie power to American shores under the Pontiac name. One of these days…

I wonder what it would look like if you switched the EVO X tail lights and head lights around. Not sure if Team Nuisance is willing to give up theirs though.

Maybe it’s just the shows I’ve been going to, but I feel like I see fewer and fewer first gen RSX’s around these days. That smiley Mugen front end makes me want to pinch its cheeks or something.

Maybe it was because my contacts came off kind of funny that morning, but for some reason I had a round or two of double-takes for a while with these two.

Poor man’s Ferrari indeed.

Much to my delight, Team Ar-Kan (pronounced “arcane”) had brought out a gaggle of EP3s.

Too bad the EP3 had to come in FWD. Swap in an F20 or F22, put the power down in the rear and I think you’d have a very potent and useful little car.

Plus then you could run a dual exhaust, which IMO the EP3 could desperately use. Not that the examples here were at all shabby with the black Si running some very serious competition rubber and gold roll cage.

Ar-Kan’s red 370Z has been making its way round the SoCal show circuit for quite some time now as this is maybe the fourth or fifth time I’ve seen it

No complaints though. Especially when you’re doing the talking with the Amuse body kit and TE37 Super Laps. No complaints indeed.

Remember what I said about Motion Auto Show being no stranger to gold wheels?

This NSX was a showstopper in every sense of the word. I was glad I got in early and was able to take my time shooting because when the doors opened, there were people constantly coming over in a state of wonder.

These are Mugen MF10s customized by wheelflip for the NSX. Looking for all the world like 24K gold, the wheels were visible a mile away and brought in fascinated members from across the automotive spectrum. From the Honda crowd to muscleheads, no one had seen anything quite like it.

At first, the appeal was less than obvious. People make wheels ridiculous colors all the time (think Blurple), is 24K gold really that much more outlandish? Then, I started to remember what model the wheels were fitted to and the puzzle pieces started to form a picture. This was an NSX on 24K gold Mugen MF10s. I still can’t quite put my finger on it yet, but the with an end result so distracting I’m not so sure I’m gonna bother.

I watched a lot of people walk away from the car and give it backward glances. The NSX was truly a hard act to follow, but this Z33 gave it its best.

Forrest Wang’s S13.4 was painted quite possibly the most difficult shade of green to accurately capture .

I don’t know who Uncle Benny is, but I'd like to meet him and complement him on his taste in engines.

Speaking of F-series swaps, I was stupefied that somebody had fitted this F22C into a first gen Celica. How is there so much room in the engine bay? Why does the S2K need such a long hood then?

I actually saw this Bluebird first on bringatrailer.com and was very surprised to find it here at Motion. A variant of the Datsun Bluebird-U, the 1974 SSS-E (Super Sports Sedan) model was exclusive to Japan and this specific example was imported to the US in 2007.

The car is absolutely flawless and according to my research, outside of coilovers and wheels, is entirely stock with all the original parts included. Other touches included the chrome grill trim (which is reputedly impossible to find) and factory air-conditioning, a rare treat on Datsun’s of the time period.

One last sneak peek…

You never know what to expect with Ruckus owners. The mods their riders can dream up are nearly limitless and the finished product is almost always a sight to behold.

I’ve been to Alpinestars’ Ruck-Out and back, but wow. Forced induction Ruckus? I imagine lag isn’t a huge problem with a turbo of that size, but wow. Like I said, limitless.

While I’m not a regular on VIP forums, I’m starting to get impatient with the scene. Hopefully I’m missing something, but I want somebody to come along and just shake up everybody’s existing conventions and make some new waves.

Well well. What do we have here at the Autofashion booth…

Hakosuka! If I didn’t know better, I would presume “hakosuka” was just another phrase Japanese restaurant waiters/waitresses/chefs yell out at random intervals during your dining experience.

Perhaps the only Skyline I would ever consider putting in my driveway, this hako was definitely not running ‘70s power.

Turbocharger-focused Synapse Engineering brought out an older EVO 8 to play, showing off some of their Synchronic work

As always, Falken came out hard at Motion, displaying their FD FD alongside Justin Pawlak’s own FD on TE37s. I know the shot’s not as clear as it should be, but you can even see the Bisimoto 911 with its pants down in the background.

While I still refuse to really call it a “green”, the healthcare services teal and blue stripes are immediately recognizable and instantly unique and have become synonymous with Falken performance.

Falken may not know what a real green is, but HRE sure does.

Peeking inside Vaughn’s Mustang revealed a surprisingly simple cockpit bereft of the aircraft-esque displays associated with professional race cars. I guess when you’re going close to 70mph sideways into a corner, there’s not really that much time to check all your gauges.

I would love to hear about the design process for race/drift car liveries. Who decides who gets what and who gets to put what where? It can’t be something as simple as a contract so who makes the call?

As always, HPI Racing was in the house displaying their finest sheetmetal. I mean plastic. Loving that little intercooler touch on the Supra. Not digging the lights though. Not digging the lights…

The NOS EVO 9 was wearing the APR Performance Evil-R body kit to great effect.

I wasn’t too sure what was going on here, but NOS had also brought along what looked like a fighting games tournament. I saw a few flashes of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and what looked to be Soul Calibur 5, but disappointingly didn’t see any Super Smash.

We'll wrap up the first half of our MAS coverage with the Injen GTI wearing some oddly appropriate looking HRE 454s from their recently released Vintage Series. Taking styling cues from the wheels of Lamborghini’s past, the undecidedly Italian 454s worked surprisingly well on the little German hatch. 

Stay tuned for Part 2!