HellaFlush 5 at Venice Beach: Hella Fresh, Hella Cool

Bright and early on Saturday morning, we made our way to famous Venice Beach, CA to check out all the sick rides at the HellaFlush car show. Now, unless you’re up to date on the latest car lingo, you probably don’t understand what “Hella Flush” means. Let us enlighten you a bit on the subject. The word “hella” is a slang term that originated in Northern California, standing for “hell of a lot.” The word “flush” refers to flush wheel fitment on a car. Flush wheel fitment is determined by getting the lip of the wheel perfectly in line with the outer most edge of a car’s fenders. Therefore, “hella flush” means getting the wheels fitting as flush as possible.

So how do you get your car to be “HellaFlush” approved? Flush fitment is all about wheel offsets. Wheel offset determines how “sunk in” or “poked out” the wheel sits inside the wheel well of the car. The lower the numerical offset number, the more “poke” or further out the wheel will fit, and vice versa. After getting the offsets perfect, you need to stretch undersized tires on the wheels, and lower the car’s ride height enough to make the fender sit right on top of the lip of the wheels.

Consequently, Saturday’s show consisted of a large group of car enthusiasts who like their car’s low and wheels flush. While there was a good mix of cars at the show, the JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) cars, made up the majority of the crowd. This was a big surprise for me; I expected a much larger appearance by the German car scene, especially from the Volkswagen crowd. Nevertheless, we were excited to see all the amazing cars, and speak with their proud owners.

The rides at HellaFlush ranged from super clean, to extremely ratty. While the car’s appearance is always important at a show, these guys take it to a whole different level. Cars sported wheels of all different sizes, shapes and colors, giving each car a unique look. Some cars had lips big enough to stick your head in! My favorite cars were the ones with the neon colored wheels; they really stood out from the rest of the crowd.

As the day went on, cars came and left, and the event turned out to be a great success. Fun was had by all, without any trouble from the police. We definitely enjoyed ourselves and can’t wait to see how much bigger and better next year’s show in SoCal will be! As a side note, Sub5zero will be down in Miami for HellaFlush 6 which will take place as part of the Remix Award Touron July 31st.