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Abstract: THE BUGEYE ARMY
BUY A BUGEYE AND SEE THE WORLD
Perfectly timed photo of a pair of matching Humvee and bugeye belonging to Stallassjason on Nasioc. His wide, fender-flared bugeye features a rare Do Luck front bumper, work wheels and military-green exterior. More to come on this bugeye, as it has been on a building rampage lately and looks increasingly epic with each update.
Throwback Thursday FRIDAY: JDM Bugeye Meeting
(edit: in full disclosure I saw Andrew’s post and thought it was thursday… that kind of week)
Following Andrew’s “Thursday is for posting meaningful stuff” motif –– One of the things that I miss most about the car scene pre-the 2008 financial recession is that you could roll up to a car meet and see some crazy builds that expressed the builder’s individuality and didn’t all look alike – rolling artwork. My sincere belief is that due to the recession things you used to see like custom body and paint work, JDM ∞, and major engine mods, have fallen off beginning in 2008 with trendy things that still express individuality (to a degree) like small and sometimes unpainted front lips, sticker bombing/cursive decals/fatlace style roll-calls, wrapping (and then dipping when that was cheaper) instead of paint, and cheaper suspension setups with all the money into the wheels (not disparaging that). Things appear to be coming back by all indication… which I couldn’t be happier about – while people still do the low/wide builds, you increasingly see engine mods, and airbag setups instead of maxed out coilovers (better way to go low imho).
For throwback thus, I submit some pics that I took in mid 2007 before things went haywire for the economy and the car world.
On one off-night I rolled up randomly to one of the leading the DC-area meet locations – the Rockville MD Barnes & Noble/Sports Authority. In the day that meet could draw up to 500++ cars and overflow two giant parking lots in the middle of the night. Sadly, they put up a condominium next door and owners complained about the automotive carnival every Friday and Saturday (we were there first!) which led to aggressive ticketing and people moving on.
There I found a midnight black pearl Bugeye JDM STI version 7 replica (complete with rear windshield wiper and roof vent) bugeye – owned by my friend Freddy aka Turbokonejo, and a repainted satin white pearl (07 STI color) bugeye owned by Nasioc member Fantabulous with (if I recall correctly) JDM STI EJ207 swap and Australian OEM “EGR” lip kit ––– Both of them performance-oriented JDM bugeye builds.
We did an impromptu photo shoot.
(don’t mind the background – I’m no pro photographer outside of photoshop magic and no real nice photo spots in Rockville MD 😉
Of course the bugeyegarage car in full-scale throwback mode with Jun bumper and Advan Neova AD07’s on Work EmotionCR Kai’s
Another bugeye with JDM headlights even came rolling through (R.I.P. to it’s owner Edwin aka PacmanGSX on Nasioc – really nice and friendly guy who would I’d often see at meets).
This random meeting was not organized whatsoever. This was the Subaru scene before things got kind of bland in my opinion. Couldn’t be happier to see it coming back.
Parts bin: Wagon Options–Prodrive
Wagons just have a tough time. When the bugeye was first released there weren’t a ton of options out there for styling/differentiating from the crowd. The biggest problem was that the wagon’s narrower track combined with completely different bumper shape meant that most of the aero options for the bugeye sedan wouldn’t work: front lips wouldn’t fit the different bumper, bumpers wouldn’t line up with the narrower fenders. Even with a wagon STI model in Japan for the bugeye, aftermarket tuning companies largely initially panned the bugeye (considered an ugly sibling of the more popular GC8 at the time) model and certainly weren’t showing love for a wagon model that required separate R&D expense to develop products for.
(there were a few options though they’re largely gone now: wagon-specific V1 STI replica lip; Freeway-Dolphin kit, Liberal kit, and a few others)
Over the years people got creative. Some would retrofit the sedan front end (principally fenders and bumpers) to increase the aero options to that of the sedan – but leaving an awkwardly narrower rear (although some actually did the metal work necessary for the rear too). Others would take a creative approach to mounting sedan-specific pieces to the wagon bumper.
This is a really great example of the popular prodrive lip altered to fit a wagon bumper – I’d think it actually looks even a little bit sharper on the wagon too.
According to the owner, there was some careful measuring and trimming involved, but otherwise it was relatively straight forward (no cutting in half/adding or removing large pieces/re-shaping). I love how it matches the lower lines of the Wagon bumper and the vent to the side of the foglight beautifully.
Abstract: Boss Satsuma
Bugeye of http://t-satsuma.com/
Abstract: Do Epic Sh*t
If you’re going to have a fully built bugeye track star, you may as well use it!
visual breakdown
+ matte black paint
+ Racing Hart CP035 rear wheel
+ Volk Racing CE28N front wheel
+ Endless big brake kit
+ Varis carbon hood
+ STI spec C roof vent
+ Ganador Super mirrors
+ WRC front bumper (Burnup or L’aunsport)
+ Chargespeed v2 sideskirts
+ Varis rear diffuser
+ big wang
A Sad Day
I don’t think there’s many out there who would disagree that the loss of Paul Walker has been a huge hit to the automotive community. We all loved to rag on the corny and technologically misguided quotes of the original F&F movie, but still I don’t think there’s a movie that has had as much impact on the auto community as the original F&F. The flick kind of captured the community spirit and oft-ridiculousness of the car scene in general in a way that relateable to most. Even more importantly, Paul Walker was a true enthusiast, owning an R34 GT-R among a collection of other cars that only an enthusiast could love, and participating in track day events with some regularity. We lost one of our own on Sunday. RIP
Bugeye Meetup Japan
An update! Only a snapshot, but why not?
Haven’t been on Minkara lately, but did come across these pictures of a recent (summer 2013) meet of only bugeyes in Japan. Really some interesting cars here, but couldn’t find more than just these 4 pics. Just goes to show that in Japan (and elsewhere) – much like the U.S. – bugeyes are growing in popularity and achieving cult-following status and even with owners’ groups. Great cars those bugs.
^ I believe I’ve seen this blue car before when it had gold SSR type-C’s. Really reminds me of the previously-featured Chris/BurtonCR’s car with full Zerosports kit and can’t tell if Prodrive WRC-Safari or Ganador mirrors.
So enjoy the pics! Will post additional if I find any
Version 3
So keeping up with the theme of my last post, I was going to go on and comment about one of the few pitfalls of Bugeyes getting up in the years being the increasing lack of aftermarket support for a car that was once a Tokyo Auto Salon darling (to a degree – I noticed some once-Subaru tuners like Bomex dropped the Impreza once the New Age design was revealed, but before everyone started appreciating the Bugeye). For I’m sure a variety of reasons ranging from replica part proliferation to waning demand, a lot of companies have stopped producing their bugeye-specific part lines — including Subaru itself for certain parts. The remaining (oft-replica) parts available tend to steer all bugeyes towards looking like one another: whatever’s available, good enough looking, and cheap tends to sell well. So it really gets hard to set your car apart from all the other bugeyes out there. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still get creative:
Enter the Version 3.
I’ve posted Adam (Barnburner from Nasioc)’s car before. The guy’s actually a professional designer so it makes sense that he has one of the most put together cars I’ve ever seen with one-off creations.
The Version 3 lip’s name is the logical derivation of the main difference between the STI version 1 lip (now discontinued) and the version 2 lip (still available): vents or no vents. Adam took the Version 2 lip and molded together the vents to create one large vent per side — giving it a highly aggressive look. The name Version 3 describes the front lip, but really there are a ton of creative things going on here.
The bumper was also customized: shaved of (1) the tow-hook cover, (2) the front license plate mount, and (3) the three vents on either side were shaved down to one elongated vent like the WRX wagon.
The rear combines the smoother looking 2004 rear lips (side portions – 2004 didn’t come with a diffuser) with the center diffuser portion of the 2002-2003 rear lip. Additionally, a custom housing was made for a rear fog light.
Unfortunately, not a week after getting this amazing setup together disaster struck:
At least Adam took it in stride: “I’m 26, 6’4″, and weight approximately 215 pounds. Tonight, I wanted to sit in the rain and cry like a 8-year-old girl. F**k New Jersey.” All kidding aside, Adam’s the man with custom bodywork so don’t be too worried. Worse has happened to Itakichi’s crazy JDM bug, and shows how far the drive to fix something awesome can take a person:
So what do you do if you break an increasingly rare example of this lip?
…you save the pieces
Project: Old School
My 12 year old car passed inspection and had to take the obligatory snapshot. On the way home I passed through my old neighborhood and saw that the only other person in my neighborhood with a WRX in 2002 — a stock midnight black pearl WRX wagon just up the street from me — still had their WRX after nearly 12 years. Really made me want to leave a note… Gotta love that even with the newer car designs to hit the road over the past decade the WRX has really carved itself out as a classic and will always have a place for itself on the street – not unlike some of the older BMW e30, e36 m3, e39 m5 (which didn’t need sky-net shifting for you to put 400 hp to the road and now out-prices a full model year newer e60).
BUGEYE GARAGE 