A Car Modifier's Wet Dream: Sport Compact Nights 2006

By Michael Kwan, for THECOMMENTARY.CA

Tuesday, 16 May 2006

Car modification, or "personalisation" as some people like to call it, is a hugely profitable industry. Just a short walk through the magazine aisle will find titles like Import Tuner, Performance Auto & Sound, and Super Street, all of which cater to an audience who are quick to spit out terms like Jackson Racing Supercharger, C-West JDM front end, and Greddy 4-2-1 header. While it may sound like a foreign language to many, it is exactly this kind of crowd that, well, crowded into BC Place Stadium this past Saturday for Sport Compact Nights.

Local "tuners" showcased their hot rides, having invested thousands of dollars into customised vehicles. In their eyes, when a car rolls off factory lines, it is but a template for their imagination. I'm sure you've seen a few modified Hondas rolling down the road with loud exhausts, dark tinted windows, and oversized GT wings on the back. Now imagine literally hundreds of these cars parked in one place, all vying for trophies and prizes. In a nutshell, that is the appeal of Sport Compact Nights.

Many enthusiasts enter these shows in teams, be it a local car club or one of the performance shops that sell automotive customisation parts. 604 Club of Vancouver took up a substantial portion of the floor space, letting passer-bys walk down a red carpet (literally), flanked with their hot rides. There were more than a dozen in all, including Justin Tang's grey Mazda RX-7 with a carbon fibre interior trim kit, gauges mounted on the passenger dash (oil, fuel, and volt meters), and deep dish Volk wheels, as well as an aggressive reflective graphics job. Brendan Cohoe's orange Protégé was also quite the impressive machine, boasting nearly 250hp on his turbocharged engine.

There were problems with last year's show (the event organizers hired a third-party to judge the competitors, but the evaluators never made it across the border in time, nor did the actual trophies. This left a bitter taste in the mouths of many participants), so some who would have otherwise entered the show did not this year. Because of this "extra space", so to speak, we saw a fairly significant American presence at Sport Compact Nights. Project1 of Washington State showed up with several vehicles including Armin Ausejo's "Bugeye in Blue" Subaru WRX, which was featured in the April 2006 edition of SubieSport.

It was nice to see Scion Evolution of Oregon come to town as well, largely because the Scion name - the "tuner" off-brand of Toyota - is unavailable in Canada. Timothy Desper brought his black tC, which won "Most Unique Modification in a Scion" at the 2005 Scion Community Achievement Awards.

Ben Wong was back with his award-winning second generation Acura Integra. Well known in the local community for his numerous LCD televisions and bright neon lighting, Ben recently gave his car a new paint job, switching out of the old white exterior for a more aggressive gold tone. He had his Boston subwoofers pounding the truck the whole time. Ben, previously representing Mospeed, entered this year's show with Street Trenz. Another notable member of this team was Derek Chan with his red-and-white themed 1999 Honda Accord Coupe (DC9-R).

A&J Racing made their obligatory appearance with their JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) styled rides. Dickson Chai had his white S2000, Howard Hu had a white WRX and Pat Lam brought his white Infiniti G35, with the only non-white car coming by way of a yellow Integra Type R courtesy of Sam Lee. Notably missing from the show was the K-series powered Type R from a man known in the local community as "Moo Man."

Despite the event's name, this show wasn't completely about sport compacts. ICE (In Car Entertainment) had an onslaught of oversized sport utility vehicles, including Hummers, an Escalade, and a Ford Expedition. The common theme at that booth: large, chrome wheels. It's all about the bling.

One car that really caught my eye was a 1972 Chevrolet Vega. In stock form, the car may not be that much of a looker, but after Nicholas John Boos of TotalControlArt.com infused his creative airbrushing genius into the car, it became something that you couldn't possibly walk by without taking a second glance. The custom artwork had a superhero theme to it, with excellent representations of the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, and other comic book characters. In speaking with Nicholas, he said that he put in 10 hours of work at the Hot Rod show at the Abbotsford Tradex some time back, adding on four more hours right there at Sport Compact Nights. As impressive as it seemed, the Vega is still a work in progress, with completion to come around the 100 hour mark.

On the big company side of things - we saw booths from Castrol, BF Goodrich, Sirius Satellite Radio, and Shell - Alpine was showcasing their latest project, a very heavily modified BMW X5 SUV. Dubbed as having "F1 Status", this truly was a site to behold with 26-inch wheels, center drive (the driver is oriented neither to the right nor the left), and with space for only one passenger, sitting directly behind the "pilot". Most interesting of all, they fused the side doors together, along with a motorized floor on which the seats are mounted.

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Photographs are provided by Susanne Shum, special to THECOMMENTARY.CA.

Michael Kwan is THECOMMENTARY.CA's Chief Correspondent. He last reported on the 2006 Vancouver International Auto Show. Visit Michael's own website MICHAELKWAN.COM, for his blog and more.

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