Gallery>> Mayday Garage Nostalgic Meet

At the very top of the month of April, I spent quite a bit of time, seventeen days to be exact, in the state of Texas. The highlight of the trip was a nostalgic JDM meet that was put on and organized by the guys from Mayday Garage, an automotive blog which primarily focuses on the city of Houston’s car and tuning scene.

Different from the usual meets in parking lots, the Mayday Garage meet was a street meet. Cars were parked on the side of a street or parked up on pre-organized business parking spots.

The nostalgic car turn out was a small, but the quality was quite good.

Take this old Honda Civic for example…

…or this Datsun Roadster. I was very impressed with just how clean it was.

This Datsun 510 was one of the first nostalgic cars to show up. The owner quickly parked and popped open his hood.

Inside the 510’s engine bay sat a naturally aspirated SR20!

The meet was held on a hole-in-the-wall yet also a popular eating destination, the Moon Tower Inn. An gourmet hot dog stand.

Yes, I know, gourmet and hot dog are two words that don’t belong to each other at all, but trust me, these hot dogs are quite different from the street corner norm.

The Moon Tower Inn specializes in hot dogs that are made up of meat from wild game, like in this case, Buffalo.

Nothing is cooler than seeing a competition drift car roll down a public street.

This ridiculously low Lexus IS stayed for just a moment at the meet, but in its brief time there, it broke countless necks –including mine. The BBS LMs take the car’s aesthetics to the next level!

This Corolla was another surprise of the meet. It was not powered by the usual 16 valve or 20 valve, but rather a 1UZ V8! A full feature of this car will be coming soon.

This is the owner and builder of the Corolla, Joshua Garcia. His t-shirt is amazing.

A Mitsubishi Montero rolling on a set of Watanabes. Now that’s something you don’t see everyday!

Not too far down from the Moon Tower Inn were these guys who decided to have a small RWD meet within the meet.

This S14 caught my attention the most because of its clean exterior styling…

…and metallic sparkle paint.

I was surprised to see Alex Nunez, Marketing director of Enkei wheels…

…and editor of the blog, What Monsters Do, at the meet. It was amazing to see that even companies like Enkei appreciate the grassroots/street culture.

One of the Mayday guys, Mikey, commandeered fellow Mayday photographer’s, David Do, all white BMX bike so he can move about the meet with ease.

This slammed 7 series BMW takes classiness to another level.

Though that 7 series wasn’t the only BMW at the meet, there was this E30…

…as well as this E36.

These two cars takes lowness to quite an extreme.

Of course, there wasn’t just cars there….

…like this straight-six powered Toyota tuck.

I’m a sucker for wagons, especially an Audi S4 wagon that’s as good looking as this one.

How can you not like a properly low Subaru Legacy? Such classiness.

A nice and clean DC2 Integra.

The meet was planned to happen between the times of 5pm and 8pm…

…but cars kept rolling in all evening long.

In the late afternoon, the crowd was fairly small…

…but as the evening went on, the crowds grew to some impressive numbers.

Everywhere I looked, there was a Mayday Garage photographer. These guys have honed their photographic sniping skills to a whole knew level.

There were so many photographers in fact that we were all fighting for positions to shoot.

What’s a car meet these days without a bit of Scion representation?

It was neat to see this Honda Fit, which attended Import Reactor, roll up to the meet.

This 240z also attended Import Reactor.

This brand new 2012 model year Nissan GTR also surprised the meet attendees…

…as did this Nissan Silvia S15.

Beardhunting.

Mismatched colored wheels is something I’d expect to see on a grassroots drift car, but on an Evo? That’s definitely something different.

One of my favorite cars at the meet, an LSx powered S14. Check out the meat on the rear tire! That’s tire flush, folks.

When we all watch or attend professional race events, no matter what discipline it is, concours or car shows, we tend to forget where it all started from: the streets. It was in the streets that almost every form of automotive event was born. Drifting started off in the mountain passes of Japan. NASCAR started from booze dealers, who modified their cars to leave pursuing policemen in the dust. Drag racing came into fruition when the street light signal was born. And car shows, like the Pebble Beach Concours, or Nisei show off, was seeded from the growing street meet scene.

The Mayday Garage Nostalgic JDM event broke the tried-and-true parking lot meet structure and took it back to the streets. It was something else to hear tuned cars blast down the street, or feel the level of energy every person exuded as they saw cool car after cool car pass by. It was Fast and Furious type of scene, but in a good way.

The street scene is very much alive, and thanks to guys like Mayday Garage, we get to see and experience it.

-Linhbergh

Speedhunters Houston 2011 Features

Mayday Garage

Mayday Garage Facebook

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1

anyone know who sells Joshua's t shirt? Nice coverage too :)

2

@niclol, its called the tortoise vs. hare t-shirt, can be had on eBay for like $25!

and the s15 was puzzlinggggg

3

I think the 4th picture is civic excellent, not toyota starlet. isn't it?

4

The Starlet is actually a Honda, but no biggie, Great Coverage!!

5

The Toyota Starlet look more like a Honda Civic to me

6

. .



O



at the E38. Goddamn that thing is clean, and <3 Style 95s.

7

its nice to know the west coast has its share of pill-mill pain clinics too.



i love street shows, the cops down here in the south dont seem to like them as much though

8

Toyota Starlet? There still a lot of people that can't acknowledge the Honda presence, it's all drift, Nissan, Toyota, hot rods, or whatever the current trend is, but for some reason, not Hondas - the backbone of US import movement/scene/community...

9

yeah Pajero!

10

real cult for automobile lovers!

11

That Starlet is a Civic;)

12

why would someone put a v8 in a corolla twincam ?,the best thing about the twincam is that it is lightwieight with a suitable revy 4age,which is grat for cornering and transitioning in drifting,why would you want to take that away from it with a lazy bastard of a v8

13

toyota Starlet[?] looks very 'Civic-y', but is cool as it is - don't change a thing about it. - i also love the slammed 7 Series BMW on newer 7 series rims, makes me want to say 'Gangster!' - and No! lets not start Beardhunting?!!

14

Any more pics/info on that 7 series?!

15

Starlet? LOL fail. Thats a civic :o

16

So what is the best way to find these meets. I'm in the Dallas area and while you can find hot rod and Corvette shows pretty easily, what is the best way to find stuff like this *before* it happens :-)

17

The blue SR5 Corolla is my kind of ride!

18

why is there a picture of a scion? or a fit?

19

lol beardhunting!! theres a spolight of that 86' on Mayday garage already!!! such a freakin sweet and clean ride....pure JDM CLASSSSSS!!

20

Don't leave us hanging! more details on that Lightning and superduty

21

The Audi A4 is stock with dumb rims on it, what's so special about it? Audi's suck.

22

that white bmw is cool as fuck

23

@niclol and Jlall



The tortoise vs. hare is a shirt I designed for GT Faction, a clothing store started by Techno Toy Tuning. You can find it on their website: gtfaction.com

24

That slammed IS on BBS LM's is always parked near my street, nice to see it featured.

Great coverage really would like to see more of this happen in Houston, Import Reactor was only a fraction as good as this meet, this is represents Houston, Dive place with unique good food and friendly people showing some Southern Hospitality. Props to have speedhunters for teaming up with Mayday!

25

Wow! This is a fresh meet! I'll have to do the long drive some day!

26

Linbergh takes fagg0try to a new level.

27

@Marc .... follow Mayday Garage on Facebook and keep up with the site: http://www.maydaygarage.com

28

Yeaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!!

29

That "DC2" is actually a "DB8".



Four door Integras are a major lulz in the community. A bad thing.

30

That's my Montero out there!!!

31

here is some stuff on the Lightning, its the lowest static dropped Lightning out there.



http://www.lightningrodder.com/forum/showthread.php?t=62980

32

That E38 iL looks like mine...minus the older side skirts and chrome trim. It's so pretty!

33

you guys roll hard out in texas! i wish we could have s15's legally in california!!

34

any engine bay pics of the ls s14..??

35

"...straight-six powered Toyota tuck. " Wtf is a tuck?

36

Great turnout, the quality of the cars definitely exceeded the quantity greatly.

I'm a fan of Joshua Garcia's shirt (GT Faction), love it.

37

What does that aerocatch latch on to on that s14?

38

wallpaper of the s14 and g35?

39

I'm reading this with the Crystal Castle-BIRDS song stuck in my head HAHAAHAh. That vid was awesome

40

Meeeaaaaaaatttyyyy!!

41

Great turn out, great food, great BEEEEEEEEER, great comraderie!



That is an FOB rhd 78-79 1200 cvcc type civic everyone. Not quite the 1200 cvcc chassis but the next one up that the US saw actually badged as a 1600 Civic.



86garage brought themselves and buddies from Texas MR2, the RX-7 Club and the Z Club out.

42

Back in March, I had the opportunity to spend a bit of time in Houston, Texas to check out the car scene

43

Photography is, mostly, a rather geeky affair. We, as photographers, constantly nerd out over numbers

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