As we are in the midst of Gatebil season right now, it only seemed right to centre our next #IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER theme around engine conversions. However, we thought we’d narrow it down a bit further and make this theme specifically about V8 swaps. Of all the engine conversion options out there, there’s nothing quite as popular as the venerable bent-eight. Ever since V8s were first put into production, people have been swapping them into other chassis. Plentiful, affordable and capable of easy and reliable power – with so many benefits, it’s not hard to see why! Because there’s no replacement for displacement, right?
So far this year we’ve already laid eyes on some pretty wild V8-powered Volkswagens like the Mk1 Golf (pictured above) from the Players Classic show in the UK and the Ford Triton V8-swapped Caddy we featured from Georgia, as well as some game-changing V8-powered drift cars out of Japan. But enough about us; next up, we want to see your builds.
We’ll be putting together a special Readers’ Rides feature as part of our July theme, and we want to spotlight your V8-swapped projects. This is an open invitation to the whole Speedhunting community – not just to those with exceptional photography skills. So what are you waiting for? If you’ve been slaving away in the garage working on a new project with a V8 heart, we’d love to hear from you. Whether you’re already hitting the street or track, or if you’re only halfway finished building your project, let us see it!
If you want to take part in this theme, you’ll need to do the following:
- E-mail your submissions to iamthespeedhunter@speedhunters.com with the exact subject line of ‘The V8 Swap Theme’.
- For this theme, we want you to select 3-5 images of your car to send to us. They don’t have to be professional pictures, although higher quality images will be appreciated!
- Tell us your name, location and some information about your build, including specs
- Attach the images directly to the email, ensuring your images are a minimum of 1920PX on the longest side. Ideally they should be resized to 1920 x 1200PX.
- Make sure the image is free of any distracting watermarks. Don’t worry, we will make sure you are properly credited.
- Closing date for submissions is July 10th 2014
Happy Speedhunting!
Taryn Croucher
Instagram: taryncroucher
Twitter: @taryncroucher
taryn@speedhunters.com
About #IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER
We created #IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER to allow you the opportunity to share your skills and car culture experiences from around the globe with the rest of the Speedhunters audience.
How do you get involved? It’s simple…
Flickr – Join our #IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER Flickr Group and share your favourite photos with us and others.
Instagram – Follow us on Instagram at @TheSpeedhunters and tag your own car culture images with #IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER
Twitter – Follow us on Twitter at @SPEEDHUNTERS and share your tweets with the #IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER hashtag.
E-Mail – If you’ve been to a cool event and captured some amazing images, be sure to e-mail them to us on iamthespeedhunter@speedhunters.com and tell us a little bit about the event.
OFFICIAL SPEEDHUNTERS SUPPLIERS
I LOVE that #IATS is back but I'm not so sure about how narrow to interpretation this theme is. I'm not saying this isn't a call for great photography but I think this could easily just turn into a post full of engine bays.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought the focus of IATS was photography in itself, and people could express the idea of "speed hunting" and life with cars etc, and less about the actual cars in the photos. The way this post has been worded makes me think the latter.
Also will this be divided into a separate readers rides post and traditional IATS post?
Guide us Taryn!
GrifBatenhorst when you get given a theme, shoot what you think suits. thats the best part about photography, its so open to interpretation, whether its a narrow theme or not, how do your brain and eyes perceive it?
hmm, got a 240Z V8 swapped in the backyard. Doesn't belong to me and it hasnt run uin a long time, but I may attempt some photographs for fun.
Uhm, shouldn't you be a little more specific? It's hardly a challenge to swap a V8 equiped car with another V8, or a car that hasn't got an V8 but there is a production model of the car that has one?
Saw a good one the other day Synergy v8 in a toyota 86. Yay NZ!!
GrifBatenhorst We'll be running a Readers' Rides spotlight feature as part of the V8-swap theme next month, so for this we are asking for people to share their V8-swapped projects with us. Expressing your definition of Speedhunting and your life with cars is exactly what #IATS is all about, you couldn't be more right. It's true that #IATS will be taking a slightly different direction now, as we are removing the competitive element and stepping away from it purely being a photography based program. So yes, it is the latter we're looking for.
Kevski Style If your car didn't have a V8 in it before, but it does now (or will have soon) then we're looking at you
Taryn Croucher What was the rationale behind the change? Couldn't Regular IATS and car spotlights/featurethis be kept separate?
It should go without saying this is a marked change from these posts:
http://www.speedhunters.com/2014/01/iamthespeedhunter-how-to-be-the-speedhunter/
http://www.speedhunters.com/2014/01/january-wants-speedhunter/
GrifBatenhorst Taryn Croucher From my understanding the changed it to include a larger chunk of the audience who may have felt alienated by the fact that they were looking for a certain level of photography.
Question does it have to be MY v8 swap or ones I have seen?
DaveT GrifBatenhorst Taryn Croucher I could understand that. However, if that's the case then doesn't everybody lose?
This could mean IATS could turn into just mere snapshots of cool cars, instead of effective photography that helps communicate those cars and the culture that surrounds them.
The thing that made SH so special (at least to me) was the level of photography. It was never the writing, or the community, or any of that. The photos didn't need drawn out stories because they could stand on their own and speak for themselves. I think we can agree that photos are a form of non-verbal communication, so why would you potentially lower that language down a notch?
I think snapshots of your own awesome cars or simple documentation of interesting builds could live happily separate from IATS as readers rides / feature this sort of stories, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what Taryn actually has planned.
TLDR: You could go literally anywhere on the internet to see snapshots of cool builds, but what made this site different was that the pictures weren't just snapshots. They were communicative photos that interpreted cars rather than just documented them.
Pictures sent!
SOLOMON85 If you have more than one car to send us, just include them all in one email. Cheers!
GrifBatenhorst DaveT I understand how you feel, but everyone is different. We will still be running photography-based features, just not on a once-monthly basis like before. Like all good things, at some point #IATS had to evolve. I hope that you will eventually be able to enjoy some of the new elements of the program
Can we submit our photos of someone else's V8 swapped car given that we include all the info about the car and the driver?
Taryn Croucher GrifBatenhorst DaveT I honestly saw this article in the middle of the night, Actually somewhat excited to see SH getting back on their IATS game.
I just finished my own V8 swap and was super stoked to consider submitting it to this program, however, after reading your comments and how you've addressed the readers issues here, I'm going to strongly reconsider..
If IATS was created for non-SH-staff photographers to be able to share their work on SH, then you chose to evolve it into a recruiting opportunity, of course it was going to evolve in that direction.
To then say that your readership felt alienated because of the competition you intended to create? Yeah, that's stating the obvious in a big way and you no doubt expected to see that and see certain others rise above for you to get your smooth pickins'
I know Taryn isn't responsible for making all SH decisions so you do deserve some slack from coming under fire here, but I'm sure you guys expected some shots fired once you act like you're gonna start paying for all the free bad ass content everybody gave you, then disappear and say nothing (even if resources didn't turn out the way they expected, transparency is still key)
Perri Minot Taryn Croucher GrifBatenhorst DaveT
This could just again be me assuming (Taryn I am sure will clarify) but I think that SH has found their new recruit (the capable Matt Jones) which would make the contest to recruit format obsolete at this current time which might be why they have switched things up from the contest they originally created?
Just guessing of course, I could be way of base.
v8's are lame just be a man and build a motor instead of being lazy and swapping!
Darn! I wanted to join this thme... but couldn't get a shoot done on time, my sched got so crazy! I had such an epic idea and the a great subject as well. Hope it didn't dent my previous streak though! Looking for a three-peat! Can't wait for the next challenge...
DaveT Perri Minot Taryn Croucher GrifBatenhorst
I too am confused and seeking clarity on the IATSH program, I felt lucky to have made the cut twice since it's announcement, it would have been very cool to shoot with Dale Carbonare as we are in the same part of the world.
@poophead Each to their own!