My first Nopi show was in '97. In '96-'99 I was driving beat up farm trucks or my 1st gen Integra. It was burgundy and my first spray job on a car by myself was silver from the molding down on it, near perfect spray job and basically two tone like the Lexus ES. I put a full roof rack with fairing on it. I later repainted the car to do a tri-coat pearl on it which was supposed to be silver from the Lamborghini Diablo at the time. Unfortunately the color chip was wrong in the PPG paint book which resulted in it being the tri-coat pearl yellow lolol! :facepalm: We couldn't figure out how a base of bright green, 2nd layer of yellow pearl, and a top coat clear with a brazilian pearls in it would end up being silver but we were going by the PPG book! Who else do you trust if not PPG? I was using it as a "rally" car anyways so the bright color was appropriate, the dual exhaust I made however was not lol! The car saw as much off-road as it did on often crossing creeks and having a layer of mud on the roof and hood yet it remained in good condition...so whatever lol.
In '99+ I was driving a stock Z32 300zx and the only bumper I would consider getting was the j-spec from the 1999 300zx in Japan. I ended up getting a twin turbo bumper cover so I could use the intercooler inlets as brake ducts using aircraft grade ducting. I was 19 and lived on a farm. I did put a light mirror tint on it...borderline rice?
By then I had been to Nopi 3 times and despised the "trends" that people were doing to their cars. There were a couple mini-trucks at my school during that time: clean paint and dropped on another manufactures OEM wheels but with low profile tires. One was a black Nissan hardbody 2wd just about dragging frame on Jeep Grand Cherokee 4x4 wheels with 35 series tires. I respected them a lot more than anyone with clear tails that always filled up with water and mold, fat double wiper blades that had been around since the 80's, gradient rainbow tint, molded bumpers, and spray painting every piece of plastic in the interior white or a bright color.
2003 was the Integra GS-R, it was 2 years old at the time and hadn't had the stock bumpers or wheels on it since the day it was bought new. I promptly removed the bumper covers while in search of OEM. It was clean but for the month or so it had those bumpers it was embarrassing to drive lol! Blowing up the previously hydrolocked engine didn't help the cosmetic rescue efforts either.
Cliff notes: Anti-rice. I've always refused to jump onto the main stream bandwagon trends and marketing ploys.
Originally Posted by civic gsr
