EVENTS: 2014 SpoCom

Google “SpoCom” and you’ll find more photos of bikinied booth babes than actual cars, but occasionally this “automotive lifestyle” show for the dubstep crowd does turn up some JNC gems. To show you, we dodged legions of rehearsing dance crews, suffered loud electronic distortion masquerading as music, and endured a convention hall packed with candy colored Scions and stanced Audis. 

Corona owners tend to leave their rides stock, so perhaps that’s why a tastefully bosozoku-ed barikan really caught our eye. Its not over-the-top with zokusha cues but just the right shakotan stance, with clever use of an oil cooler and nicely fitted OEM MkI Celica Supra wheels. As a bonus, it’s even a California black plate car.

Classic Celicas made a strong showing. The amazing thing is, Toyota’s original sport coupe is as familiar to all the skinny jeaned Snapchatters as Mustangs are to the average Detroiter, despite having been built 20 years before they were born.

We typically shy away from overbuilt classics, but were impressed by the astounding amount of blood, sweat and tears that made it into this Celica. Even more impressive was the fact that such effort was poured into a typically unloved 1976 and up Celica.

If this was an early A20 done up in such modern style we’d probably like it a lot less, but A20s built in later years are usually shunned by Celica nuts anyway so you might as well do something creative with one.

Just for fun, someone decked out a Scion FR-S in the Fujiwara Tofu livery of the Initial D AE86. The stripes evoke the panda paint scheme with some much needed subtlety, and the black-painted foglight bezels are a nice touch. Bunta would approve.

Roy de Guzman’s hakosuka has changed a lot since we first shot it several years ago. We still remember the days when it was all white with factory style flares and black Wats.

We liked this throwback RPS13 straight out of the 1990s. The aero kit and wheel/tire combination could have come straight from the pages of Hyper Rev. We’re grateful that not every 240SX out there has been transformed into a “drift missile.”

And now for your viewing pleasure, a stanced Previa. We’d gladly choose it, in a heartbeat, over the urban camouflaged BMW Z4 with day-glo wheels next to it. We love vans.

It’s not quite nostalgic yet, but it is rare. Very few EG Civic hatchbacks can be found in fantastic shape, and even fewer without a mismatched body kit at a reasonable ride height. Period correct wheels are always a plus.

Speaking of Hondas, the CB7 may be the best Accord that Old Man Soichiro ever built. With its excellent balance of handling and plushness, this was the generation with which Honda reached Peak Accord. It’s been a downhill slide ever since.

Craig Higa’s MA70 Supra is always a pleasure to behold. It’s one of the cleanest late-80s Toyota flagship builds we’ve seen and won the Toyotaku Award at Toyotafest earlier this year.

Last but not least, there’s always appreciation for Nissan’s seminal sports car, the Datsun 240Z. Kids these days turn to Japan and its tuning styles for inspiration, so you’ll see fender flares instead of window louvres and Work Equips rather than slot mags.

So that’s it. If you want to pin down “whatever the kids are into these days,” just go to SpoCom. Sure, there’s not the slightest effort at keeping anything stock, but that’s okay. Among a sea of dubbed out Infinitis we still managed to find a few pearls, and that means there’s still hope for the next generation. Now get off our lawn.