Retrospective: VERSUS 02
RETROSPECTIVE: VERSUS “02” – Photography: Jeffrey Liu Photography | Siva Image Photography | Chinzo Photography | Melissa Santiago Photography – Words: Kenny Bascon
It’s official. Summer is over. Hectic morning commutes and hoodie weather are just a couple of stark reminders that it’s that time of the year. With Fall now upon us, it’s back to the grind of school and work, sprinkled in with holidays and Old Man Winter around the corner. For car heads, this time of the year can be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing if you enjoy reaping the benefits of driving hard in cooler weather. A curse if you hate going to car meets and get-togethers when it’s cold out, or worst, experiencing “polar vortex” storms like we did last winter.
For this installment of RETROSPECTIVE, we would like to take you back to the early days of the Summer of 2014. In conjunction with our friends at True Driving, we hosted VERSUS Showdown on Sunday, June 15, 2014 showcasing fine examples of car builds from both the Old School and the New School. Located at Ridge Road Park in Hartsdale, New York, we had show attendees from various areas including Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania come together.
For those that aren’t familiar with our VERSUS Event, we had our inaugural event in 2013. Now in it’s second year, we worked on building from the foundation and momentum of our first VERSUS event. VERSUS was created by car enthusiast passionate about car builds and tuning from various generations past and present. We worked to showcase the best that our area had. For 2014, the theme was “Leave Your Legacy”. We aimed to inspire enthusiast, young and old alike. Building a proper ride requires a specific mindset, and you come to realize this when you meet those that have accomplished and/or found success in the results of their passion and hard work.
Old and New School Love.
In our first year, VERSUS “01”was hosted in early July when summer weather was in full-effect. For our second show, we decided to move the date a few weeks earlier since this is an outdoor event and we wanted to attempt to have a more comfortable setting for the show attendees and spectators. With VERSUS “02” going down on June 15, it proved to be true. Rather than having 100 degree temperatures, we enjoyed 80 degree temps most of the day along with bright sunshine.
On the ones-and-twos all day, we had SNTRL’s own DJ BOJAQ, DJ JRock, DJ Nitro and guest DJ Nicky Amanooch bringing old school and new school beats all day.
VERSUS Showdown trophies on display. Each one was hand crafted by our homie FRIDGE, who worked directly with us on the design ideas, and then put his talent and skill to action.
FRIDGE, a true artist through and through, put his skills on display for the VERSUS Showdown crowd with a live art demo utilizing the underbody of an STI’s hood.
SNTRL and True Driving goods on display at VERSUS.
Old School Euro and Old School JDM. <3
Our buddy Darrell with his super-mint Toyota.
Some of the cleanest second-gen Civic’s you will ever see in person.
R32 GTR’s giving that menacing stare.
Our homie TMinus with his “NYC OG” turbo CRX.
An Old School Euro show wouldn’t be the same without proper representation from the MK2 peeps.
And the same goes for Old School JDM. We love us some AE86’s.
It’s amazing to note that the EG Civic is now 20 years old. There’s something about EG’s done right. Seeing EG’s done right is something truly special.
S2000’s were well represented this year with Chris Strickland’s Amuse S2000 and Satu Basanow’s “USDM Freax” Award winner.
Static TSX. Aggressive and beautiful. Some may like it, some may hate it, but it’s all about the passion. And you can clearly see it here.
Vic Morales famous BRZ looking awesome as always.
Kelvin’s Accord. Clean and done right.
Toshe’s wide-body EVO. All Show, but even more Go.
Ridiculously clean Silvia. What’s even more eye-popping is what’s under the hood!
Moe’s JDM Integra Type R on JSutai BBS’.
370Z fraternal twins. They may not look the same but they were both breakin’ necks all day.
Our homie Rick made his season debut at VERSUS with some new bodywork on his STi. Always raising the bar with his build.
Geo’s M Coupe sitting static on this BBS. Some serious lip action here.
Show-Stopper bagged M5.
Agron’s Bi-turbo S4 motor swapped A4.
The two-wheel enthusiast were out in full force at VERSUS with the Ruckus, Grom crowds reppin’ hard along with some sick bikes from the old and the new school.
JSutai’s E30 M3. WOW. Nuff’ Said.
Our homie Harry came through to VERSUS with his fresh bagged GS build, sitting pretty at the Tuner-Evolution booth.
VRaceworks always bringing out inspirational builds.
Clean Culture with some of the cleanest rides!
The good folks at Dobbs Dawg House. Home is some of the sickest hot-dog creations!
631 Coatings was in attendance with a small army of some of hottest rides that day.
Kevin’s show-winning EVO reppin’ Need Powder Coating.
Airtekk Air Suspension bringing some awesome examples of their work to the VERSUS stage.
Martin’s IS300 wagon was another season debut for VERSUS. Such an amazing build, he almost didn’t make it since it was down-to-the-wire, but we are glad he did!
BEAST MODE.
Ant’s K-series EG. One of the cleanest, most beautiful civic builds you will see in person, driven all the way down from Massachusetts.
Until next year, let’s reminisce over those summer days and good times. Stay tuned for announcements of VERSUS “03” in 2015!
Photography: Jeffrey Liu Photography | Siva Image Photography | Chinzo Photography | Melissa Santiago Photography – Words: Kenny Bascon
Follow us on Instagram! – @sntrl / @truedriving / @lcrzyaznl / @sivaimages / chinzophoto / @mellycat / @ken_sntrl
And check out our homie, FRIDGE, the man behind the build of our trophies on IG – @whatsinyourfridge