nw-built Blog

Photos and Words by Zach Taiji | This is part 1 of WekFest LA 2012 coverage. Stay tuned for part 2 later this week.

Southern California: the epitome of the words sunshine and beach, quite different from the Pacific Northwest familiarity of rain and lush greenery. But wait – we’ve always stood by our mission to exclusively provide Pacific Northwest content to our fans, so why are we writing about such a foreign place, and in particular, WekFest? Even though a plethora of other sites for nationwide coverage exist, you won’t get a Pacific Northwest Perspective on events like this one that are important to our automotive culture and lifestyle.  For that reason alone, we’ve decided to travel and attend major events such as WekFest San Francisco, and now WekFest Los Angeles 2012 to give you the PNW look from afar.

This year WekFest LA took place on June 2nd in Long Beach, California at the Queen Mary Events Park - home to the Titanic inspired ocean liner of the same name which sailed the ocean from the 1930′s-1960′s. History lessons aside, it’s a beautiful location for a day at the beach with cars, people, and girls.

We arrived at the venue shortly after noon and were greeted by several hundreds of cars. The 70-degree-plus weather was a nice change from the milder climate of Washington; although very bright – sunscreen should have not become an afterthought! Several vendors were present within the front gates including Buddy Club, Weds Wheels, Super Street Magazine, and NOS.

I was personally astounded at the quality of cars within the venue, free of knock-off wheels and mismatched body panels. Even though the majority were generally influenced by today’s “Stance” trend, there was a large amount of diversity from VIP to Track inspired. Cars such as this Lexus give a perfect example of the So-Cal VIP style.

While just about every car at the show provided eye candy, some unfortunately lacked originality, especially some S2000′s since there were many in attendance. This functional track inspired S2K stood out from the crowd.

One of the most unique cars at WekFest LA 2012 was a black Mazda Miata with a Pit Crew Racing front end, louvre inspired hardtop, and aggressive styling accompanied by BBS RS wheels. Another car that garnered attention was a beautiful red Acura NSX sitting on gold wheels, which looked to have lots of engine work done, seen through the rear window.

The atmosphere of the show was very laid back much akin to the Pacific Northwest, which gave off a familiar and welcoming feeling. Several people and crews had tents, lawn chairs, and coolers full of food/drink to enjoy throughout the day.

Attention to detail means modifying everything, including under the hood. A crew known as the Bandits had several Hondas on display with shaved engine bays, big turbos, and ITB’s.

This BMW Z4 was a great example of some of the several Euros displayed throughout the venue. It came along with several other cars from the well known Heavy Hitters such as a Bentley Continental and Aston Martin. Several other crews showed up to WekFest including So-Cal natives, Royal Origin. The red Mazdaspeed3 on Rotiform wheels is owned by Shavi Wijegunaratne. It’s static!

A bagged matte black Dodge Challenger brought USDM to the show, and even the Ruckus’ were present to give WekFest an even more diverse showing.

An addition of beautiful models gave WekFest LA even more eye candy. Several of them were signing and selling prints while modeling for photos on display cars – it was a nice addition that the PNW isn’t used to.

WekFest LA was a great opportunity to get a perspective on the So-Cal scene since it’s such a huge influence in current car culture.  Most of all, the event was a great way to kick off the summer show season and creates further excitement for some upcoming PNW events like WaterWerks, StanceWars, and Forum Fest. We’d like to the thank Weksos Industries for giving us the great opportunity of allowing us to attend the event – we’re looking forward to next year!

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