| Hello from Vancouver!
Hello friends,
I've been on here for a little bit now and am just over whelmed trying to go through all the information on here. A lot of it, and good info as well. It’s great to finally get a perspective from like minded individuals on that side of the pond. Internet is great, definitely brings the world a lot closer together! Thought might as well do up a proper introduction thread now as i'm not going to catch up with all the reading anytime soon.
A little bit about me. As the title states, I live in Vancouver, born and raised. I've been to India on several occasions through out the years. We used to come out almost every second year mainly to visit with my great grandparents. I have not been back since approx. 2004. I haven't traveled a heck of a lot through out the country which I regret at this stage as our visits usually started and ended in Delhi. I have seen a few things though bigger ones being the Golden Temple, Taj Mahal as well as the sites through out Delhi. Every time I returned I was always impressed with the progress the country was making as a whole which was quite evident and in your face. One of the more notable one upon last visit was the switch to CNG on the public transport vehicles. Made a dent in the smog issue from what I could tell.
Now to the automotive side. I've been involved with cars/bikes since I was about 14 years old. Mostly playing with dirt bikes and go karts. I was always spoiled by my mamma ji who also taught me the art of driving at the age of 12. I worked on my very first vehicle starting at age of 15. I got a Chevy S-10 pick up with front end damage by my mamma ji who at the time said "lets see what you can do". Without proper knowledge at the time, I fixed that truck in my garage at home and got it driving with only basic hand tools. In high school and a couple years after that I was involved in drag racing locally, 1/4 miles. Raced with a 1979 Chevy Camaro with a big block in it for one season and Chevy Vega there after with a stroked 383 which started life as a 350. That was a fun car!
From those days things have changed somewhat. I've been involved in car audio since I was approx. 17 years old. I got my first job at a local car audio shop. While going to college, in a completely unrelated field, two years later I opened up my own audio shop at the age of 19 and have been going strong since. During that time I had also taken jobs in auto body shops and mechanical repair shops to basically figure out those trades or as they say, get my feet wet. I'd like to think my business has usually been part time for me, due to studies and getting jobs in a field of my studies. Part time of course being a relative term. However natural progression has forced me to expand but I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve been able to pick and choose what I want to deal with.
First progression was expanding from just car audio and getting into performance related items and from there pretty much doing anything custom car related, both sales and installs. We’ve also dabbled in custom motorbikes and have done some Miami style street bikes to some mild choppers. From there we got into mid to high end home theaters and encompassing home automation and audio. Currently I’m looking at options to expand into a distributorship for automotive and motorcycle parts possibly services as well at some point mainly in international markets especially in India.
Wow, I’ve typed a lot. Now if you haven’t fallen asleep from reading all that on to my current vehicles. I currently have a Chevy Astro van which has been a custom project from day one and mostly a shop demo vehicle. I started competing in sound quality divisions with it, went to SPL and now it’s being torn apart again for hopefully it’s last rendition but complete makeover in and out.
My next purchase was a Kawasaki Ninja 6R. This was my first street bike. I haven’t done a heck of a lot to it. Added a few little tid bits here and there. One day, if I ever get the time, I’d like to do a bit more to it, custom paint and all.
Next was a daily driver but criteria was to have a fun car. What can be more fun than a tuner with a turbo with a potential to outrun v-8’s? I bought myself a Spicy Orange Mazdaspeed Protégé. I’ll be sure to post up all the modifications in this thread in a bit but there is a huge list so I won’t do it now.
My latest acquisition is a 1962 Impala. Over the summer I’ve stripped her down to a bare frame and the fun will begin in the spring. The body looks like it’s too far gone to save but I am saving what I can. In the end i’d like to end up with a 1961 or 62 convertible with complete air ride suspension also custom in and out.
Well , enough of me yapping here. I’ll let the pics do a bit of the talking here for now…. | 
17th October 2010, 07:22
