When Brian sent ’round the “Alright guys, time for the ‘Year in Review'” email a few weeks back, I immediately had an “Oh crap, what DID I do this year?” moment. 2014 was one of those years that flew by thanks to life in general and until I actually looked through my photo catalog I was convinced that I hadn’t done much for the site other than a few updates on the daily driver G-body and a feature car or two.
Well, while I didn’t get as much quality BangShift time as I’d like to have had, after reviewing my shots it turns out that this was yet again another pretty awesome year to be contributing to BangShift. Thanks again to Brian and Chad for putting up with my non-stop Monte Carlo banter and for making this the best site for gear heads on the ‘net.
Alright, enough of that. let’s get on to my favorite photos and moments of 2014.
The year for me and the rest of the Northeast started off with a winter that seemed like it was never going to end, which meant that the snow tires on the Monte got plenty of action. Some may say that I’m ruining the car by driving it in the winter. I see it more as I’m enjoying my car twelve months out of the year instead of the normal six to eight that most old cars get up in these parts.
Next up was a quick meet up with Brian and the Tundra that Toyota was foolish enough to press the keys of into his curiously small hands. Nice enough truck in terms of creature comforts, but our patented Bangshift stress test, i.e. several minutes of donuts, proved that the new Tundra can twerk better than Miley Cyrus, as made famous on youtube. At one point Brian stopped to see if he had something stuck between the bed and the cab. Nope, that’s just the bed slapping the frame. D’oh!
Only a few short weeks later I found myself road tripping alongside Lohnes and Craig Fitzgerald in a new diesel Jeep Grand Cherokee to go check out what Trickflow and Lingenfelter were up to.
Add that road trip to “The list of things that didn’t suck in 2014″, as the journey to get there was almost as fun as the shop tours themselves. I’ll let the road trip photos speak for themselves.
Well, except this one. Brian will have to explain this one.
You can check out the full Trick Flow tour HERE, but suffice to say that those guys and girls are doing some really neat stuff.
Our destination was Lingenfelter Performance Engineering, where we met up with Mike Copeland and Ken Lingenfelter to check out their shop as well as the Lingenfelter Collection.
Brian, Craig, and I actually ran out of time trying to capture all of the cool vehicles on display in the collection, but I did finally get to sit in an F40. No call back yet about that test drive, however…
(Side note: Don’t ever attempt to grow a beard ever again)
I wrapped up the spring with some quality time in the latest iteration of one of my favorite cars, the Subaru WRX STI, and a period correct Demon.
Oh, there might have been a Volvo at some point in time as well, but we don’t talk about that. Nothing is a cop magnet like two dudes hanging out at sunset in a Volvo wagon, let me tell you.
That summer I had a crazy idea to see if my daily driver was as bad at cornering as it was at accelerating, which turned out to be pretty much dead-nuts on. I still had a blast doing it and will be returning next year to again finish in last place in my class, hopefully without losing any parts this time. If you haven’t tried autocrossing your muscle car or truck, you’re missing out.
Everyone could use a little more Mopar in their lives, so heeding my own advice I hung out with this beauty one weekend in June.
I went even older with my next car, this time a full feature on a ’31 Ford Model A.
We’ve come a long way in the last 80-odd years between now and then, and the new C7 Corvette is living proof. Almost 30 miles to the gallon if you keep your foot out of the loud pedal thanks to the eight-speed and burnouts for days.
All in all though, my favorite day at work as a photographer for BangShift might have been the two-for-one special of the finished “Fatlane” Ford Fairlane and Norm Sirois’ ten-second 1979 AMC Spirit. One is professionally built and is clean enough to eat off of and the other is home-built and ready to rumble on the street or on the strip.
Regardless of which one tickles your fancy more, any day that you get to see both within hours of each other is a good day in my book.
So, what’s 2015 have in store for me at BangShift? My crystal ball is in the shop for repairs, but if I had to guess I’d say a whole bunch more cool cars and events and a whole lot of tire smoke!
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas Everybody!