Hey everyone! My name is Ethan, 23 years old, from Springfield, MA.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been fascinated by cars. Whether it was creating hot wheels car meets in my parent’s house hallway or “repairing” my power wheels jeep, cars have always tickled my fancy. Fast forward about 14 years, passing my driver’s test, and receiving my first car, I did everything to modify it that I could afford working a part-time minimum wage job. (You can even see it on my Instagram still!) I worked 40+ hours a week, nothing was handed to me on a silver platter. Graduated high school and ended up upgrading to a Focus ST after an accident. The car was built to be full bolt-on and went through every car enthusiast’s performance right of passage. Built their first performance car, tune it, blow it up, and repeat.
Fast forward again to the end of college, I wanted to move on to a new platform. Covid ended up hitting and thus, the great shortage began. I remembered the TRD Camry’s initial media launch and thought, why not get something extremely reliable, readily available during this time, and looks good enough to my standards. Ended up buying one right off the transport truck. The dealer didn’t even have time to clean it! Also bought it for under MSRP!
Just so happened that keeping it stock lasted not even more than 2 weeks. First month of having the car, I had already brought the car into Innovative Concepts in Wilbraham, MA to complete a full interior audio system revamp. Full Focal Audio door speakers + tweeters, Focal Audio 800W amp, Kenwood DMX1057XR head unit, and finally 2 Memphis Audio 10s with an enclosure done by SRQ Customs in Sarasota, FL. That first modification, being a big one, was the beginning of my first full-blown show car build.
For wheels I ended up going with Vordoven, shout-out to Khang Nguyen for the hookup on a
custom set, and tires originally were Firehawk Indy 500s. Ended up being too meaty for my
setup so I went with Achilles ATR Sport 2s to stretch them out a bit more. Rear camber arms
from Megan Racing, LED rear tails/reflectors, front LED fogs/DRLs, and rear roof wing from
HIC.
After installing all these mods I entered my first big show, Hot Import Nights 2021 @ Mohegan
Sun Arena. Overall it was a great show, loved every second of it. Friends & family showed up to
show support and the whole experience was amazing. Ended up not winning Top 25 nor any
other awards. I knew it was my first show but as for all of my show car people, you know how it
feels when you don’t win an award after all your hard work. At that point I said f**k it, I’m going
all out. It honestly fueled the fire even more for the car to become a build that would one day be
widely known by my local community and possibly through social media outlets as well.
