Godzilla’s Dark Side Strasse Forged GT-R Photography by Raymond Niece Words by Leo Diaz Godzilla, in direct translation means “Giant Monster”. To most, the word conjures up images of the world wide pop culture creature first seen emerging on Japan’s coast in Tomoyuki Tanaka’s 1954’s film self-titled Godzilla. To other is can only mean one thing; the giant monster of the automotive scene, the Nissan Skyline GT-R. This dark horse you see here is a meaner version of the arch nemesis of Mothra. It is a twisted version of Nissan’s flagship performance vehicle. While Nissan exported the Japan-only built car mainly to Hong...

SEMA 2012 Re-Kindled Enthusiasm Photography by Frank Leon & Michael Alvarado Specialty Equipment Market Association, or SEMA as the rest of the world knows it. Once again we attended SEMA and much to our surprise there was a resurgence of enthusiasm in the air. The past couple years at SEMA had been good, but it did not have that “WOW” factor, maybe it had something to do with a harsh economy or whatever. This year there were so many manufacture builds that they overflowed into the outside parking and show areas, and not just slapped together garage builds, we saw a lot of quality built vehicles. There was also a continued growth...