Designed from the outset to put a man on the moon, the Apollo project remains the crowning achievement of the U.S. space program. In homage to the Apollo missions, Ford has created a custom Apollo-themed Mustang, to be auctioned off on July 23 at this year’s Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) AirVenture gathering in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

It’s been 14 years since I began covering various aspects of drifting in Japan. And you know what? There is one thing about the Japanese drivers that I can vouch for: no matter how much success, how much prize money they bring home, and how big of a sponsorship deal they manage to score, nothing seems to really change them.

One of the most fascinating things about observing car culture and car modification is seeing the way different people can take the same car and end up doing completely different things with it. After all, if everyone built their cars the same way this would be a damn boring job.

Let’s kick off with some numbers: 750 horsepower and well over 900 newton metres of torque. These are the sort of figures that’d feel much more at home in a two-seater supercar, but what happens when the family has arrived, and two seats just won’t cut it?

This is what happens. Enter the HMS H63 RS700.

As you might already know from the story we ran a couple of months ago, the students of ESPERA Sbarro Montbéliard school of design undertake two different automotive projects each year – one for the Mondial de l’Automobile (the Paris Auto Show), and one for the Geneva Auto Salon. For many, the latter is the serious one.

One day in the not too distant past, a guy by the name of Pat Estudillo was coming home for work in his daily driver. Pulling into his Southern California neighborhood he saw something that made him very uneasy: an Alpine White E46 BMW M3 driving away. It had a GTR hood, a CSL trunk and a set of RAYS Volk Racing TE37 Tokyo Time Attack edition wheels.

Данный пример не претендует на профессионализм и уникальность. Он всего лишь, имеет перед собой задачу заинтересовать начинающих художников и потенциальных дизайнеров всех мастей, которые иногда воспринимают графические работы, как скучную и монотонную многочасовую задачу, и в результате, не решаются сделать свой первый шаг, или сомневаются, за что сперва взяться.

I’ll get straight to the point here. I don’t normally shoot cars like this – I just don’t. My time in Japan is mainly spent featuring rides that are usually a collection of bolt-on parts, finished off here and there with a few custom touches – just enough to call the project unique. Granted, when we’re dealing with modern cars, there isn’t really much else you can do. You rely on what the industry supports and backs you and tuners with, and call it a day. But when it comes to the older stuff, that’s when we truly begin to see the actual skills in fabrication that a builder has. It’s then that you really see a true transformation and a coherent theme come alive in a specific build.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the US, and especially so at the SEMA Show where the latest and most badass custom builds are brought out…

Every time I see a GT-R I feel like I’m looking at a computer-generated character, as though a comic book page or game frame came to life in front of me. They feel like the stuff of hyper reality, existing purely for the purpose of being the best at what they do. Naturally, I associate them with Japan, and I’m sure that part of the allure for a lot of us is the mythical midnight Wangan runs that we’d all love to go on, or the touge blasting that Dino so often tempts us with.

Rocket Bunny Ferrari 458

And that’s exactly how the 458 project came to light. After Miura-san at TRA Kyoto had completed the very first LB☆WORKS wide body kit, it was shipped off to LT Motorwerks in El Monte, California, where the build was carried out.