Press Rewind: Our Best Stories From 2020
We all can’t say it enough when we say that 2020 has been a very different year for all of us. Most of our big plans for life, family, friends, and cars have been derailed, but such is life – we have to work with what we’ve got. With the whole world reeling from the pandemic, we would like to think that we’re very fortunate to be able to continue serving up a curated slice of Filipino car culture for everyone while staying safe and secure. And with that we’ll go over some of the highlights from Street63.com’s first year:
As is the case with every new year, we’ve had big things planned for Street63 – and it all started with finally transitioning to the home page we have here. With Street63’s stories having previously been based off Facebook Notes, we felt that our future stories would be done further justice by having our own space on the web. A few sleepless nights during the earlier part of 2020 were spent formatting all previous stories into the layout we have here – and now you can view all stories past and present in a few clicks from our home page.
We managed to squeeze in our sort-of-annual trip to Japan to see more of their rich automotive culture – and bring home some inspiration for y’all and your builds. While we attended Tokyo Auto Salon back in 2018, this time we wanted to see what Kansai had to offer by way of the 2020 Osaka Automesse. Suffice to say it’s really true that Kansai is the heart of Japanese car culture, and the Automesse was a good concentrated sample of what the Japanese can do to their cars when given all the freedom to build.
While some of the guys went home, I managed to stay for a week longer and managed to catch the Nostalgic 2 Days. It was pretty laid back as far as shows in Japan go, and there was plenty of rare retro goodness abound. This was definitely worth the day trip detour.
Foreign influence is well and good, but this is Street63 – a site dedicated to the Filipino’s automotive craftsmanship and taste. That said, we reckon we’d define the few things that make builds here in the Philippines a bit different from everything else we’ve seen in other countries. Despite seeing all the wild builds in Japan, there’s definitely no place like home – even with the way we build our cars.
In order to boost our effort to bring you the best cars and builds that the Philippines has to offer, Motul Philippines has climbed onboard as our partner for 2020. We have since worked with them to help bring you basic information about maintenance as well as the fluids you will need to keep your vehicle in tip top shape.
While he was busy shooting a certain green RX-7 for his youtube channel, we took the opportunity to grab photos of Ramon Bautista’s Mitsubishi Lancer. Don’t dismiss the guy as just another celebrity, his Lancer to Evo III conversion is the real deal, and he’s as true a gearhead as they come. Definitely an ideal example of the Filipino Car Enthusiast.
One of the best features we’ve written this year was about a rather unconventional FJ Cruiser. Ton Llave’s slammed FJ may have lost all off-road capability, but it definitely had a unique build direction and was geared towards highway use. Different as far as all other FJs go for sure, but we welcome variety so long as it is done in good taste.
2020 has been a challenging year with features and opportunities to cover more cars and stories being halted mid-way. With the new normal somewhat in place, we’ve managed to keep at making proper content that will further highlight the excellence and taste of Filipinos when it comes to building cars. To further build on that, we’ll be doing more video content as we move towards 2021. Gracing our Curated series as the first feature, we have Carlos Gono and his infamous Ford GT to set the bar for future feature videos next year.
We hope you’ve found your regular dose of tasteful Filipino automotive car content with us this year, trust that we will share more of the same moving forward. Happy new year from our crew at Street63!
Words by Aurick Go
Photos by Jose Altoveros, Jaime Miguel Echavez, Aurick Go
Video by Nic Cristobal
