Coming down from the high that was Euro District and finishing that article has me all upset that car season is already coming to an end, especially since we didn’t have too many opportunities for shows this year. I was fortunate enough to attend Riverside ‘Unofficial’ in the spring, Slammedenuff Nashville in the summer, H2Oi ‘Unofficial,’ Riverside Fall Tour, and The Euro District this fall, which I have written about extensively. Unfortunately, that simply wasn’t enough for me. I need more. That’s where my good friend Basyir Nasution came to help. While it isn’t another show to write about, it’s at least a different perspective seen through his artistic eye at Riverside Fall.
Basyir isn’t new to providing content for the readers of this blog, or his own site, subtlenoise.net, and showing off his interests in all things automotive. Basyir was kind enough to share his gallery from Riverside Fall 2020 in Chattanooga, Tennessee with us so we could present it to you. This is some of his work showing the quality cars and lovely people who make Riverside such an excellent event.
John Ludwick of The Governor’s Club makes a huge splash at every event he attends. Basyir was lucky to get up close and personal with his one-off Toyota Century Limousine that made its debut earlier this year at H20i. I wasn’t able to catch up with John at H2Oi, who I had the pleasure of meeting at Riverside this spring, but I did get to stop by and have a nice chat with him there at Riverside Fall. His attention to details with his builds, and his sheer creativity, are what building cars mean to those of us with discerning tastes.
If you haven’t checked out his podcast, give it a follow. You can find him under The Passion and Purpose podcast or his personal YouTube channel where he documents his wacky adventures.
Some of the cars I feel like I can now better appreciate thanks to the Euro District are Volkswagens. Riverside Fall featured a little collection of stanced vintage VWs, like this seafoam green MK2 GTI sporting BBS splits and a distinctly 1980s heckeblende.
For the air-cooled audience, both of these Porsches exhibit two quite similar but also drastically different build directions. One features a more ‘true to form’ European style, with high-offset wheels, almost no camber, and a ‘usable’ ride height. The other demonstrates the modern stance movement’s take on a classic with step-lips, some JDM-inspired fitment, and air ride.
Of course, this is a European blog, but I have a great appreciation for the JDM scene. That’s where I claim my roots, after all. The Skyline crowd has grown dramatically in recent years as more models are available for us to legally import, which I’m more than happy with. This sedan looks like something you’d find sideways in the Kanto prefecture of Japan but sits quite contentedly here in Chattanooga. A little known fact is that Signal Mountain, my home town, is actually the official sister city of a nearly identical mountain town in Japan, so many of these RHD imports can have a taste of home even in the US.
Even though he’s selling it, Matt Johnson’s W124 sitting on real European Mercedes Monoblocks and dropped to the ground on Airlift Performance suspension is a huge hit. It’s a diesel, has mirror tint, is in grandpa beige over grandpa beige, and is adorned by sadboi aesthetic stickers. It certainly checks all the right boxes. From where it started as a bone stock, fairly decent runner, to where it is now, it was certainly a journey. Now he’s on to other things, but I’ll always know Matt for this Mercedes.
The 86/BRZ/FRS crowd is always around. Something about this platform just encourages owners to push boundaries. Recently, this community has been under fire for a ‘lack of creativity,’ but I have to disagree. Some of the most unique builds in the scene now are generally this chassis. They have such a wide variety of aftermarket parts available, are affordable, and just simply weren’t favored as track cars the way Subaru/Toyota anticipated that they would be. They’re an excellent platform for drifting or laying frame with tons of camber, they’re widely available, and the price point makes them ideal for cutting up, widening, and generally ‘ruining’ in the best ways. It’s a recipe for incredibly wild and outrageous builds that I think our generation was fortunate to receive.
This RX-8 was a crowd favorite. Despite the stigma about the car, it was originally praised for its power delivery from the tiny RENESIS engine, it’s usability with actual back seats (believe it or not, I rode 9 hours in the back of my room mate’s gen 2 RX-8 in college and only slightly hated it,) and its mold-breaking appearance. Now that these have significantly dropped in price and the common apex seal issues can easily be fixed, these are an attractive option for new enthusiasts or anyone looking to get into something that punches well above its weight class.
I could keep writing for days about all the incredibly well-built cars that appear in Chattanooga for Riverside, but I don’t have that kind of time. Thankfully, Basyir did his thing and took some excellent shots of some of what Riverside had to offer for anyone who couldn’t make it. Enjoy the rest of this gallery sans-interruption from me and be sure to check out his budding website for more similar content. Thank you, Basyir, and everyone who made Riverside Fall a spectacular weekend.
