.

the car junkie daily magazine.

.

BangShift 2014 Photo Highlight Reel: Nutting’s Favorite Moments


BangShift 2014 Photo Highlight Reel: Nutting’s Favorite Moments

When Brian sent ’round the “Alright guys, time for the ‘Year in Review'” email a few weeks back, I immediately had an “Oh crap, what DID I do this year?” moment. 2014 was one of those years that flew by thanks to life in general and until I actually looked through my photo catalog I was convinced that I hadn’t done much for the site other than a few updates on the daily driver G-body and a feature car or two.

Well, while I didn’t get as much quality BangShift time as I’d like to have had, after reviewing my shots it turns out that this was yet again another pretty awesome year to be contributing to BangShift. Thanks again to Brian and Chad for putting up with my non-stop Monte Carlo banter and for making this the best site for gear heads on the ‘net.

Alright, enough of that. let’s get on to my favorite photos and moments of 2014.

The year for me and the rest of the Northeast started off with a winter that seemed like it was never going to end, which meant that the snow tires on the Monte got plenty of action. Some may say that I’m ruining the car by driving it in the winter. I see it more as I’m enjoying my car twelve months out of the year instead of the normal six to eight that most old cars get up in these parts.

DSC_6437

Next up was a quick meet up with Brian and the Tundra that Toyota was foolish enough to press the keys of into his curiously small hands. Nice enough truck in terms of creature comforts, but our patented Bangshift stress test, i.e. several minutes of donuts, proved that the new Tundra can twerk better than Miley Cyrus, as made famous on youtube. At one point Brian stopped to see if he had something stuck between the bed and the cab. Nope, that’s just the bed slapping the cab. D’oh!

DSC_6534

DSC_6836

Only a few short weeks later I found myself road tripping alongside Lohnes and Craig Fitzgerald in a new diesel Jeep Grand Cherokee to go check out what Trickflow and Lingenfelter were up to.

DSC_7722

Add that road trip to “The list of things that didn’t suck in 2014”, as the journey to get there was almost as fun as the shop tours themselves. I’ll let the road trip photos speak for themselves.

DSC_7698

photo3

DSC_7692

photo5

Well, except this one. Brian will have to explain this one.

IMG_0293

You can check out the full Trick Flow tour HERE, but suffice to say that those guys and girls are doing some really neat stuff.

Our destination was Lingenfelter Performance Engineering, where we met up with Mike Copeland and Ken Lingenfelter to check out their shop as well as the Lingenfelter Collection.

lingenfelter-performance-engineering045

lingenfelter-collection012

lingenfelter-collection003

lingenfelter-collection031

Brian, Craig, and I actually ran out of time trying to capture all of the cool vehicles on display in the collection, but I did finally get to sit in an F40. No call back yet about that test drive, however…

998428_10101455683799809_1756395449_n

(Side note: Don’t ever attempt to grow a beard ever again)

I wrapped up the spring with some quality time in the latest iteration of one of my favorite cars, the Subaru WRX STI, and a period correct Demon.

DSC_7895

DSC_8055

DSC_8241

DSC_8563 copy

DSC_8601 copy

DSC_8369 copy

DSC_8673 copy

DSC_8474 copy

Oh, there might have been a Volvo at some point in time as well, but we don’t talk about that. Nothing is a cop magnet like two dudes hanging out at sunset in a Volvo wagon, let me tell you.

DSC_9273

That summer I had a crazy idea to see if my daily driver was as bad at cornering as it was at accelerating, which turned out to be pretty much dead-nuts on. I still had a blast doing it and will be returning next year to again finish in last place in my class, hopefully without losing any parts this time. If you haven’t tried autocrossing your muscle car or truck, you’re missing out.

DSC_8852

DSC_9378

DSC_9339

Everyone could use a little more Mopar in their lives, so heeding my own advice I hung out with this beauty one weekend in June.

DSC_8990

DSC_8930

DSC_8957

DSC_9068

I went even older with my next car, this time a full feature on a ’31 Ford Model A.

DSC_9575

DSC_9593

We’ve come a long way in the last 80-odd years between then and now, and the new C7 Corvette is living proof. Almost 30 miles to the gallon if you keep your foot out of the loud pedal thanks to the eight-speed and burnouts for days.

DSC_0482

DSC_0680

All in all though, my favorite day at work as a photographer for BangShift might have been the two-for-one special of the finished “Fatlane” Ford Fairlane and Norm Sirois’ ten-second 1979 AMC Spirit. One is professionally built and is clean enough to eat off of and the other is home-built and ready to rumble on the street or on the strip.

Regardless of which one tickles your fancy more, any day that you get to see both within hours of each other is a good day in my book.

DSC_1170

DSC_1223

DSC_1253

DSC_0735

DSC_0794

DSC_0841

DSC_1074

So, what’s 2015 have in store for me at BangShift? My crystal ball is in the shop for repairs, but if I had to guess I’d say a whole bunch more cool cars and events and a whole lot of tire smoke!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas Everybody!

DSC_1085


  • Share This
  • Pinterest
  • 0

10 thoughts on “BangShift 2014 Photo Highlight Reel: Nutting’s Favorite Moments

  1. john

    Shame on you Nutting for telling Brian that DEF was made from bacon grease…they guy is a bacon addict! 🙂

  2. doug gregory

    Like all them except the Volvo….unless it was included for contrast….. Stick a thumpin BBC in an old, faded 740 and then I’ll want to look at it.

  3. Tedly

    The parade of talent the past week or two is as impressive as it is depresssing for hacks like me. Once again, awesome work Dave!

Comments are closed.