OwnersManual Issue One

OWNERS MANUAL

Issue 1

SUNNY ROCKET BUNNY From Inspiration to Forza to physical reality. Read the genesis of this one of a kind build.

BAND OF STANGS JEROME CRUISE COVERAGE! 3 CLUBS 73 MUSTANGS 1 EPIC DRIVE

Person of the Month _Atbash Atbash__

EVENT COVERAGE TELLURIDE FESTIVAL OF CARS AND COLORS

JaNUARY 2020

Band Practice

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I first met the Band of Stangs crew of local Mustang owners through their founder, Frank. He reached out to me about doing a group photoshoot for the club. It was my first official time shooting for a car club and I was eager to live up to their expectations. I’m glad to say that since that day I’ve become close with members from this group, and always look forward to opportunities to capture their beautiful cars. In this issue, I sit down with Frank as he shares with us the history of the club and his plans for the future (which are quite impressive).

You will also see the level of loyalty and commitment these people have to one another as you flip through the images in the following pages taken during their One Year Birthday cruise to Jerome.

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I asked Frank about how the club got started

“I was part of another car club, but when that ended a couple of the other guys and I were left wondering what to do. I thought about it, and despite knowing how time consuming running a club is (I ran a Volkswagon club in California), I decided to start a club of my own. I used to drive a black Cadilac CTS-V, and got the nickname of Boss Playa,” Frank said, laughing. “So I thought about how I could incorporate this, and when Band of Stangs (like Band of Brothers) came to mind, it worked perfectly. BoS, Band of Stangs.”

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What is in store for the future of the club??

Frank says he’d like to grow the Mustang culture in Arizona to bring together various clubs. They’ve been growing fast, with their membership nearing 50 the last time I spoke to him. “I want us to have a BoS Bunker, a garage where all the members can get together and work on their cars, hang out. Basically a home base.”

Frank went on to say that he’d eventually like to create a huge music festival/car show to bring together car entusiasts and local artists. I, for one, am very excited at the idea of this becoming a reality. Imagine how fun that would be!

Check them out on IG @band.of.stangs

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@true_savvy_blue

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When I first met Brandyn to shoot this car, it was still white. The bags and widebody were already on, but it wasn’t quite unique enough for the owner’s taste. When he reached out to me a few months after our first shoot to discuss setting up a second one, I was excited.

Even more so when he told me that this shoot would be a reveal for his new wrap.

When Brandyn sent me the mock-ups for his new wrap, I loved it right away. I’ve never seen a more accurate representation of an Arizona sunset. The car fits in perfectly with the state it’s in. And the story behind the wrap is just as interesting.

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“I originally saw a VW bus painted like an AZ license plate, so I started playing around on Forza, creating my own colors. I knew I wanted to do purple and black as the main colors, so it just progressed from there.”

“I took a lot of sunset pictures to figure out the exact colors I wanted. I told the shop that I wanted a lot of cloud detail, and in the process they convinced me to add some gold flake to it to add to the design.”

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The owner’s vision combined with the shop’s skill resulted in a truly beautiful design. The colors become even louder in sunlight, and the effect is amazing in person.

Brandyn currently lives in Tucson and is looking to join and grow the car community in that area. Keep an eye out this Miata in a future issue, where I will be doing a full spread on it, as well as on the shop that wrapped this GTI, Wolf Designs.

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“My name is Paxton Gronning. I was born and raised in Arizona, and I’m twenty years old. I’ve always been pretty interested about cars, as my whole family has had a passion for cars and it’s what I’ve grown up around. My family down here has been rather biased to Nissan, with my immediate family owning everything from the Titans and Xterra’s to the 240z’s and 240sx’s. Cars have been a huge part of my upbringing. It’s a bit cliché, but I’ve always been into cars, starting from collecting buckets worth of hotwheels when I was a kid until now.

As for the photography, I’ve been interested in it since I was at least ten, but I really started to improve about four years ago. I love street photography, and my time in the car scene here has been a great environment for me to refine my art and meet some amazing people. There’s so much culture to capture and some amazing environments to work with.

Admittedly, the best part of being both a car enthusiast and a photographer is that I can do my own photoshoots whenever I want.

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“My favorite locations to shoot have always been abandoned and decrepit buildings. There’s just something about photographing the forgotten, desolate places of the world, capturing their decay as nature overgrows them.

Number one on my list so far would definitely be Two Guns, AZ (which is up near Flagstaff), followed by the Salton Sea, CA, and the Gila River Memorial Airport, AZ. Outside of those places, I love doing shoots at the closed Fiesta Mall.”

“I drive a Nissan 370z in a limited edition chicane yellow, which was only made for the 2009 model. My hand-me-down Nissan Pathfinder’s engine blew twelve hours before my first day of college. By complete accident, my dad (who was helping me shop for a new car) mistook a 370z for a 350z.

After looking it over, the better performance and more aggressive lines sold me on the car. After a lot of talking and thinking, I put down all the money I’d saved up as a down payment.”

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“From somebody who’s been involved in the car scene here for less than a year, my best advice to anybody new would be to simply talk to people. It’s the easiest and fastest way to meet new people and form connections. Even hitting people up on Instagram or Snapchat is an easy way to make friends and learn of other meets. I’ve met some amazing people and made great friends here by simply asking what they’ve done to their car and carrying the conversation from there.”

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2019 Festival of Cars and Colors Telluride, Colorado

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The annual Festival of Cars and Colors in Telluride is a gathering of car enthusiasts, art admirers, and general enjoyers of fine things. I first heard about it through a friend, Jonathan (go check out his IG page @doges2000, he has a very very clean car). As a birthday surprise to me, my girlfriend Elara bought us tickets to the event and lodging nearby. This is the story of our trip and my coverage of the beautiful cars we saw there.

We decided to leave Friday, drive up to Flagstaff, and set up our tent there for the night. Around midnight we arrived at The Cinders public camping area to set up shop. A large bag of popcorn and Superbad made it feel less like camping and more like pretending to camp. Besides the constant roar of off-road vehicles only a few yards from our tent giving us repetitive heart attacks, the night was spent peacefully! We arose and continued our journey the following morning.

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Along the way to Colorado, we ran into a guy named Josh who was walking across America. We stopped and gave him some fruit and water, took a few pictures, and wished him the best. I’m happy to report that he recently finished his journey, running into the ocean on a California beach with a small crowd of cheering admirers. As we got closer to our lodge, the weather and scenery continued to get more and more beautiful. Sunday morning we took the gondola into town where these gorgeous cars were on display.

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It was a perfect day, sunny but cool, and all of the cars were gleaming in the sunlight. There were Porsches, Ferraris, BMWs, Astin Martins, and a few Mclarens. In addition to the cars, the festival features metalworking, woodworking, jewelcrafting, pottery, photography, as well as musical entertainment, all within the scenic town of Telluride. It was our first time visiting this area and attending the show, but we absolutely plan to go again next year. For more info on this event, check out www.carsandcolors.com.

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In this feature, I will draw an idea from this here happy little jar that was suggested by someone in my audience! Then I will bring whatever theme or idea is on the piece of paper to life, and share the results in the following month’s issue.

This month’s theme is Smoke and Mirrors!

Mirrors!

Stay tuned for February’s issue where I will release the full spread of this photoshoot. And if you have an idea or theme you’d like brought to life, let me know on Instagram @adamkiss.photography or at adam@adamkissphotography.com!

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