What is Speedlife? Is it contagious? Or is it like the Matrix? Is it a lifestyle choice or a way of life? These are just some of the questions that ran through our minds as we boarded our plane to Florida.
The simple fact of the matter is that Speedlife is a show produced by Toucan Industries. It was a good show, a happy show, with lots of shiny, happy cars and people. On the night before the show, the Metropolis nightclub pre-party started going off around midnight, but we had to duck out early because we had a big day with Frank the Tank-actually, a pretty nice little Saturday. We were going to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring-stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, we didn't know. We didn't even know if we would have enough time.
It turned out that we didn't have enough time because we had to hit the Speedlife Manufacturer & Media and Enthusiast Panels. We hit this deal because we heard rumblings of a celebrity guest. That's right, our oldest, bestest buddy-and big toe-our Sergeant Hulka, our Ayatollah of Rock-n-Rolla Howard Lim was due to make a rare public appearance as one of the panelists. The panels were designed to allow the manufacturers and consumers an opportunity to learn about this crazy mixed-up tuner market. If you missed out, may we recommend a trip to the video store to pick up the complete Paul Walker discography? The panels actually proved to be quite informative, except when Howard started to ramble on about the good old days. When this happens, we find it best to just nod and smile occasionally, like when your gammy and pappy tell a story.
As the festivities got underway on Saturday night, it was clearly so much more than just a show. The lights went down and the music went up, which by itself may be a tired formula, but there were also DJs and musical performances, a fashion show, and an extreme sports show, which we could only assume was a regular sports show taken to extreme levels. There was also a grip of giveaways, including Toucan's bomb-diggity RSX-yeah, we know we need more timely compound adjectives. Francisco Parilla of Tampa, Florida, was the lucky winner.
Somewhere within all of this fun stuff there was a car show. Our boy Jay Laub was throwing down all sorts of madness with his very bad, very black RX-7. We even told Rikdaddy that Julia Phan's Silvia is just as wild as his; then he punched us. And then we cried. There was USDA choice prime JDM, DTM, and USDM all over the joint. But don't take our word for it (no one ever does); check out next year's show for yourself.