The sun is about to set and I'm nowhere close to finishing this photo shoot. We're on the outskirts of Los Angeles, alongside a set of railroad tracks, waiting patiently for a train to pass by. Earlier in the day, they were flying by every 15 minutes, but now there are none. With the amount of available sunlight diminishing by the second, the chances of a train coming by before it's too late to snap off any decent photos are slim to none. That's not to say that the current background isn't good enough--the green plains are a sweet contrast to the Velox Spyder's yellow paint. But if we could just get a train to pass by, then it might look really cool. We continue to wait.
Rewind to an hour earlier and we find ourselves in a weird situation. There are bugs everywhere. We've parked the Spyder in the back area of some industrial park to shoot some detail shots and out of nowhere these things just showed up. It's no use trying to brush them off because they keep coming back and at twice the rate they were before. We figure it's best to just leave them alone; some things cannot be helped. On the car and stuck to our own skin, it's a damn infestation. Where did they come from? We didn't see anything to indicate that we were inside an outhouse, although it definitely smelled like one. I've never experienced anything quite like it. And why won't they just fly away?
Irritating bugs aside, this car can be summed up in two simple words: "the ish." Compared to the other MR2s we've seen, this one seems like it would just kick some major gonads. The biggest highlight can be found underneath the rear deck lid, where a 2ZZ Celica engine sits in place of the original 1ZZ-FE, which in our opinion, sucks major bozos. Dominic Chang, owner of Velox (and of this fine hybrid), tells us that it didn't require a whole lot of modification to make it fit. "We used a custom mount kit from KumoSport," he explains. "The engine is now positioned higher than it was before, but it sits fine where it is."
Additionally, the block was given to XS Engineering, where they rebuilt it with high-strength, low-compression 9.5:1 Arias pistons and forged connecting rods, including block sleeving from RS Motorworks. There's a bit of cylinder head work by Rick Kemph, who's also responsible for fabricating the piping for the turbo system. The heart of it all is an XS Engineering T3/T4 hybrid turbine (part of the custom XS kit), which can be pushed to deliver anywhere from 18 to 22psi. Other turbo essentials include an air-to-air intercooler also from XS, a 46mm TiAL wastegate and a TiAL blow-off valve.
Going back to where I started this story, we're still waiting for a train to pass by. The sun is drifting away rather quickly. We decide to phone the Metro Line for a schedule, and wouldn't you know it--we were 10 minutes away from striking gold. To fill the time, I concentrated on a few exterior details, which as you can see, is hardly boring. This is because the car has been fitted with a Monocraft widebody kit, of which there are only 100 sets in the world. With the help of Body Pros, the fenders were reworked and the custom yellow sprayed on, which changes hues depending on the lighting, from a pure yellow in the shade to a golden yellow in the sunlight. Both the front and rear bonnets were replaced with lightweight carbon-fiber pieces by Fiber Images and the ragtop has been converted to accept the Japanese hard top. Complementing the widebody conversion is a set of Velox's own 18x8.5 and 18x10.5 PG-Rev5 forged wheels paired with a set of 245/40ZR18 and 285/35ZR18 Falken 451 tires. The car has also been slightly lowered with a set of JIC SF-1 coilovers.
The hard top can be easily removed to showcase the audio system and interior enhancements of the Velox MR2. Fitted onto the floor panel are a pair of Sparco's Pro 2000 racing seats, matched to a set of Racing 4 harnesses and the Extreme steering wheel. Throughout the passenger area are plenty of carbon-fiber accents, including the dash by Carbon Concepts and the custom tonneau cover from Fiber Images. The door panels are extremely trick--each constructed from a mold taken from the factory panel and replaced with carbon-fiber and custom Alcantara inserts. Equally stimulating is the full Alpine audio/visual setup, consisting of a TME-M760 monitor that was custom fitted onto the center portion of the dash, a separate CD head unit and six-disc CD changer, V-12 amplifier, and plenty of speakers to go around.
Finally, the sound of a train's horn can be heard blaring in the distance. A quick peek down the track reveals a single headlight pointed in our direction. It's the moment we've been waiting for and the shot is ready to be taken. Seconds pass and the train creeps up. I press one button and it's finally over.