Pump your brakes cuz we're about to stop this magazine for a minute. Pause button's been hit, now we're going to flip on the rewind. We're taking it back-way back. Back a whole decade to the year of '96. To a time when the initials MJ stood for a "bull" in the entertainment industry, setting NBA records for 72 wins including his fourth championship, and not some self-exiled Bahrain pedophile. The same year hidden explosives rocked the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, GA, setting the tone for a series of rocking import tours that would consequently end in the ATL.
To a time when the only blond musical Simpson sister you cared about was a saxophone-toting eighth-season television vet, Lisa, who was, and still is, far from being a newlywed. And the same year that Tupac took a fateful ride after a Tyson fight in Vegas transcending from a living legend to a lyrical legend of mythological proportions, which, coincidentally was about the time the legend of Super Street began.
Back in October of '96, Super Street both literally and figuratively leaped onto the import scene with its bright and bold cover-a clean-flying yellow DA Integra. The street car represented an era when Hondas dominated the import movement, and was reflective of a time when our scene was still considered underground, an automotive sub-culture at best.
Now let's fast forward, back to '06. Ten years long and strong, and bigger than King-Kong, Super Street's done it again. Same yellow Honda. Same flying stance. Same type of location. Same photographer. Damn near deja vu except for the model-the Fit. Like the Integra ten years before it, the Fit represents where our industry is at now-soaring gas prices and the increasing demand for practical sub-compact cars. So when it came to picking our 120th cover car, to put it succinctly, a Fit, ahem, fit the bill. Particularly a proper fit (puns damn-well intended) like the one in front of you.
Owned and operated by Norman Tong, he knows a thing or two about Hondas. Having performed his first B-Series swap into an EG Civic back in '97-(warning: gratuitous backpatting ahead) thanks to a guide featured in this very same magazine-Norman was soon running 11s in the quarter-mile during the late 90s, all while working towards a degree at UC Berkeley. Upon graduating, Norman fulfilled one of three lifelong goals by taking his book knowledge degree and mixing it with his masters in street smarts, and opened up N1 Concepts out in San Francisco. After he hit his elusive second goal last year, a 10 second run down the drag strip, the last item on his lifetime achievement agenda was to build a car that would be Super Street cover worthy.
Experience at Berkeley taught Norman to think outside the box in order stay ahead of the curve, which often meant hours of research and studying. In the case of the tuning market, the body of work to read up on lied across the body of water known as the Pacific-the trend-setting land of Japan. Peering and often leering through Japanese magazines and videos, Norman noticed a reoccurring theme-B spec cars. The streets appeared teeming with tuned sub-compact vehicles unavailable in the States. Being a fanatic from the house of H, Norman saw nothing more fitting (another pun damn-well intended) than building a Fit. "I saw the popularity of the Fit overseas in Japan and saw the enormous potential for the car in the US market," Norman explains, "I believe this car will bring back a resurgence of something similar to the EG/DC2 era for Honda enthusiasts."