Let's say you're the marketing guru for a major corporation in the automotive industry. You have a large number of resources available and you want to showcase your product--let's pretend that it's a car; a 2003 Hyundai Tiburon--in the best light, using all the latest high-tech gadgetry. Since you have no installation skills, and no idea what the latest high-tech gadgetry is, where do you turn to build your dream machine? You turn to Shawn Williams of Street Concepts, a person who's made a living out of building just such machines.
The rolling land shark that you see here has been outfitted with a number of products in true aftermarket style, sourced from a number of distributors and combined to make a highly desirable show and street car. Starting with the exterior, the car was outfitted with a complete Min Garage Tuscani body kit from Shark Racing, purveyors of fine products for Hyundai-badged vehicles. The kit includes the restyled front and rear bumpers, side skirts, and wide-body fender add-ons to accentuate the Tiburon's body lines. APC's carbon-fiber hood was added to the exterior makeover but was left unpainted, unlike the rest of the vehicle which received multiple coats of PPG paint (color name undisclosed) by Paint N Place in Placentia, Calif. A JSP carbon-fiber wing sits atop the trunk lid and lets people know that this Tiburon means business, as if the hard lines of the body kit weren't indication enough. Wet Works Garage handled the tinting of the taillights while a pair of Shark Racing headlights, complete with HID conversion, head the lighting requirements up front. The entire vehicle scheme was then accentuated with a sponsor graphics kit from Garage Graphics in Downey, Calif.
As far as engine components go, Street Concepts kept it simple with a few performance bolt-ons. A Magnaflow twin-exit exhaust system replaces the anemic stock unit and provides a larger diameter for the pressurized air to escape the engine bay area. Wait--pressurized air? Underneath all that powdercoated and color matched engine covers sits a custom-designed Borg-Warner/Airwerks supercharger, built to spec by those crazy folks at Area 51. The belt-driven blower provides an unspecified amount of boost, but the power potential was enough to warrant Area 51's addition of a large front-mounted intercooler, seen through the bumper, to keep the engine happy under any amount of pressure. OK, maybe "a few performance bolt-ons" was a bit of an understatement.
Getting the engine motivated was one thing, but getting the car to actually roll with the punches was a whole different ballgame. On that note, Street Concepts added a qadruplet of value-combo sized OZ Racing Superleggeras (19 x 8.5 in the front, 19 x 9.0 in the rear) to the overall suspension equation. Matching Toyo Proxes T1-S rubbers (245/35/19s all-around) wrap the wheels and provide excellent traction under all foul-weather conditions. A Brembo big-brake kit handles anything else the street throws its way. Height adjustment is provided by a set of Eibach coilovers in all four corners.
Inside, the interior has been transformed into a dreamspace for electronics nerds everywhere. A Kenwood KVT-M700 touch-screen head unit is mission control, with a KDV-C810 DVD changer and the ever-popular Kenwood Music Keg providing audio and video signals. From there, the electronic signals run through a maze of Scosche wiring before being amplified in the Kenwood KAC-X650, a single five-channel amplifier that does it all. It's then transformed into acoustic energy provided by the KFC-XR60P component satellite speakers and the KFC-XW10db subwoofer. For the purest in broadcast digital signals, the Tiburon also sports a Kenwood-controlled Siruis satellite radio tuner and, if one is out testing the distance of the digital satellite coverage and finds oneself lost, the Kenwood navigation system is sure to come in handy.
A pair of Recaro seats occupy the stock locations with a set of Schroth seat belt harnesses keeping the occupants firmly planted during any spirited driving maneuvers. Manual control goods were upgraded Momo-style: shift knob, steering wheel, pedals and all. The rest of the interior was color-matched for aesthetics by California Auto Design, utilizing hand-painted bezels and miscellaneous plastic trim coupled with the reupholstered dash. A Compustar remote-start capable alarm system insures the car stays in good hands at all times.
With many clients and many different approaches to import performance tuning, Shawn's job at Street Concepts may not be as easy as it seems. He has to simultaneously yield to his clients' desires while aggressively pursuing his own visions of import utopia. As you can tell by this particular project, he seems to have hit the mark.