We know what the thought process is for some of you here:
"I hate this thing!"
"When is this stupid fitment craze going to die out? What does this car have besides wheels and a kit? It’s not even functional. No one can possibly track something like that. I bet the owner doesn’t even drive it."
"At least its clean. The kit does accentuate the car’s lines. Turns out the engine is built, too—upgraded turbo, hybrid internals, it even makes decent power. But those wheels are just too much!"
"Wait . . . 18x13 inches in the rear?! Damn, that’s wider than two of my stock wheels put together. I guess that’s kind of cool. For a wannabe fanboy drift car!"
"Hold up . . . says here the cage was built by Mazworx. Don’t they own the fastest SR-powered car in the world? Got some serious money behind it. But the owner probably got everything for free!
"Hmm. Apparently the kid and his dad built the whole thing themselves—even did the paint. In only eight months, too? And he ran it to a 12.6 in the quarter and built it just to drift with his friends?!"
"I kinda like this thing!"
Then again, we also know what the rest of you thought right off the bat:
"I love this thing!"
Yes, we’ve had faster, more powerful, and more accomplished cars on our pages. Record-breakers. Budget busters. And having handpicked them all and seen their accomplishments, we’re putting Marc Neron’s right up there with them. While most of us strive to one day own trend-setting and record-breaking tuned imports, but blame our situation for holding us back, Marc went out and made it happen with what he had at his disposal—which was impressively very little.
Marc, hailing from the outskirts of Melbourne, FL, is either a lot like you or a lot like whom you wish you could be. He’s a car guy through and through. His dad, Alain, was one and kept Marc in the loop of automotive culture since the day he was born. They’ve owned 15 or so (the number’s sure to have grown by now) of the baddest project cars to which any avid enthusiast would love to own—an S2000, USDM Integra Type R, a RHD-converted DC2, ’96 EK9 Civic Type R, a black S13 Silvia very similar to this 240, another USDM S13 with an LS1 swap, a ’71 VW Westfalia, ’57 Karmann Ghia, ’56 Beetle, and a ’96 Caddy Fleetwood lowrider to name a few—most acquired in project condition or in trade for service. "This 240 was actually free," Marc says, of the flavor of this month. "I traded it for work on a Miata. It was already caged, so I thought, why not?'"
Like any half-begun/fully begotten project car, Marc’s new S13 was rough everywhere. "It was really nothing but a shell with a cage," he elaborates. As a planed competition vehicle, that stuff was to be expected. But having dropped from the hot rod and lowrider ranks, Marc saw no reason it couldn’t compete while still looking cherry. "There’s no excuse for an unfinished car," he explains. "Look at pro race teams. Even when they wreck their cars they’re back at the next race looking mint." Of course, this plan is easier to implement when you own a body shop.
The location where this particular one was shot isn’t some run-down, forgotten-about, heavy industrial remnant, it’s Menace Kustoms, the full-service shop Alain and Marc own. "My dad’s had it for years," states Marc. "Together, we’ve probably completed hundreds ground-up builds. I can’t even begin to count." Their first move was to paint that cage purple to match the D2 coilovers Marc bolted up around the same time. Tasteful, but we like his method of dealing with the shitty interior even more: scrap most of it, drop in a Bride bucket and Takata belts, replace the broken climate controls with dry carbon-fiber plugs—the one occupying the stereo spot cut to house a trio of Auto Meter Sport Comp gauges and a Blitz FATT—and paint all exposed metal flat black to reduce glare.