We know it’s tough to remember what life was like before these past few recessionary years, but let’s give it a shot: People had things like jobs and money. Gas ran about $2.25 a gallon for the good stuff, and we bitched that it was too expensive. Carmakers built fast cars, hundreds of aftermarket tuning companies built thousands of parts to make them faster, and we enjoyed the fruits of each with reckless abandon. Hell, played your cards right and you could’ve done it for free or actually gotten paid to do it, while traveling the country, thanks to NHRA-backed sport compact racing competitions and shows like Hot Import Nights attracting big-dollar corporate sponsors vying to get on board with one of the nation’s fastest-growing youth movements. And the girls . . . ah, the girls. Wherever the aforementioned were, you can be sure the girls were too. Yes, life was pretty damn good.
Maryland native Joe Kim and his EVO VIII seen here got a good piece of that movement. It might come as a mild shock for such a clean, contemporary ride, but the two have been seen together like this for the better part of a decade. Right around the time some of you were figuring out that the Lambo doors and Altezza taillights on your Accord really weren’t that cool, the blue/purple-flip DuPont Blazzberry-coated full Voltex aero on Joe’s (and Bride/Defi/Cusco interior in it) were winning him shows as far off as Chicago, Boston, and Miami. What’s even more shocking: He drove the car to nearly all of them, with over 530 whp on tap and a suspension to star in a time-attacker’s wet dream.
Don’t think it all fell out of thin air, though. Joe came from more humble beginnings. The first car he built was actually a ’94 Accord. “My parents bought it for me to get around in,” he says. “I dumped nearly everything I earned into it.” It might have been a little ricey by today’s standards, but it—and a strong proposal for the EVO—was good enough to help Joe get his foot in the right doors the next time around.
A few years older, more experienced, better connected, and making some of that 2005 money, we see Joe behind the wheel of the mildly modified EVO he always wanted. And he was content with it. For a while. A Third Place win at a local show was all it took for Joe to lust First, and he set out to rebuild his EVO with two goals in mind: a Best of Show win at a national event, and 500 whp. His first stop: Atlantic Motorsports in Gaithersburg, MD. Yes, there are two AMSs that specialize in EVO tuning, and while a considerably smaller operation than their unrelated counterparts in the Midwest, AMS Tuning (as it’s known among their clientele) can build show/street/race machines every bit as potent. As Joe made the dough, Cory Peterson and the AMS Tuning crew made the EVO go, installing and tuning nearly every performance part on the car, including a Full-Race GT35R turbo system and HKS Hypermax/Cusco suspension. “The 530-plus whp tune was really only for a high-boost glory number,” Joe says. “Cory tuned it for about 450 whp for daily driving on pump gas. Four years and nearly 60,000 miles, and we’ve never had a problem.”
The exterior was a different story altogether. Joe knew his EVO’s build would be performance-oriented from the start. With its minimal in-car entertainment and complete lack of custom enclosures, he also knew he needed something “special” on the outside to recoup the judges’ attention. When he imported the complete Voltex kit his EVO now flexes, it was only the second the company had ever shipped to the States. And you can be sure the color-changing hue it’s coated has never been seen elsewhere. “It’s a custom blue basecoat covered with DuPont Purple Chromalusion,” Joe says. “It’s a propriety mix from Gary Best Kustumz.” Translation: The formula was written down on paper, handed to Joe, and never recorded elsewhere.