Share on Facebook!For each of us, our automotive enthusiasm is born in its own way. Some have family history that lands them in the mix, with grease under their fingernails before they can hold a pencil. Others find their way in with the comradery of fellow enthusiasts. My mentality when it comes to automotive enthusiasm is, and has always been, “if it’s clean, you have my respect, even if it’s not my style”.
Coming from a family of gearheads, Ashley’s love for cars is no surprise. With her mother managing a service shop and her father being deeply involved in dirt track racing, pure street and super street, as well as building a few hot rods, including a fully restored ’55 Bell Air. When I met Ashley, she was a diehard Genesis nerd and was very active in the Genesis community. She even helped manage Chapter 11, a Genesis Coupe enthusiast organization, which she is still very active in. She is also the Team Leader for Section 418 in the TN/MO/IL area.
“Before I owned my Genesis, I had an 8th gen Civic SI. I’ve always had a little bit of a soft spot for Hondas” says Ashley. “After making a few rounds in their lot I came across the CRZ. At first, my thought was ‘no way not a hybrid’. After a few more visits to the lot on my way home from work, I decided to look more into it and the car became more and more appealing to me. Every night I would go home and look into all of the aftermarket parts available for the car and I began to picture how fun of a build that it would be.” Making a move to a new make of car can be a tough decision, but even more so for Ashley since she was so involved with the Genesis community. Sometimes you need a little push to make such decisions. “I joked around with the salesmen that if they could find a manual CRZ in Premium White Pearle that I would buy one.” Well, that was just the push she needed. “They ended up a few weeks later finding one in northern Missouri and I knew then and there it would be another love story to write with this new car.”
Following her purchase, Ashley and I had talked a little about what her plans were with the car. Knowing that the simplicity of it may garner less attention than some of the other more involved builds I’ve covered, I still had to shoot it. Ashley decided early on that the car would be bagged, but like many of us, our builds have to fit into a budget. The thing we tell ourselves is that it would be better to leave it alone until the budget allows for what you want to do, but what’s the fun in that?! We’re enthusiasts and when we have an itch to scratch, it doesn’t just go away, so in the meantime, the car would get Megan Racing Street Series Coilovers. This would suffice until a decision could be made on air ride and wheels.
While visiting longtime friend Craig Fallick at iNVISION Automotion in Miami, Florida, the gears began turning and after juggling the idea of Works and a few other companies, Ashley decided on Work Meister S1Rs –17×8.5 +34 and 17×9 +34 and placed the order before leaving Florida. Once the wheels were in, a test fit was in order. As she expected, the fitment of the wheels would require that she spin the coils up unless she wanted to damage the wheels or fenders. As hard as it was to do, Ashley opted for none of the above and stored the wheels until they could be properly and safely fitted. Justifiably, this meant the search for air had now graduated to top priority. Coming from someone who absolutely loves wheels, it must be killer to try to sit still with a set of Works waiting to go on the car.
For suspension, Ashley went with Airtekk Engineering, but not without a little research. “I did a lot of comparison and you just couldn’t beat Airtekk’s quality,” says Ashley. “What lead me to them was quality of their product and the service they gave me.” Up to this point, Airtekk had not released a suspension kit for the CRZ so development for Airtekk’s first set of struts and bags for the CRZs started here. “It took them about 2.5 months and they kept me notified almost every day of what stage of production my suspension was in”. The setup wouldn’t be complete without management and Ashley opted for Accuair’s E-level system with Exo mount and dual Viair 400’s.
Following the purchase, Mario and Justin of AirTekk made their way to Springfield, MO. Not only to deliver the setup personally, but taking a couple of days to help install it at no extra cost as well. Talk about customer service! Now that the suspension was fitted and wheels mounted, there was no time to waste. It was time to shoot the car!
Ashley has put together a simple and effective, yet functional daily driver. While this car may not have crazy colored wheels and need to be trailered to every event that it attends, it won’t drive by without catching your attention. Proof that you don’t need a mod list as long as your arm to enjoy a car. With that being said, don’t think this is the last you’ll see if this CRZ. Ashley has a few things up her sleeve that may be debuted as early as spring!
Ashley would like to thank :
Josh Gilmore – sr83 Media www.sr83.com
Craig Fallick – iNVISION Autmotion www.invisionautomotion.com
Justin Le – Envious Films & Airtekk Engineering sales
Mario Romanucci- Airtekk Engineering technical/project manager www.airtekk.com
Accuair www.accuair.com
Logan @ Work Wheels USA
Brandon Sanders
Lott Sticky Franchise
Above all,
Scot and Natalie Seay