We met Bong at Christian’s house a year ago, the day we were being introduced to Seattle’s 2nd RWB. Bong had spontaneously bid on a 1989 Porsche Carrera 4 in Guards Red on eBay that day and won himself a new car! Soon after that he had his 964 shipped to Seattle from Ohio and Bong was placed on the ever growing list of air-cooled 911 owners waiting to have their cars transformed by the Japanese legend, Akira Nakai of Rauh Welt Begriff. On September 24th we were invited to join him with friends and family at Wild About Cars Garage, the venue for the RWB Seattle #3 build.
Greeting us at the entrance was Christian’s 993 (“Meguri Ai” – RWB Seattle #1) and Sid’s 964 Targa (“White Walker” – RWB Canada #8). They were both flanked by other air-cooled 911s driven by friends of the RWB family.
Nakai-san already had the new front bumper in place and just started cutting into Bong’s freshly painted fenders by the time we arrived.
Some of Bong’s family members and friends flew in from out of town for the build.
There were two builds happening that day. As Nakai-san was installing his RWB body kit on Bong’s 964…
… Bong was getting his hands dirty with the finishing touches of his mini-me RWB clone.
Stock fenders are cut out and replaced with much wider panels to allow 18×10.5-inch front and 18×13-inch rear wheels to fit under them.
By the end of day-one the transformation is almost complete!
On day-two Bong opened up the venue to the public, allowing anyone who was interested to come and check out Nakai-san at work.
Nakai-san paces around the car and fine tunes the suspension to maintain a very close relationship between tire and fender. By mid-day the wheels were bolted up and the car was on the ground.
Using only a measuring tape he dials in that wheel alignment the old-fashioned way.
The ceremonial RWB windshield banner placement marks the completion of the RWB “conversion” and all that is left to install are some mirrors and other miscellaneous parts before Nakai-san takes the car out for its first test-drive.
Introducing “Yujiro”, Seattle’s 3rd RWB!
We are once again incredibly honored and humbled to be invited to these builds by members of the growing RWB family. Nakai-san continues to be an inspiration to watch and his creations impress all walks of life, bringing them closer together to share a common passion. We can’t thank Bong and the RWB family enough for taking us in and letting us experience these monumental moments in their lives.
As we wrap up this post we still need to tell you about a more recent trip we took to Sequim, WA when we followed Bong and “Yujiro” out there to witness the birth of “Cacao”, RWB Seattle #4! Stay tuned…
