The Big 1,000: A Brief History of Cars x Hype

0 Posted by Anthony Guerra - August 25, 2011 - Uncategorized

Dear everybody,

1,000 likes! We did it! To all our old fans, new fans and supporting websites/companies I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude. What started as a little blog for shits and giggles has exploded to a point which I had never imagined, and it is thanks to all of you out there! Continue reading for a brief little history of CxH.

I have a passion for cars, street wear clothing and new music. With that said, I would check multiple websites on the daily, from speedhunters to highsnobiety to hypefloats, I kept pretty up to date. Checking all these great websites inevitably leads to great finds. Not a day went by when I wouldn’t find something interesting, so of course I would share a few links a day to facebook. However, after a while I realized a good portion of my friends on facebook could care less about the stuff I posted. Why not share this with people who care about what I care about? Why not start a blog…..

So during one Thanksgiving break when I was stuck on campus, Carsxhype.com was founded…est. November 26th-ish 2010. With the help of my high school buddy, John Tran we were able to somewhat figure out this whole blogging thing. He took care of music and tech posts and I posted about automotive and clothing. The early part of CxH we had tons of content per day but nothing really exclusive, mostly reposts from bigger sites, it was kind of like Hypebeast meets Autoblog with tunes from Hypetrak. It was exciting in the beginning since we were able to pick up support from websites a lot bigger than us and get on their blogrolls/friend lists despite being a total nobody in the import scene. So a big shout out to our first supporters: Canibeat, DrinkBlackWater, HYPEFLOATS, illmotion, JustStance, Simply Clean, VipStyleCars, WhatMonstersDo and SWAY Gear.

Sadly, like all good things, there was a little rocky patch. Fortunately though it actually turned into a blessing. There was period when I was about to shut down carsxhype.com. John got pretty busy at UCI and so did I at the University of Dallas. Thankfully, by the grace of God, someone whom I had never even met before reached out and offered help, this is where Mr. LS 400, Michael Klonoff came into the scene. With someone as heavily involved, if not more so, than myself in the car scene it lightened the load. With Michael in CxH we went hard in the paint and kicked it into 5th gear.

Being from Northern California and going to school in Arizona, Michael had a great network of people. Over time he brought in basically half the current crew: Otis Blank, Ger Lewis, Lorenz Mabutas, Lorenze Torres, Levi Daniels, Brandon Ping and Raul Gomez…essentially in that order. With these guys we planned to take over Nor Cal! While Otis, the godlike photographer, did work in Arizona. But Nor Cal is only one CxH base, we also were blessed to be able to establish a base in Southern California as well.

not pictured: Mike O’Donnell, Thomas Vu, Rafael Hernandez-Padilla and Christopher George

A great high school friend of mine, Ali Smailey was also into the import scene but was initially too busy at the time to contribute to CxH, however, he did refer me to his friend RJ Deslate. This is where the magic begins. RJ had a great network as well, bringing in a lot of the SoCal crew: David Sanchez, Christopher George, Mark Anthony, Gedz Gomez, Rafael Hernandez-Padilla and Alvin Thai. SoCal is a huge area to cover with events every week but RJ, through his hard work and dedication, has been able to coordinate and and personally cover as many events as he could. Lastly there were some others who I picked up along the way: Thomas Vu, Mikey Laumb, John Kingston, Mike O’Donnell, Joey Manzano and Brian Rosete.

Without any of these people carsxhype.com would not be where it is today and I am truly indebted to them all. They have each contributed there own special piece to carsxhype whether it is through event coverage, clothing posts, music posts or behind the scenes work (there is A LOT of that) these guys have all done an exceptional job. I could not have asked for a greater group of dedicated and passionate people.

Carsxhype.com is almost a year old now, what started as daily facebook posts is now the website you’re reading from right now. From doing nothing but reposting other stories, CxH has evolved into photographing events, interviewing people, featuring rides and so much more! We will continue to do our very best in order to provide all of you with freshest content out there. There is a lot we have in store, including new interviews, exlusive car features, some merchandise, and of course, event coverage. So stay tuned! Even though 1000 likes may not be a lot to some people, it really means alot to us, so once again thank you all for your continued love and support.

Besides the CxH crew we’ve there are a ton of other supporters I would like to thank:
Canibeat, Drink Black Water, Hypefloats, illmotion, Import Bible, Just Stance, Kyoei USA, Night Import, Simply Clean, SWAY GEAR, VIP Style Cars, Wrong Fitment Crew, 7tune, Carma Brand Apparel, Dirty Penguin, Duchesslike, Full Lock, Grocery Getter Crew, iheartstance, Kamikaze BottleRockets, Save The Roots, Stance is Everything, Stretch & Poke!, Wagon LifeStyle, and WhatMonstersDo

There are also many individuals that I have to thank: Nate Hamilton, Chelsea DeNofa and Gregory Kantor (5 & A Dime), Fielding Shredder, DJ Miki Taka and Jordan Lipman for the interviews, Damien Gomez from Importmafia.com, Tiffany Truong from ccmeets, William Lee and Andy Nguyen from Night Import, Chris ‘Sideway’ Suan from SWAY GEAR, Allen Toma from SoCalZine, Jeremy Lee from Elite Auto Sports and Lee Ho from JDM Sport, Ian Alcalde from Shoplikekings.com, Chad from What is Flossy, David Nguyen from Import Bible, Brian Ogola from Down For Whateva (DFW) (Sorry if I left anyone out! I’m sure I have.)