How many of you guys would make it a point to teach your female partners how to drive better or even how to drive a manual transmission car? There’s something very attractive about a woman who has the skills and passion to drive well, and can tame a powerful beast with her delicate yet firm grip. Not only can you share a passion together dominating twists and turns, talk about your favorite on/off ramps, or both get turned on by a sexy exhaust note or high RPM, she can actually drive your car when you’re too drunk or tired. I’m interested in meeting more women with a love of performance driving, and maybe sneak in some portraits of them with their ride, or if any ladies just wants to shoot in mine, I’ll come pick you up.

As if having a blacked out car wasn’t a magnet enough for the five-o, I’ve added a hot red roadster to the line up, Imola Red to be exact. There’s enough trunk space to fit my camera bag and a weekend getaway bag. All photos taken with a Canon S90.

2007 BMW M Roadster

This past Sunday was the most ideal weather and time of year to be taking car photos, so I organized a shoot with some friends and e46fanatics.com forum guys and girls. In fact, it was the best time of the year to take photos of absolutely anything outdoors. Without professional rigging or planning, I just had people show up and I’d wing the shoot just like I do for every other shoot of mine.

My camera rig was a Canon 5D, Canon 24-70mm 2.8L with 8x ND filter on a ball-head mount with a metal pole and clamp and wired remote, handheld outside the car at 45-50mph. We drove on Palisades Parkway which is probably one of the smoothest and cleanest highways so I wasn’t worried about rocks chipping my equipment. Shutter speeds of about 1/60 to 1/90 would be enough to create the blur. This was a first for me, and hopefully I can experiment more with cars in the future.

El Bob went to his very first BMW meet at Paul Miller. He saw a lot of pimped out rides though none of them are close to his P.I.M.P. status.

The Lotus is almost as cute as El Bob, but not quite.

Angry M3.

Does El Bob look as fierce?

El Bob and the number 8.

El Bob is so fast not even Brembos are enough to stop him.

El Bob likes black and white, since he can only see in black and white.

El Bob’s best friend, Boba.

I’ve had the ümnitza Predator Chromiums for maybe 2 years and have gone through 2 sets of rings and 2 ballasts, and I also hate the cold weather issues. Recently my driver’s side angel eyes quit working. Perhaps I did a bad soldering job, but this time I made sure I would do it cleaner and add additional insulation.

I ordered the 60-LED Orions as soon as I heard about them, and it was a pretty easy upgrade. Instead of using the plugs they provided, I soldered the wires, then shrink wrapped and insulated, then more layers of electrical tape!

Right out of the box, I noticed the LEDs (when off) have a slight yellow tint to them which bothered me. However, after installation, it will no longer be visible.

The one complaint is the wires direct from the rings are too short. The DRL ring leaves enough length, but the HID ring barely makes it out the rear. The multi-level clipping system is awesome! I wanted to re-adjust the depth but felt like I can never remove the clip again, which is a good thing. It was an extremely tight fit while reassembling my headlight casing, which I thought was good too because it meant a more snug fit and less chance for the rings to vibrate. This time around the rings absolutely feels more solid and unlikely to break, unlike the Chromiums.

I’ve been driving with these new lights for 2 days and I love them. Yes, you can definitely see the individual LEDs if you’re up close, but it’s still very bright during the day and ridiculously bright at night. The standard color rings have a higher color temperature than my stock 5k HIDs. Looking at the rings at night is pretty much like looking at bright halogen bulbs, it’s that bright. The rings also fades nicely on and off with the remote, and they don’t flicker like in the videos. I believe the flickering is a camera issue as I tried making a video myself.

So far absolutely no cold weather issues with low 20’s to low 40’s temperature here in NJ. Photos taken with a Sony DSC-W170.