From Salvage to Show Car | Rocket Bunny BRZ

"Throughout my life obviously I’ve always had a passion and admiration for cars an especially JDM car scene, I always knew I wanted an FRS/BRZ from when they first came out and in high school I obviously couldn’t afford one so I worked three jobs saved ton of money and finally had enough to scope the junkyard. Looking online every hour for over a month trying to find the perfect salvaged BRZ nothing too damaged and nothing not damaged enough so it would be expensive. September 2017 I finally found BRZ limited with the performance package with only 2500 miles on it. It was a total loss a ton of exterior damage, the whole driver side was the main impact side the rear quarter, rocker panel and door was crushed like a tin can and front suspension was blown out. (There was damage all over but main impact was driver )

So then it was time for the junkyard auction and it was me against five other guys all in different states and so bid  and I obviously won the car for $9,500. Like such a steal only 2,500 miles and performance package."

"I had a binder full of every mod I wanted on it including the body kit and I started looking for parts all over freaking town. Went junkyard shopping for weeks random ass craigslist people but eventually got all my parts. I was actually picking up some airbags and saw this guy had a cut-in-half salvage BRZ in his backyard and I actually asked him if I could cut out the rear quarter panel because I needed to replace mine and so that’s where I got a damaged area quarter panel from for hella cheap."

"I cut out the rear quarter panel and rocker panel on my car my friend Elvis and I pinch welded the new rocker panel and rear quarter panel onto the main body, I soldered the wiring for the airbags on the new rear quarter panel, replaced the door replaced front bumper replaced suspension replaced airbags replaced all four wheels the list goes on."

"For me to even register it I had to get a bunch of inspections in approval because California hates salvage cars and made it a pain in the ass.

Took about four attempts but I finally got registered and a plate

Once the welding was done I bondoed the rear quarter panel and rocker panel seamless with the original body so that I could have sexy body lines and couldn’t even tell it was salvaged. Literally weeks staying up until 3 am until the surface read perfect on my hands. I also got a Banged up/dented door from the junkyard and just did all the Bondo work to resurface it so it looked great."

Nikita had the car back up and driveable. Next up was getting the rocket bunny kit installed and the wheels fitted. It still wasnt a direct bolt on process. Nikita had far more custom work in front of her to get the kit and wheels fitting the way she wanted. More custom bodywork, clearancing the wheel wells etc..

At this point there was still a lot to be done to the car, but it it would be quite some time before it would be fully complete. I thought it would be a really cool story to share so I wanted to document the car in it current semi complete state. I called up Darrien Carven @_crvn_ to shoot the car with the idea of creating this blog post when the car was eventually complete. 

So in fall 2018 we met up in the canyons outside of Los Angeles to photograph the car. 

With the car not quite being done Nikitas pupper Jackson was definitely the star of the shoot. 

There was so much to still be done to the car. So many small details, getting the car drivable at a lower height, wrapping it all one color and so much more. It took almost a whole year of work from this shoot to reach a stage of completion where it was ready to shoot again. 

As you can see it truly is a complete transformation, more than your typical "transformation" of new wheels and lowering the car. 

The car looks awesome and we cant wait to see what changes Nikita has in store next, or what her next project will be. 

Before we end here are a few images of the progression of the car side by side so you can see all the changes. 

Check out more on Nikitas IG

@kitabrz