Holy cow what a crazy 2 months it has been here at the shop! We've had snow, rain, gorgeous perfect 70 degree days, then more ice, then 60 mph winds, it looks like we're set to have one crazy summer if this all keeps up. We've been super busy too building enclosures for people, hooking up stereos and alarms, roller skating...(say what?!) We're still Austin's hookup for Vibe, Soundstream, and Cadence products as well, we carry a full line of different brands for all the different tastes out there, but our "Big 3" are the ones we've had the most success with in competitions and in customer cars. We want to be your one stop shop so if there's anything you want done from stereo to suspension to whatever you can dream up, give us a call and let us help you make that dream a reality.
Just in case you need a sample of our work to convince you, check out the coverage our Mazda Rx-8 has been getting since debuting at the SEMA show last year:
Well here we are, it's 2010 and another year is in front of us, another year of changes, we all get a little older, hopefully a little wiser (heh), and life keeps chuggin' on if we're lucky. Here at the shop it's still business as usual, we're still here trying to help you, the customer, with whatever mobile audio,video,security, or cusomtization need you have. We are a full service shop offering all types of options for you, basic to over the top, we've got you covered in our one stop shop. So feel free to cruise on by, share your vision no matter what size or budget you have to work with, and let us help you! Maybe this is the year you decide to finally get tired of your old crappy factory speakers, or your state map is falling apart all over the place making it necessary for a new Nav unit (right?!). Here's to a successful New Year, and hoping we meet some new friends/customers this year too!
Here's a clip that makes me laugh, maybe it'll crack you up as well.....
AudioFxAustin just came back from our first ever SEMA show in Las Vegas and what a trip it was! We finished the car at the show with only 15 minutes to spare before we weren't going to be allowed to park it in the booth. We drove over 24 hours there and over 24 hours back, but we made it, we got the car done, we pulled off the virutally impossible and with great success to boot. The trip was pretty awesome, tiring, but awesome, we saw lots of beautiful countryside and gorgeous mountain ranges and pitch black skies revealing stars we'll never see outside of West Texas, all in all it was a really stressful trip filled with a lot of excitement and some drama, but totally worth it beyond a doubt.
The car was received really well, we had a booth filled practically non-stop with people taking pictures, asking questions, we had film crews from all over the world filming it and geeking over it, we gained a few upcoming magazine features for it as well. We also did receive some criticism about the functionality of our design from an article on cardomain, it was basically written that none of the features of the car were functional, and that it was all for show. This same person also wrote that the car had "neon" under the hood, well I found that pretty amusing since LED's have replaced neon for over 5 years now, neon is way to fragile, you have to have a transformer for it, and it uses gas inside glass tubing. When you compare that to LED's and how easy and small and safer they are to work with it's a no brainer. So since this person doesn't know the difference between LED and neon, and is an editor for a car based website, it's obvious why she didn't understand our car and had to go rag on it. The sad thing is, if she would have just spent about 5 minutes asking someone about it instead of just assuming it doesn't function or is all gimmicky etc etc she would have received better info, and thus would have written a more accurate article and not made an ass out of herself, but I digress, sometimes that type of writing gets readers (I guess?) and if one or 2 people didn't like or "get" the car, while 1000's REALLY liked it and couldn't get enough of it than we'll probably be okay with that. Sema wouldn't be Sema without celebrities, it was a cool thing getting to meet some of our hotrod heroes, we got to shake hands with Chip Foose, George Barris, and Dan Wood just to name a few, saw a lot of people from all over the world, I think we all have a stack of business cards about an inch thick, getting the car in upcoming magazines and having it filmed several times was pretty awesome. We owe a HUGE THANK YOU to our small team here at AudioFxAustin, we had volunteers doing everything from laying down sound deadening to removing the exhaust so we could mount the sub-ball motor, air suspension was completely redone, underbody kit installed, wiring and soldering and fabricating and sanding and painting and so much work done by friends of the shop, some of which even staying overnight and sleeping on the shop couch or sound room floor to make sure we got it done. This build was filled with sacrifice, funded by the owner who still doesn't have a job, and we were all pushed to the wire, but the awesome thing about the whole deal is that we did it, we ALL did it, car made it up there and blew people away, and ALL because of all the help we received with it. Thanks again everyone who helped, we'll be getting your names out there come magazine time.
AudioFxAustin teams with Cindy "Crash" Raschke for one of a kind product offering
One of the many people who helped us get the car to a point of radness and was instrumental in getting it finished was our bud and all around unbelievable artist Cindy Raschke, she goes by "Crash" in the hotrod pinstriping and tiki circles and is just amazing at what she does. I first saw her work a while back when at a good friend's house (Rene Rodriquez who handles all the shop's body work and custom finish work etc.) where she had done a hood for him that was unreal. Her work is something you just don't see in the car show scene, 99.9% of everything is airbrushed in the usual humdrum car show circles but 1000% of her work is done COMPLETELY by hand. We formed somewhat of a partnership over the SEMA build and as a result AudioFxAustin is proud to announce that we will be offering custom "Crash" interiors for anyone who wants that extra something different that'll push their ride over the top. The way it works is pretty simple, basically you can ship or drop off your interior pieces at the shop, tell us what color and theme etc you want, we will handle getting your pieces custom painted and loaded with kickass Crash artwork for you and shipped back etc. If you need to see examples of her work, check out our SEMA build pics on the Rx-8, or her website at www.cindyraschke.com. She's really cool to work with, has a lot of awesome ideas just waiting to be used, and we're thrilled to be able to present this "package deal" with her help. For pricing or more info just contact the shop through this website or call us and we will get you a quote asap and be prepared to sport something you're all but guaranteed not to see on any other car, each interior she does is a one of a kind original and cannot be duplicated, ever, pretty sweet huh?
So if you're on cardomain be sure to get a laugh out of the article on the car, check out the pics and all too. Speaking of pics, we have over 400 of them in our events gallery which can be seen here:
We don't believe in hiding anything about how we did things for this car, if you have any questions feel free to ask us, we want to support the scene and push innovative installs, we don't want to hoard information or stop someone from improving on an idea that we presented etc.
Well that's a lot to read, hopefully I covered everything as the last few weeks have been chaos redefined, our car is on streetfire and you can see it below, I've also included a link to the messed up cardomain drivel claiming the car wasn't functional, it's not only functional but innovative as well, kinda' sad that a person who can't recognize that is an actual editor for a car site....sigh...anyway, enjoy the video, and as always come on by or contact us if you have any questions.
Whew it's been nuts lately, we've been working practically non-stop on our SEMA show car, and trying to juggle other stuff as well. The "Old School Mini-Trucker's Reunion" we had last month was a little short on attendance but long on fun and especially food, BBQ was in abundance and insanely delicious. We will be doing another one next year, giving people more time to plan etc. and giving us more time to find people, should be a blast.
Our SEMA show car is headed in the right direction, we've got a really kick butt team of guys and girls helping us with it and we are all but guaranteed to have the most unique car at the show, if nothing else the stereo install will be something the world has never seen before, and what better place to bust it out then at the biggest car show of the year held annually in "sin city" aka Las Vegas. We will be displaying it at the Tsunami/Metra/Vibe booth so if you're at the show come on by and say hi, with any luck we might even get to share our vision via magazine pages or a feature etc., we're keeping our fingers crossed on that one for sure. ;)
For more information on the show and all it has to offer, check out-
One of the people involved with our project is a local hotrod pin striper and all around phenominal artist who goes by the niokname of "Crash", she does unbelievable work and it's all by hand, you can check out her work at:
Some of the members of the AudioFxAustin team have deep roots in the Austin, and for that matter, Texas, custom car and truck show theme. We were part of the very first Texas HeatWave, and have been involved in some way or another at every single one since, we've competed in shows state wide and nation wide as well. Our roots go back to the 80's mini trucking scene as members of the one of the biggest clubs from that era, at one time Custom Miniz had members and/or friends of the club that could fill up 6th street here in Austin from Congress Ave all the way to I35, not to mention showing up at shows and bringing home club trophies all the time. Unfortunately the club disbanded eventually, some members quit the scene, some went on to other clubs and even wound up being featured in magazines and so on and so forth, some of us are still very active in the scene with shops or still competing or working the HeatWave events or even working our own events. Gone are the days we used to have, where weekends would consist of meeting at a fellow member's house to install a part or lower someone's car or build some door panels or re-do a stereo or...well... you get the idea. Here at AudioFxAustin we bring that spirit to our shop every day
So in honor of that spirit the members of several clubs are having a get-together!! On Saturday September 19th Custom Miniz along with several other prominent "old school" mini trucker and custom car clubs are going to meet at Austin's Emma Long (aka City) Park. TExas HeatWave used to host events at this park, the parties and madness that used to fuel the show scene back in the day that occurred during these events is legendary so we're returning to the place that helped start it all, it should be a blast, and we're really looking forward to it. For more information please contact the shop at 512-835-1960.
