This weekend Festivals of Speed put on another one of its great Motorsports and Luxury Lifestyle showcases at Mission Inn Resort in Howey in the Hills. On display in front of the beautiful Mission Bay clubhouse was DVH’s Black Twin Turbo Gallardo and our customers Speed Yellow 996tt.

I was first exposed to RAUH-Welt Begriff, better known now as RWB, a little over a year ago when a picture of one of their 964s painted camouflage hit my email box. Having spray bombed our own 996tt in a similar motif, I spent many hours researching more about RWB and the man behind these wild Japanese creations Nakai San. Last summer I contemplated having one of my own built, but finding a clean 993 donor car proved to be a difficult challenge and I settled on a 996 GT3 instead. Fast forward to last November when RWB posted a picture of a 993 with the caption “RWB Florida” coming soon on their Facebook page. My internet detective skills immediately went into motion and a familiar hood in the background of that image led me to realize the car was owned by Chad, a mutual acquaintance of mine from the track. At the 48 Hour of Sebring in January I approached Chad about the build and told him of my interest in the project, and he invited me to watch build in person when Nakai made his way to Tampa. Yesterday I was lucky enough to take him up on his offer and spent the afternoon watching the master at work, taking Chad’s beautiful 993 and turning it into the latest RWB car, only the 5th in the United STates.

To get things started I’ll talk a bit about the process from what I gathered that afternoon in both talking to Chad and Nakai. Chad originally contacted RWB Japan and bought the kit and appropriate Work wheels directly from them with some help from Marc at RWB USA. The body kits arrive unfinished and must be painted by a local paint shop prior to Nakai arriving. The build is then fit into Nakai’s busy schedule so that he can be on site to fit and install the entire kit and set the ride height of the vehicle appropriately. All off the cutting, fitting, drilling and installation happen on an already prepped and painted car, a true testament to the craftsmanship required (which can also be difficult to watch as Chad had to look away many times).

Nakai’s work ethic is second to none, he spends countless hours finessing the car making sure it’s perfect. Even when he is not physically working on the car, he’s standing close by focusing on it piece by piece with a cigarette in hand. His passion for building these cars is very apparent, he is not a fancy man by any means. On this particular build he arrived in an economy rent a car and rather than sleep in a fancy hotel he chose to sleep outside of the shop in Chad’s car hauler so that he could work late into the night. There were no elaborate 5 star dinners either, meals consisted of a quick trip to McDonalds or the local Denny’s. As fancy as we got was Logan’s Texas Steakhouse last evening where we shared stories of Porsches, travel, racing, and of course the history of RWB. There is definitely a language barrier, but it’s easy to work through it thanks to Nakai’s great understanding of the English language, I can’t think things would have gone as smoothly if the roles were reversed. Many question the pricing of the kits and what goes into the installation, but anyone who has seen the man in the process of installation will understand that he’s not just transforming the appearance of the car, he’s giving it a new soul.

I personally want to thank Chad for inviting me out to see the build, it was truly an inspiration and honor to see Nakai work. The trip to Tampa may have cast some doubts into my decision to buy a 996 GT3 over building an RWB 993, however after quizzing Nakai a bit I may get to experience the best of both worlds in the near future.

This past weekend our team loaded up our newly refreshed Copper super and headed to Texas for TX2K12. We’ve attended this meet since it’s inception and this year had the largest spectator attendance of any prior years. With a great showing of Supra’s, 2JZ swapped vehicles and a large amount of GTR’s in attendance this event has evolved from being a yearly Supra meet to a tuner and super car shootout. In addition the large number of Supra’s and GTR’s the Lamborghini Gallardo TT contingent was there with a strong presence. The dyno day crew did the unbelievable and managed to dyno over 80 cars on 2 dynos over the course of a day, with many breaking the 1,000hp barrier.

Drag Racing was held on Saturday and Sunday, with many records broken including the GTR drag racing record with an 8.63. The Titan Copper Supra seemed to be the talk of the drag days and with testing commencing it showed great promise. The whole community watched as Team Titan worked aggressively at making sure the car was able to make runs and continued to improve the new combination. When the first full 1/4 mile pass was made it yielded a 7.59 @ 186 with the doors literally flying off. While the crew worked to repair and service the car between rounds, a pair of replacement doors was borrowed from fellow competitor Ross Baird so the car would attempt another run. We want to thank Ross for his great sportsmanship and hope to return the favor in another fashion in the future! This year was a great event as the pictures below show, and we look forward to seeing even more people out at TX2K13 next year!

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March 10th marked our annual open house event here at Titan Motorsports. This now annual event allows our great customers and fans an opportunity to see whats new at Titan Motorsports, all while raising money for charity. This years event was a huge success with a total of 52 car show contestants an an energetic crowd throughout the day. We were able to raise $5,500 for Just in Queso Foundation, doubling the donation we were able to make last year.

We want to thank all the great supporters and sponsors that helped make our 2012 open house a great success :

Mr Gasket, Manley, NGK, Bosch, Performance Poly, Simply Clean, Highway Star Garage, Koyo, Hawk, Tijuana flats, Florida Trophy, Stages Plus. We’d also like to thank the models who helped promote throughout the day Ednyr Marie, Carolina Spidel, Beatriz, Jessica Le, Bridget Tran, Rachel Loka.

A very special thanks goes out to our very own Nikki Contenti who spent countless hours planning and making sure the event was as successful as possible. We look forward to next years event and raising even more money for such a great cause.

Titan Car Show 2012 | Orlando, FL from Christian Torres on Vimeo.

We’re wrapping up quite a few cars for this weeks TX2K12 event in Houston,TX and as a result a bit behind in uploading our open house photo coverage. We’ll get our own pictures up in the next few days but in the meantime check out this great video of the event filmed & edited by Christian Torres.

We recently attended the Sarasota Exotic Car Fest which took place on beautiful St. Armands circle in Sarasota,FL. This was our first time making the trip to Southwest Florida for the show, but it surely won’t be the last. Hundreds of great exotic cars filled the famed circle, from Lamborghini to McLarens, and the show even featured 2 special edition Bugatti Veyrons. The highlight of the weekend for us was famed Lamborghini test driver Valentino Balboni stopping by to take a closer look at our Twin Turbo Gallardo and voicing his approval, we we’re hoping to have him test drive the car but he had a flight out immediately following the event.

Our annual open house will take place this year March 10th, please see the flyer for details and spread the word. Last year we had a great turnout, this year we’re expecting an even bigger one with new events such as a bikini contest, bigger purses, and the same great cause with proceeds benefiting Just In Queso Foundation. Email nikki@titanmotorsports.com with any questions or sponsorship opportunities.

This weekend we attended the 8th annual Cars for the Cure show in Lake Mary, FL benefiting the American Lung Association. We brought out Daniel’s black Stage-2 Lamborghini Gallardo Twin Turbo, George Bonafede’s Red Nissan GTR, Nero’s personal E92 M3, and my newly acquired Porsche 996 GT3. There were plenty of great cars in attendance from new dealer cars, to highly tuned exotics, with the center piece of the event being a 1 of 1 Bugatti Veyron Sang Bleu. We’d like to thank the ALA and it’s great volunteers who made this event such a success. We’ve had the pleasure of attending this event since it’s inception over 8 years ago and look forward to attending yet again next year.

Titan Motorsports Hiring : Sales Representative Position

Titan Motorsports, Inc. experienced stable growth in 2011, and as a result we’re looking to expand upon our sales team. We are looking for highly motivated individuals interested in becoming a part of our sales team. The position available is for a full time sales representative at location on 11370 Boggy Creek Rd, near Orlando International Airport. Applicant would need to be available during our normally operating hours of 9am-6pm, Monday through Friday. Compensation / benefits packaged will be determined based on applicants qualifications and will be discussed upon submission of resume.

Qualified participates should email a resume to nero@titanmotorsports.com. Please do not call about this posting or follow up for further correspondence, we will contact you. Selection applicants will need to come in for a series of interviews, we are looking to fill this position immediately.

Job Functions:
Recommend, select, and help locate or obtain merchandise based on customer needs and desires. Maintain retail and phone sales relationships with existing and potential customers.

Required Skills:
Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Excel, General Automotive / Import Performance Knowledge and Great Communication Skills.

Additional Information:
(suggest including, name, previous jobs, recommendations, age, car you drive, and why you are interested in this field).