Up until just a couple of years ago, the ill.motion Sunday School was THE car show to go to in Calgary; even without a screening process, it always brought out the best of the best, and even the cars in attendance that weren’t all top dollar builds were still very cool in their own right. It had everything from full ground up builds, to track cars, to street cars. It really was the crème de la crème in terms of the local car show scene, so when ill.motion announced a couple years ago that their events were coming to an end, I couldn’t help but feel a little melancholy knowing that a core event that helped build and grow the local community would be leaving us forever

Thankfully over in Edmonton, another group of likeminded car enthusiasts had been slowly piecing together their own show over the past several years, one that would slowly but surely become the premier aftermarket car show in the province: enter Rev Up Autoshow. Previously known as Midnight Rev Up, the folks behind this car show have not compromised on anything, ensuring that nothing but the coolest builds are showcased in the coolest venues. No corners would be cut and everything would be well planned out, so it was almost natural for them to carry on where ill.motion left off. I was ecstatic when I heard that the Edmonton show would be held at the Edmonton Expo Center, a historic venue for people such as myself that used to attend a certain other show there almost 20 years ago. For this years Calgary show, the Rev Up team really outdid themselves with the event being held at the TELUS Convention Center, smack dab in the heart of downtown.

Being a provincial sponsor, RA Motorsports would naturally be making the trip down for the event which of course meant that I would be tagging along for the ride. Knowing that Calgary is the home of many top notch builds, I was really excited to see who and what would make it out to the show, and of course I couldn’t help but open this post with Terry’s full Mugen Integra Type R, easily one of my favourites from the whole event.

Nick’s 911 GT3 front and center in the main hallway.

Zeeshan’s R34 GT-R still looks immaculate and also reminds me of Ross’ old car.

Mercari Auto’s HKS Type-R widebody equipped GR86.

Another one of my favourites from this show was this S14.5 240SX. I got the chance to chat with the owner for a bit and he’s had the car for about 20 years now! Although you can’t see it here, the headlight scoop has switchback LED’s mounted inside it to mimic a headlight while driving at night and also act as a function turn signal. I REALLY like that touch.

Eric’s 1JZ S15 still looking great ever since I first saw it at Driven all those years ago.

Wooster’s EK9 Civic Type R has got to be one of the cleanest builds ever. Check him out on Instagram if you don’t already as he does pretty much all his work himself in his home garage and is extremely detail oriented.

JDM ITR headlights on an EG Civic are a rather interesting choice…

Now here’s a throwback for me: this is my friend Christian’s old DC2 Integra Type R, now residing in Calgary and owned by David. I used to cruise around a lot with this car and even went to my very first track day with Christian driving this car. It already had a Spoon Sports theme going on when Christian sold it, so I’m glad to see that David has continued on with that theme and from the looks of it keeps it in great shape too (contrast to Christian tracking the shit outta it when he had it).

Invision Auto also made the trek down from Edmonton with their full line of Bride products on display.

John’s Supra now rocking a new Varis carbon hood.

Arif’s Holly with the CE28N’s in a new juicy colour.

Brandon’s DC5 being as quiet as it’s ever been.

Jamie’s EK9 Civic Type R with the majority of the Spoon Sports catalogue thrown at it.

Alex knows a thing or two about building Integra’s and his new black DC2 build certainly showed it.

Nelson’s RSX looks almost like mine!

Ooooooh my.

God I want a 911 in my life (the car, not the disaster).

Levi’s R32 GT-R is SO well executed. All those years of not finishing the BRZ really paid off.

啓介さんきました！

The University Of Calgary brought out their own track car built entirely in-house, hand laid carbon fiber and all. They also had an app that would show an augmented display of how CFD (computational fluid dynamics) would move around their car. Super cool.

Geoff’s new K swapped EG hatch looking like it just got back from 1999.

Bill’s Mustard Focus ST4 taking care of show duties while the S15 is still receiving updates.

Carlo’s M3 enjoying some sunlight from the massive windows on the side.

Last but certainly not least, the RA Motorsports booth featuring the new RA Colorado build and Matt’s classic AE86.

As night came the underglow really popped underneath the truck!

Matt’s Corolla was actually just on track a couple nights prior.

As with the Edmonton show, we also had a pair of the new RA86 sim rig chassis’ on demo for everyone to try as well.

This time we changed one of the setups to a right hand drive configuration for a bit of diversity and to show just how modular this setup can be.

And just like last time, we had a small little contest for the day; fastest lap of the day won an HKS tumbler and oil can mug!

As always, thank you to the Rev Up team for putting on an amazing show once again. Everything about it is so just perfect and even roll-in and roll-out is smoother than butter melting. It was great to see the Calgary friends again and I hope everyone that stopped by the booth enjoyed themselves as well.

Until next time!

-brandon.