Now that the issue is out, I can finally post up some pictures that I've been sitting on since this past Summer. A little look inside the last-ever photo shoot of one of the U.S.'s most famous VWs. Josh, who hadn't shot anything for
Performance VW for some time, got the nod to give Frank 'the Biz' Bisogno's legendary Mk3 it's final shoot before she was parted out and put out to pasture. Josh has shot Frank's car on three other occasions; twice for
PVW and once for
Eurotuner.
Frank has been around the scene for quite a while, and although not all that active on the long-distance show circuit these days, his 1995 GTI VR6 has always been a benchmark.
The attention to detail, the constant innovation and being one-step ahead of the game has been the hallmark of Frank's car. It's never been the exact same way twice, anytime I've seen it, even if it had only been a few months.
It's been on magazine covers, had multiple full-features, and Josh has shot them all. Us old-school heads have to stick together, you know? From supercharged VR6 12v (with the infamous Z-Engineering blower), shaved bay, back to NA, turbo'd, and now with a 3.2 R32 motor, naturally aspirated. Wheels went from 16" OZ Volcanos to a bunch of bigger / wider 17s, before going back to these super hot, super chrome Fittipaldis.
Suspension has always been coilovers, but the car has never the been lowest of the low. It's always been a looker sure, but then it's always had visual balance rather than 'just' being retardedly low.
Frank is a VW technician by trade, so has done the vast majority of the work himself. Changing interests and changing priorities meant he was finally ready to move on to the next challenge...his bike being one of the newer priorities, not to mention his fiancé. (that's her in some of the pictures)
So while Josh spent time setting up the shots, directing and getting the final iteration of Frank's Mk3 captured for all eternity, I was trying to get my own take on the afternoon. And sweating, profusely, because it was blazingly hot up on top of this parking garage in downtown New Haven.
This car is really unlike most of what I tend to concentrate on. It's more of a hard-parker than a hard-driver. In order to keep up with the times it's on air-ride, naturally, so it's not a performance car in the more traditional sense. It is however, really something closer to mobile sculpture than most of what I see out there.
Some of which is innovative, some of which is just 'follow the pack.' And nothing, in my opinion, is worse than following a fashion simply for the sake of it.
Frank's car has been constantly updated, upgraded and re-worked over the years into something more than a 1995 GTI VR6. It's one of, if not the only car I've ever seen owned by one person for this length of time in the 'scene;' they usually are built once, then sold, parted or wrecked between an average of 2 months and 2 years.
Think of them...all those feature cars, all those thousands of dollars, all of that time. Gone, destroyed or passed on to uncaring owners who let them slip into dust and grime. Got my feature, and on to the next one...
And now so goes Frank's Mk3. Nothing lasts forever, it's stupid to think that it will, but it was always nice to check out what was new on The Biz's car. But no more. It was nice to be there to capture Josh, capturing the car and the owner, one last time.
_WRS
