Fluid MotorUnion's Long-Overdue Build Thread: Project X, Start to Finish.

[MikeG]

FINALLY!!!!!

[121scale]

impressed again and again. my tig welds look like something you would poop out on the worst day of a terrible case of diarrhea compared to the quality of your welds. massive ups

[Royal_T]

To epic

[LowDirtyBastard]

love how it's coming along. i forgot to even acknowledge this while i was there

[FluidMotorUnion]

Chapter VII: The Devil’s In The Details, Part II

Okay, everybody. This is the last post in which we will be adding things to the X5. We’re so close to the end, all we need is this last post, then one more to show it out in the wild. So let’s dive in, shall we? While the X5 was in the paint booth, our powdercoaters returned with the X5 pieces, covered in a gorgeous coat of crinkle black. No details were lost on the pieces, even on the intricate etchings of the skid pad. Great success!







Once Project X was out of the paint booth, we set about attaching all the freshly powdercoated pieces to the X5’s body to make sure (once again) that everything is up to spec. After a brief overlook, we knew we’d created something not of this world.







BUT! (There’s always a but) There were still some pieces that needed to be painted and/or installed. The taillights received a full once-over in red, giving the rear end more of a composed look. We also painted the interior trim pieces and the new front kidney grilles in a satin black. To keep adding unique German touches, we found some metal badges for the German Coast Guard, which we then turned into center caps for the Cragar wheels. Finally, we painted the chrome window trim in the same black, since the chrome wasn’t really working with anything else on the car.






A quick shot of the finished interior:



Finally, stickers needed to be applied. Since it was a modified car, it obviously needed some vinyl to complete it. We put a large black-and-white cross on the rear quarter panel to add a bit of contrast, and a shout-out to Dick Cook’s gym on the bottom of the front doors.




And for the last picture of the “stuff we modified” portion of the build thread, let’s take one last look at the full exhaust for this car, a picture of which we just recently discovered hiding in the annals of iPhoto:



Are you guys all set for the big reveal? We know we are. Tune in for the final portion of our Project X build thread, coming to a forum near you in the very near future!

[JRiggs]

I'd love to see an exoskeleton on it at this point. That truck is stick.... I now want to ruin a perfectly good truck to copy cat yalls build.

[Royal_T]

Amazing work guys.. I would love to see this kind of look on a Rang Rover as well.. You guys kill it every single time

[FluidMotorUnion]

Amazing work guys.. I would love to see this kind of look on a Rang Rover as well.. You guys kill it every single time

I'd love to see an exoskeleton on it at this point. That truck is stick.... I now want to ruin a perfectly good truck to copy cat yalls build.

Thanks guys! We've always got something interesting running through our heads, so the next maniacal build shouldn't be very far away!

[NeedingAnAudi]

Andrew stop teasing! Please finish this up gooooooood

[yotatuner]

yesssss!!!!

[AR145]

Awesome!

[FluidMotorUnion]

Chapter VIII: Into The Wild

We’ve finally hit that point. It’s time for our final chapter of the Project X build. Today, let’s take a look at the X5 as it ventures out into the wild.

Since one of the goals with the X5 was to build a car that gathered as much attention as possible, we figured it would be appropriate to showcase pictures of the X5 that were taken by other photographers, not just our in-house twerp. We’ve thrown in a couple that we’ve snapped, and we’re also including three very special shots at the end, taken by a closer personal friend of ours. So let’s start this last chapter out with the X5’s first appearance after being finished. The location? Tuner Galleria (part of the World of Wheels) at Rosemont Convention Center, Rosemont IL. The winter was still going strong at this point, so while the trip there may have been treacherous, the show itself turned out great. Here’s the best two shots we could find of the X5 as it sat at Tuner Galleria. Thanks to Ben Levy for snapping these:




From there, about a month later, the X5 packed itself to the brim and headed out to MFest with Ashley’s 335, the DCM3, and Gold Wheels. Here’s a shot from the night of our departure:



A couple rolling shots and several hours later…




…and we arrived in one piece!



And what Tuner Galleria lacked in the way of photographers, MFest definitely made up for. Enjoy these shots from various Flickr accounts of MFest participants, along with European Auto Salon, ModLyfe, and our good friend Jeremy Cliff:







And finally, we bring you three photos that you may not have seen before. Well, two, if you’re following StanceWorks on Facebook. When Mr. Rusty Slammington himself — StanceWorks founder Mike Burroughs — came through the shop in February for the X5’s Performance BMW shoot, shenanigans were had. Plenty of shenanigans. If you saw StanceWorks’s Facebook, you may recognize the next picture. A little background on it: This was actually taken in the middle of our fabrication garage in the dead of night, using a light-painting rig we created from a tube of aluminum and some cardboard. Positioning the X5 was no easy task, requiring us to shove one of the dyno ramps into the E39’s headlight cavity. We positioned Aaron’s bike to block the rear of the E39 (the rear end is in awful shape; it’s just a random parts car we have), propped up the E90 in the background and then Burroughs worked his magic:



These last two were taken from the daytime portion of the X5/Burroughs shoot, which took place at Acme Refining in Joliet. Nothing like a proper scrapyard to show off the rugged new design for Project X.




There are even more amazing leftovers from this shoot, but if you want them, you’ll have to ask the man with the camera himself. Furthermore, we would have loved to used one of John Zhang’s 1013mm shots, but he didn’t respond to our e-mail in time. As we cue the sad trombone noise, let’s move on to the two YouTube videos of Project X. The first is our own teaser, featuring Tom’s golden quip of, “Holy shit dude, the whole exhaust is glowin’ orange!” The second was taken by an attendee of our Motor Union track/show day. Thanks for putting it on YouTube! And by the way, if the videos keep showing up over the pictures, just scroll the window a bit and they should move out of the way:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgteARWn1c8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgteARWn1c8[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZLxkeMlXVE"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZLxkeMlXVE[/ame]

If anybody has any other photos or video they’d like to add to this chapter, don’t hesitate to get a hold of us, we’ll gladly include it. Otherwise, this concludes the Project X build story, from start to finish. But it’s not really finished — the car is currently tearing up the roads of Naperville on a daily basis, so if you hear something menacing rolling up behind you, you might just find yourself face-to-face with the powdercoated steel front bumper of the meanest E53 X5 you’ve ever laid eyes upon. Let this also stand as a lesson for anybody thinking about taking a ridiculous route with your car: Modifying a car is a little bit like life — if you don’t get a little off-the-wall with it every once in a while, what’s the point? If it doesn’t suck to roll hard, you’re not rolling hard enough yet.

[Semu]

Looks and sounds absolutely killer man!

[kbuss]

those last 3 photos!!

[NeedingAnAudi]

Whatever happened to the E39?