My life as Vancouverite will probably always be lived through the lens of a guy from the prairies. When I moved here from Saskatchewan, I pretty much gave up on the idea of having a garage to call my own. And with the way new developments are going, you’re lucky to even get a parking spot. To be honest, this is okay with me. I would never use a garage to its full potential and it was a small price to pay to live in my favourite city in the world.
It’s no wonder I was lulled into believing that most DIY enthusiasts lived in Vancouver’s outlying communities. It felt like you were more likely to come across a dozen Ferraris before you found a young guy wrenching on his car in a garage within the city limits. Up until a few weeks ago, I had reluctantly come to accept that late nights in a garage were all behind me. That is, until Jordan Dimoff – by sheer coincidence – realized his garage was only minutes from my place.
Tucked away in a back alley just east of what many believe to be Vancouver’s east-west divide, I found something that felt very familiar. Since property, rent and life in general are generally regarded as atrociously expensive in this city, it’s no surprise that this garage is split between three friends: Jordan Dimoff, James Kent and Marvin SantaJuana. These three make up a portion of the Good Vibes crew – although the more I hear about the Good Vibes dudes, it sounds more like an expanding network made up of vibes opposed to a crew.
The garage isn’t a huge space, but they’ve managed to cram a lot into it. They said the garage was originally chosen for its proximity to where they live, as opposed to space. I’m sure there’s some equation that demonstrates how proximity to home greatly increases productivity, but I suck at science. As the night progressed, I quickly realized that the lack of space didn’t hinder their productivity and probably even improved it. The longer something sits in the garage, the more space it takes up.
Jordan has been using this space to slowly put together his S13 while still finding time to enjoy it. Unpainted S13’s are pretty much the norm in any scene, but if you’re able to use your imagination and see where Jordan’s project ends then it isn’t hard to get excited about it. He has had the car for seven years and the more time I spend around it, the more obvious it becomes that each part has earned its place on the car – probably through necessity.
As I settled into my usual role of being somewhat useless in garages, I spent more time looking around around at all the knick-knacks, old JDM magazines and parts they’ve collected over the years.
The longer I looked, the more I kept coming back to the wheels and tires. A few years ago, this whole post would have probably been devoted to the wheels – but the sheer quantity of quality wheels is what I found most impressive.
Truth be told, we hadn’t gathered there under those Friday night garage lights to take pictures of wheels and walls. We were actually there to watch Mitchell Fleischer’s 1999 Mark II take shape.
Jordan is no stranger the JZX100 chassis as he has one that serves as his daily. And as you can tell by his coveralls, he took on the brunt of the work. Finding the appropriate ride height quickly became a game of inches.
The hours started to blend together after a while and what would usually take a few hours ended up taking much more. And what was going to be a sit-down meal turned into Mitch treating the garage to some Fresh Slice Pizza.
In the wee hours of the morning, everything was finally dialed in and the finished product became a story for another day (stay tuned!).
I still think my favourite part of the night was the night itself – just being in a garage doing car things with car friends. There’s something comforting about realizing that no matter where you go, car people tend to be the same everywhere.
Cool.. How late into the night did you guys end up working?
Hey Jett,
I kept getting in the way with the photo taking and B.S’ing. That padded the work hours for sure but I was at home by 2:00 AM.