Alpine's Steve Brown, Application R&D Engineer, Product Promotion Specialist, and Project Car Designer extraordinaire.

In Part I of our interview with Alpine Project Car Designer Steve Brown, Brown told us how he got into designing custom car A/V systems, beginning with competing with his own '76 Toyota Celica in early IASCA events, and eventually joining Alpine's prestigious project car team. Brown also walked us through his process of conceptualizing, modifying, and implementing a custom installation design, using his most recent work on Alpine's amazing 2002 Honda Civic Si as the primary example.

In Part II of our interview, Steve talks about his favorite project car designers, cars popular with enthusiasts, and the state of the showcar circuit. Plus, Steve shares some words of wisdom for aspiring custom car designers about what to strive for, and what to avoid.

The interview was conducted by Crutchfield Advisor Car A/V Editor Todd Cabell and Crutchfield Car A/V Managing Editor Michael Sokolowski at Alpine's headquarters in Los Angeles. Erin Blanton transcribed the interview.

Crutchfield Advisor: Who are some of your fellow designers whom you admire?

Steve Brown: As far as in the car audio industry, definitely Brian Schmidt [Rockford Fosgate]; Mark Fukuda [Rockford Fosgate], he's been around a long time and I've always liked his work; Fish Man. I've known Fish Man a long time, and I've watched him, and I just like his style. He has that 'I really don't care' style, 'I'm gonna do what I want'.

CA: Remind our readers who Fish Man is...?

SB: Fish Man — Dave Rivera. He got his reputation by putting fish tanks in his car. He had a Toyota Corolla way back in the day. And he's built lots of crazy cars. He built a Dodge Ram that motorizeshis big thing is motorization. He loves doing crazy motorization stuff. So, you know, the thing motorizes out, and it comes out, and it looks like a biomechanical machine kind of thing.

CA: Laughs

SB: But he's got a Montero that he had at CES last year, on which he had actually welded the rear doors shut and made it into a two-door. Then the rear doors open, and the rear opens, and there's a lot of motorized stuff coming out. Yeah, I just like his he's got a certain style, you know.

As far as [designing] the car itself, I respect guys like Chip Foose that have taken hot rod building to a really high-tech level and done some unique and different types of projects. He had a car at SEMA, and this was the talk of the show. This car was rumored to be millions of dollars to create. And it had taken several years to build, and you couldn't find anything wrong with it. It was absolutely flawless, and it was just gorgeous, the execution, the design, the style — everything was right on. It takes so much effort. I know how much effort it takes to do that, and I was blown away.

CA: So, you know how you were talking about how the [2002 Acura] RSX, that was kind of a no-brainer when that came out, because it would be a hot tuner car?

Alpine's 2002 Acura RSX

SB: Right.

CA: Then you had the [2002 Honda] Civic . . . what's the "hot" car this year?

2002 Honda Civic Si

SB: It's a tough call. As far as hot cars, I think Nissan's on a roll. They're really coming out with some cool stuff. I'd love to do a G35 coupe. Everybody's done the 350Z, that's another hot car. They've got some really nice SUVs. I'd like to do the FX45 Infiniti, I think would make a great demo car because it's just so wild looking. Just put like 26" [tires] on it, and do a crazy kit on it, cut the roof off of it, I don't know. Just do some crazy stuff to it. That would be a cool car.

CA: Some guys at Crutchfield just did a Honda Element [for NOPI Street Performance Compact magazine]. That was kind of cool.

SB: Yeah, actually the Element was one of the cars that we were really thinking about doing for this year's car. The only thing that steered us away from it is they really were trying to focus on it as a Gen-Y car. But if you look at who drives it and who's buying it, it's not Gen-Y.

CA: Moms.

SB: It's like a replacement for a minivan. Because for the money, you can't beat it. For what it does and the size, it's a great value.

CA: Good utility.

SB: Yeah, it really is. It's designed to be very usable. The interior, you can reconfigure it in a lot of ways, it's cool for that reason. It seemed almost a shame in that car to tear all the interior out, because that's kind of one of its signatures, that unique interior. So we decided, well, that probably wouldn't be the best way to go. But, you know, it's tough to decide what's going to be hot.

The Crutchfield-equipped 2002 NOPI Street Performance Compact Magazine Honda Element

I think other cars, as far as in the import tuner market, that are really hot right now are the Rally replica cars — the Subaru STI and the [Mitsubishi] Lancer Evolution. Those cars are just unbelievable, and they're great performing cars. As far as the American scene, the Dodge SRT-4, which is the turbo-charged Neon, is going to be pretty hot. The cool thing about the American manufacturers is they really get the whole tuning scene. Like when Ford introduced the Focus — the first thing they did is they took I don't know how many of those things and they gave 'em to key tuners. They said, 'develop parts for 'em.' They had parts developed for that car before it even arrived in showrooms.

I mean this year at SEMA all you saw were Ford Focuses, because they were giving them out. And that's why they have a huge amount of aftermarket parts. They really did a good job on that.

So yeah, it's tough to be able to figure out what's hot right now. I think SUVS are always going to be pretty popular. They have kind of a wide appeal. But if you're going to focus on Hot Import Nights specifically, you gotta kind of stick with the import brands. It just seems like, why go against the grain?

CA: Are you guys still pretty focused on the import tuner crowd, in terms of a target market for your demo vehicles?

SB: Yeah.

CA: I know you don't want to give away any secrets on what you guys are working on now....

SB: We decided to go a little more upscale this year, but to still keep that same [import tuner] theme. But yeah, if you're going to create cars for consumer shows, I think Hot Import Nights is still the best consumer show out there, as far as the amount of people that are in the buying mode. There's others out there, but it seems like Hot Import's done the best job of promoting itself.

CA: It's mainstream.

SB: Yeah. Exactly. Now it is mainstream, but when it started out three or four years ago nobody really knew about it. Now, they've got a lot of shows. They're doing 12 or 14 shows this year.

CA: We came out last year and went to Extreme Autofest in Pomona, and there were some amazing vehicles. That's really sort of a more cutting-edge show.

SB: Right. And you know, you see that in LA because this is kind of where that whole import scene started. You see a lot of that stuff. Import drag racing, little rinky-dink events that they have at a local track. You see that stuff all the time. And that's cool. But as far as the big shows, where you're going to put your big marketing dollars, I think Hot Import Nights is probably still where it's at. For the time being, anyway

CA: What are the best shows that you show your demo cars at?

SB: Right now Hot Import Night's by far the best, because you're creating a car for that market. And to have those guys in what I call a captive audience, because you got 'em in a little room, you can just force them to look at this stuff. It just creates a feeding frenzy type of atmosphere. Just seeing people's reaction to something you've built, having 'em go nuts over it, is a really cool feeling. I think that's probably the most fun.

You know, you go to CES [the annual Consumer Electronics Show] and you get a good reaction. But everybody at CES is pretty jaded, because they've been in the industry a long time, and they've seen a lot of stuff. Even if they see something that really impresses 'em, chances are they're not going to say anything, because they don't want to show their cards, or whatever.

But guys that are 20 years old, they'll come up and just go like "Holy &%$#, that's the craziest thing I've ever seen!" And they'll go get their buddy, this is the funniest thing — two guys'll go and come back with ten guys. And then they'll all be looking at it. And then those guys'll bring back other guys, so you'll see the same guys coming two or three different times. It's just cool to watch. It's cool to watch people being excited and having fun. It's what a car show's supposed to be about. You know, that's one thing that I've never enjoyed about, like IASCA, is that you go to the shows, and the shows are boring. Like take your girl to the show, and she's just sitting there like 'aww,' she's dying. At least at Hot Import Nights there's something to do. They've got music, they've got dancing, they've got other stuff going on, and I think that's really the key. It's a show, it's trying to get people to spend their money for a reason. If you look at some of the big names that are on board with Hot Import now, I think they're doing a good job.

CA: After years of going to, you know, sound off events, and then going to my first Hot Import Nights, I was like 'wow, people are having fun!'

SB: Yeah! Totally. That's the key, people are having fun. They're walking around smiling, and enjoying themselves. Everybody gets in their best clothes for it, and it's cool.

CA: Do you have any tips or tricks you'd be willing to share with the novice, aspiring designer or installer?

SB: Well, learn everything is the best thing I can tell 'em. When I first started out, there were really no schools or ways to learn how to do custom-type installation. Now, you've got a lot of options, and they're really dirt cheap. For fifteen hundred bucks or two thousand bucks, you can take a week-long course, and learn the skills that will take you far past what you can learn on your own. You'd spend two or three years learning it on your own. That's how long it's gonna take, and you may never get there unless you see something.

I always tell people to ask questions. Go up to people, see who built the car, ask 'em how they did that. Some guys won't tell you, some guys'll try to be secret, but most guys are pretty cool about it. Most guys'll tell you 'hey yeah, I did this' or 'I used that material,' and to this day, I'm always looking for new stuff. New materials, new processes, new procedures to make things easier. I see something that I like, and I think it's cool, I'll ask someone 'hey, what did you do there?' I've always made it a point, if anybody asks me how to do something, I'll tell 'em. You know, step by step. Like 'here's the pictures on the web site, you can see exactly how we built it.'

I get that question a lot. A lot of guys don't tell you, but I figure the techniques — once you learn the techniques, from there you have to decide what to build. That's the hardest thing. Because a lot of guys know the same techniques that we use. But it's the style, the concept, and being able to create a fully integrated car from front to rear, I think, that is the most difficult thing.

Other than that, you know, just do the right things. If you want to be in the industry, you have to kind of take steps. You have to get your name out there. You have to get noticed, whether it be through IASCA, whether it be through retail, or doing good work for customers and getting a good reputation. All the guys that I've ever met that are successful in this industry, that's what they've done. They've created a good name for themselves by doing good work, consistently producing innovative stuff. I think that's probably the best advice I can give.

CA: How about along the lines of what you see as a common mistake with people at the shows when they're really trying to impress? I know you mentioned how some people try to display all the product, and maybe cram it in, so it skews the overall effect of the design.

SB: Yeah, I think as far as design goes, a lot of guys just don't integrate with the car, or make things that look like they're supposed to be there. It's hard to describe — it's having the eye. It's like, you look at something and go, 'that just doesn't look right. I don't know what it is about it, I just don't like the way that looks in there.'

For example, if you've got a really curvy car, a curvy interior, and you put a flat amp rack in it, it just doesn't look right. It's not the style of the car. You have to look at the car when you're designing the stuff to go inside of it, to fit the style of that vehicle. So I think that's one of the mistakes a lot of people make. The techniques may be great, the fit and finish might be great, but the design I think is the most important thing. Once you figure out what you want to do, the techniques are there. I can think of anything I want to build [and] I can figure out a way to build it, one way or another. You combine techniques, do whatever you have to. With fiberglass, steel, and paint, you can build anything you want. It's just a matter of what you want it to look like. And really having that flow, that focused image in your mind of how it's supposed to be, is I think the most important thing.

CA: Admittedly, I'm a relative newcomer to the whole scene. But there appears to me to be disparate parts to it: you have the performance guys who are looking to race and to get that look. Then there are the guys who are doing the body work. And then you have guys who are doing the audio/video stuff. But, I don't know, do you see people trying to combine all that together at once? It seems like a lot of tuners, at least in my opinion, only focus on one aspect of design.

SB: Well, it's funny you should say that. Hot Import Nights in L.A. is probably the best one to go to because you really get the best cars. The cars down here are probably the cutting edge as far as the tuner market goes, I would say. But [these guys] are doing that now. You see guys who have done it all. They've got the audio/video, they've got the body, they do the engine, I mean they've got the whole package. And the best cars, the cars that win, are the ones that do all that. And they do it all well.

You're absolutely right — I think when it started out, guys wouldn't get it. They'd have the race look, but then there'd be no audio/video — they'd design it more for a race car look, and no real street appeal. Which is kind of one way to go, but for an overall show car, you really have to have the best of everything. You have to have the big brakes, you have to have the engine work, the wheels, the body kit, the paint, the custom interior.

Now the custom interior stuff has gotten to a point that's just crazy. You look at the Civic. That car's got, you know, the wide body kit, twenty thousand dollars worth of airbrushing on it, the suspension, the engine stuff, the nitrous, and then of course all the interior stuff on top of it. So that's one of the things that really gets the most attention out at Hot Import Nights. Some guys really aren't into the inside stuff. They're not into the audio/video stuff. But they love the center-drive, because they've never seen that before. They love the wheels, they love the brakes, they love the fact that it's got airbrushing and crazy designs on the side of the car. People like it for different reasons. But it's got something for everybody, I think, and that's really the key.

CA: So, approaching a car this year, how do you top yourself?

SB: [laughs]

CA: Or does that even bother you? As you say, like the artist looking at a slab of granite and seeing something in it, do you pick the car and then kind of see what's in it? Or do you do some of the designing ahead of time?

SB: Yeah, you know, I come up with a design first, usually. I usually have a couple designs in my head that I want to build. And by design, I mean a general concept. There's always that one thing in a car that makes it special, that makes it different. In the Civic, the center-drive was one of those things, but I think what most people respond to is that cage amp rack. Everybody likes that thing. We always leave it forward at the show, because then people ask 'well, how do you get in it?' And you show 'em, and they're like 'yeah, ok, now it totally makes sense.'

We were treated to a tour of Alpine's project car facilities. (Clockwise, starting at the upper left): Crafting custom subwoofer and speaker enclosures. A look at the bay. Brown has labeled and even numbered the tool cabinets. The woodshop.

And this car we're building now is the same way. It's got a central concept — there's one thing in that car that makes it different than any other car you'll ever see. And that's what I like to do. I like to have one really different element. I've got a couple of those things in my head, and next year — I've even got an idea for next year that's gonna be, I mean it's gonna be wild. Who knows if it's gonna be wilder than this, but it's different, and that's the thing.

The reason that people like the Civic, and they say 'oh, it's the best car I've ever seen' is that it's got stuff that they've never seen in it before. And I think that's really the key. You have to make people see something they don't always see. Because let's face it, there's a lot of nice cars out there. And the fiberglass work, the paintwork, everybody's doing it. You have to take those elements and combine them in a way that people haven't seen. And I think that's what really gets people's attention.

Mike Vu led us on a tour of the installation bay where he and Brown are creating the newest Alpine project car.

CA: So are you doing the cars by yourself now, or do you have a partner?

SB: No. Mike Vu has been with us, let's see, about four or five months now. He's been involved from the beginning on this new project that we're working on, and he's awesome. When Chris [Yato] left, I was like 'well, OK, I'm going to be able to train somebody and get him up to speed, but it's going to take some time.' And I didn't want to jeopardize this year's project, because there's so much pressure to make something that can top the Civic. So I thought, I don't know how it's going to be, but we hired him and it's just been awesome.



Mike's got all the skills, that's the key thing. He was building these type of cars at Al and Ed's Autosound. He was actually building their corporate demo cars. But the systems he was doing were smaller — one-month, two-month systems were really all the time they would give him, and all the budget. But all the elements were there, and when I saw one of the cars he had built, I was looking at the workmanship and the detail, and I thought 'this guy would be perfect on a big project.' He's got all the skills, he just needs to combine them all on one thing that takes six or seven months to build. He's working out great. I just love it. It's fun for me again, you know, it's fun to come to work, it's fun to be at work, and do my thing again, and it's been great.

CA: What kind of budget do you guys get to do a project car?

SB: Well, the labor is salary between us two, so that doesn't count. Usually the car we get for free, and even if we have to buy the car, we get it out of a different budget. So the budget only has to be product and all the materials and supplies we use on the car. Also we trade a lot, we get freebie stuff. After people saw the Civic, I had guys calling just begging to put product on the next car we built. They saw the appeal of that car, and all the magazines and all the press [coverage]. We estimated that the Civic, if you look at the average advertising rate times the amount of pages it was in, it was like three hundred thousand dollars worth of advertising, if you had had to buy it. So it's a good return on investment for us.

We buy all the product at our cost, so the product is relatively cheap for us. A lot of it we don't even buy because it's sample product, or stuff that's brand new for CES. Really what it boils down to is materials and supplies, and you know, that stuff is expensive but it's not ridiculously expensive. Really, what gets expensive on those cars is the labor. If you have like the Civic built in the shop, you can't really build that car for less than two hundred grand, two hundred-fifty grand, because of all the labor. Even at a dirt-cheap labor rate, there's like three thousand, 3500 hours of labor in that car. It just takes so much time to build. And that's why you don't see private guys coming out with those things. Cause it would take you three or four years to build something like that, and by the time you got done, it still might not turn out the right way.

The only thing I can really compare it to is like hot rod building. In hot rods, you see some of these cars that have taken years to build, and that have thousands and thousands of hours in just completely renovated bodies, custom steel fabrication to get the body to look right, custom interiors, engine stuff. Those are some of the cars that really are several hundred thousand dollars, sometimes millions of dollars to build. There's definitely cars out there, you just don't see it as much on the car audio side.

CA: Sounds like you have a great job.

SB: It's fun. It's hard to complain. I tell ya, there's always things, issues and stuff, [as with] any company you're gonna work at. But Alpine's great, because they give us the time and the budget to do it. They don't bother us, you know, they let us get it done, which I think is really the key. From what I've talked about with other guys, it doesn't work like that at other places. Look at all the manufacturers that really build their own cars. There's us [Alpine], there's Rockford, you know, a few other ones that do smaller stuff. As far as the really top-notch cars, there's really very few manufacturers that do it in-house. Because it takes a pretty good-sized investment. Just the installation bay alone, the maintenance, keeping it up to OSHA standards, keeping it supplied, and the tools and —it's expensive. It takes a lot. But we've decided that it's absolutely critical for Alpine, you know, as a premium brand to have premium demo cars. And the only way we can do that is in-house and so that's what we do.

CA: You get to focus on it.

SB: Absolutely.

Under wraps — Alpine's 2004 project car is a closely held secret.

Until CES 2004
Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for the unveiling of Alpine's latest project vehicle at CES this coming January. We were fortunate enough to get a sneak peek at it, and we can safely say that Steve Brown and Mike Vu have no need to worry about disappointing any fans of last year's Honda Civic Si installation. Trust us, this thing's gonna knock you out!

We would like to thank Steve Brown for accommodating our schedule and giving up several hours of his time for this interview and a subsequent tour of Alpine's installation bay. We would also like to express our gratitude to Steve Witt, Vice President of Marketing, Alpine-USA, for his help in setting up our visit to Alpine's headquarters in Los Angeles. Thanks also to Mike Vu, Steve's partner on Alpine's latest project vehicle, as well as to Steve Piceno, a Product Marketing Specialist with Alpine.