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.