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At the second Taiwan “Speed & Crafts Locomotive Modification Crafts Exhibition” that just ended last weekend, 48 groups of top manual modification experts from all over Taiwan were gathered to compete for three major awards, namely “Performance Group”, “Halley Group” and “Infinite Modification Group”, among which the competition is the most fierce.
After three days of selection, GDCustom finally won the championship of the Infinite Modification Group. At the same time, he also won five special review awards from Masayuki Sugihara and Harley-Davidson Taiwan, the manager of Japanese legendary master Luck Motorcycles. The value of his works can be seen.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Gdqun specially invited Howard to conduct an interview with us. In addition to recounting his experience of investing in handmade modified vehicles, he also shared some of his insights on this culture. Interested readers may wish to watch it with us.
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Can you give me a simple introduction first?
Hello everyone, I am Howard, the label manager of GDCustom. After graduating from high school, I wanted to fill in industrial design for my first choice in college. As a result, my family asked me to study in the Department of Architecture. Finally, after dropping out of the Department of Architecture, I came to change my car when I was 31 years old because I like handmade cars very much.
How long has it been invested in manual car modification?An opportunity to create GD Custom?
In fact, since high school, I have been approaching this circle as a player, until I opened a tavern in 2019. G represents Gungnir, which is the spear of Odin in Norse mythology. It is said that he made every move. I hope to plan carefully in everything I do to achieve 100% goals. D represents Darts, and C represents Corner. The starting point at the beginning was to hope that in a corner of the city, friends who were playing cars could have a stronghold to simply modify, raft, eat, drink and get together, so we had the first GDC. It was not until the end of 2023 after the epidemic that it was really because of the serious losses and the focus of my focus was getting on the car, so I decided to take down the restaurant and start focusing on the modified car. So I still called it GDC, but Corner became Custom!
When did you find your favorite modification style?
To be honest, I am very greedy. After all, it has only been 2 years since I officially started to change the car. I still want to try more styles before I can decide, but this is indeed the first issue I need to consider in the future.
What are the essential elements do you think a good modified car needs to have?
Actually, I think it is difficult to define what a “good” modified car is, but it is very important for me to be able to know the purpose of the customers first. For example, practicality, display, competitive and even what styles you like, etc. After understanding these clear purposes, a car tailored for customers can make them like to ride, which is a good car.
Can you see that Shawn Yue has given you great inspiration and help, and can you share any stories that impressed you during this process?
I have to have a Bole before there will be a thousand-mile horse. This is my biggest feeling for Brother Le. Before I changed Harley, Brother Le handed over his three cars to me one after another and sponsored me to participate in this competition. I was really flattered and worried about whether he liked my works. But when he came to the scene on the first morning of the competition, he told me in person that he liked it, which was enough. Whenever the most profound thing is when delivering the car, he looked at the car and said that the moment he liked was the happiest thing.
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Can you share the conception and modification process of the award-winning works from scratch?
This car was born entirely for the competition, and the owner only asked for Chopper style, and the rest allowed me to play freely. In fact, with such a high degree of freedom, it is relatively difficult. In addition to achieving a large-scale modification in the competition, I hope the owner will like it in the end. I learned about my personal preferences by helping the owner to modify the first two cars and picked out some elements from them, such as imitation, casting, handmade, etc. After these clues, heavy industrial equipment appeared in my mind, so I began to study the making methods, elements, coatings, and hardware of old heavy industrial equipment, and finally connected these elements to the car to create this “BRAMMOX”!
What is the biggest difference between the competition car and the customized car commissioned by the customer for you?
For me, different purposes will create different needs. In addition to showing design concepts, racing cars also need to show the role of craftsmanship skills, so they will be relatively more ostentatious or exaggerated. The ultimate requirement for customized cars commissioned by customers is to make them comfortable when riding under the beauty and try to be restrained and durable so that they can be used as commuter cars. The biggest difference should be in the above places.
What's the biggest change for you after winning the championship?
Regarding this issue, I must be honest. I am actually slowly experiencing the changes brought by this matter, but the changes in my heart are that I really have many things that I still need to learn, and I should speed up and improve myself.
Finally, is there anything you want to say to Gdqun readers?
I want to share with all my friends that I love things I don’t think it’s too late to start at the age of my life!
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GDQUN ，gdqun.com