MotorMusicMag.com - The art & technology of the automobile

Vol. 01-H Cover (click on the cover for the top feature and see below for story links)

With the SEMA Show right around the corner, it's a hectic time for us--not a lot of time to plan covers! Luckily, we ran into Ernie Onate of Sound Innovations in Hayward, California a few months ago. That's when we saw the Audi RS4. We knew right away that it had to be one of our cover vehicles for '09 and we sent our photographer Carl Edwards to take care of the shoot. We've been following Ernie's work for years now, featuring quite a few of his custom cars in print and now online. His designs are always sophisticated with broad appeal. He gets all the details right and elevates a car to such a high level of customization that it's really more about creating a soul of the vehicle and not simply about adding gear and functionality. The integration of the amps in the trunk is masterful and is the obvious highlight. But the entire customization is remarkable for its radical yet somehow restrained nature.