Tearing up Los Angeles with unstoppable force, father-and-son team Lee and Dylan Coleman are obscuring the Hollywood hills with a haze of tyre smoke. And the latest build from their company, StreetFighter LA, is out to put a few purist noses out of joint…
The father-and-son motif is a rich seam that’s run through Hollywood from time immemorial. From Catch Me If You Can, to Field of Dreams, Indiana Jones to Finding Nemo, the bond of dad and lad has always been one to tug on the heartstrings. And here we have our very own modern Hollywood tale. Two petrolheads, separated by a generation but bonded by DNA, hailing from that iconic dream-factory town and out to set the world afire with their own unique blend of automotive adventure and misbehaviour.
The key protagonists here are Lee Coleman – VP at Hollywood’s-own Viacom by day, caped crusader of awesome engineering by night. And his son Dylan, a dyed-in-the-wool motorpunk with a keen understanding of what it takes to break necks, take names, and generate infinite likes and shares by the purist act of driving really fast in painfully cool cars.
Between them, they’ve forged a new industry powerhouse – StreetFighter LA – and their latest build, as you’ve probably deduced, was specifically engineered to get tongues wagging. A BMW, painted a Skyline colour, running Skyline oily bits? Yep, that’s a really good way to enrage two separate cliques of fans. But no-one ever gained notoriety by being meek and unassuming, did they?
Lee is endearingly coy when we ask him where his passion for modifying came from. “That’s all so long ago it’s ancient history,” he laughs. “But it all began with old Mustangs, and I used to be into bikes too, we were always tuning them to make them faster. And I’ve been a Porsche fan for years. But the really interesting part of the story came when my son Dylan turned 16, and I bought him a BMW 3-Series. He modded it to all hell! Seriously, it was incredible the ideas that went into that car, working with Long Tran at LT Motorwerks. The fire was always in the blood, and when I saw what a keen eye Dylan had for making a car pop, along with Long’s expertise, I knew we could be onto something.”
Fast-forward a couple of years and StreetFighter LA was firing on all cylinders. A multi-faceted automotive media colossus, drawing inspiration from drift, street, track, skaters, bikers, all kinds of scenes.
Taking cues from the likes of Rocket Bunny and Liberty Walk, the Colemans were keen to create something in that popular vein, but with their own unique spin – all CAD-designed in-house and artfully showcased at big-name events. Events like SEMA. And if you’re going to stroll into SEMA, it makes sense to swagger in swinging something with a bit of provenance…
“I was looking for another project to start after we parted with our #ProjectHulk Liberty Walk Challenger,” Dylan explains. “I’d come from a BMW background and…
Want to know more? Check out the full feature on Lee and Dylan Coleman’s BMW M3 in Fast Car magazine issue 381 on sale now in all good shops or alternatively download Fast Car magazine 381 now.
