DATWAGN Update – Air Ride + BBS RS
I featured Sean’s B7 A4 Avant back in April of last year, and he recently debuted an entirely new look that is worthy of an update – so without further adieu, I present to you the new and improved DATWAGN v2.0.
His extensive list of updates include:
- Slant-lipped BBS RS 17”-18” faces, 10” front. 10.5” rear. Offsets are a secret but i can tell you they’re very close to 0
- Full Airlift Suspension with V2 autopilot. 5 gallon polished tank, dual 444c compressors hidden in the spare wheel well
- Custom hardline and hardwood trunk set-up all done by Blayne Glass at Janky Garage in El Cajon
- Custom 034 control arms in the front and rear. They were shortened to get more camber.
- Rear fenders were custom widened by 2m Autowerks to tuck the rear wheels.
- Full respray in Ibis White, shaved the sidemarkers on the front bumper, did a full debadge in the rear.
The revamp of Sean’s avant was inspired by picking up a set of BBS RS wheels (mentioned above) and quickly learning they wouldn’t fit without some extensive work, as shown below. Sean tried getting them to fit through camber and rolling the fenders, but long story short, the wheels wouldn’t fit.
On top of the bad news the wheels wouldn’t fit, Sean’s car got keyed while sitting in his own driveway. Making lemons out of lemonade, Sean brought his car to 2M Autowerks to have them repaint the car, and while he was there – do whatever fender modifications necessary to make the rear 10.5 wheels tuck. 2M pulled the fenders then did body work to recreate the fender line, giving it an OEM look much like the RS4. It was a long wait of almost 2 months, but well worth the wait.
Then bad luck struck again, and on the drive home Sean cracked the right front BBS barrel. It was clear that a static suspension with the wheels wasn’t going to work well for Sean, so he hit up Cloud 9 Automotive Brand / Sparky Mark (aka @sparkyvw on IG) and got a killer deal on a full Airlift kit. For the install, Sean brought the car to Janky Garage and his friend Blayne was given creative control over the trunk setup as long as it had a wood floor and a clean hardline setup, and Blayne didn’t disappoint:
While the car was getting air installed, Sean also had the BBS wheels rebuilt with new gold hardware and a repolish to get them looking perfect. It was a long journey, but Sean finally got his car back.
Sean would first and foremost like to thank Blayne Glass, owner of Janky Garage, for all of the great work on the air ride, wheels, and suspension. Janky Garage is a small business in El Cajon and Sean can’t recommend them highly enough to those in the SoCal area. He’d also like to thank 2M Autowerks for the body work, Jacob Beal (@jacobversus on IG) for the photography, and Jas Canfield (@JasCanfield) for the last photo with Sean at regular ride height that got some great exposure on Instagram over the holidays, as you might imagine:
More pics: