HISTORY
It all started when…
I started filming car “how to” tutorials on YouTube in 2011 with my JVC Camcorder and my first car, a World Rally Blue Subaru Legacy wagon with gold wheels and a DC sticker on the bumper as I started to teach myself at age 16 how to start working on cars. Videography and my desire to learn more about cars eventually collided as two passions giving birth to Zwingfilms! After mowing all of my neighbors grass with my parents lawn mower, I was able to afford that first car & my first DSLR camera, a Canon Rebel T1i that filmed 720p HD video! I filmed rap music videos at my community college, weddings, some video journalism - but I especially took a lot of photos trying to learn the ins and outs of photo + video from long exposure night photography & hanging out of car windows capturing friends drive by.
I wanted to incorporate some personal branding by merging my full name Zach Wingfield into the brand Z-Wing-films (pronounced “Zwing”). For the first 3-5 years the primary focus was videography and commercial film production which enabled me to travel the world filming in some incredible places with some prestigious brands! Below is a couple videos that will show you.
With my efforts bringing 110% to each film I made I managed to build a brand leaving a big impression on our audience that was recognized globally. People from all around the world paid to represent our brand on their very own cars and some of them are pretty amazing!
Pictured above is YouTube Legend Casey Neistat rocking the zwingfilms logo
As time went on I decided the ultimate way for me to grow is to drop films from the logo and grow ZWING as the sole brand leaving it a double entendre and ultimately a now conglomerate with a list of subsidiary brands and products.
Pictured to the right is the #1 and most decorated skater in the world Nyjah Houston! This was taken after filming a tour demo during an Element skate event in QLD Australia in 2015!
As time went on
I was always working on my own cars while filming others and we decided to pursue a serious full on SEMA build turning a lot of my automotive film clients into sponsors which lead to greater opportunities of growing our YouTube channel down the road.
As my passion grew more and more for cars - the focus took more of a turn away from production for clients and putting more energy into documenting builds of my own.
SLEIGHING SEATTLE FULL VIDEO
After filming so many super car rallies
I decided that I was properly equipped to market an event with good video production to help grow the brand, and possessing insider knowledge working so closely with so many different rally coordinators which helped me to create and promote my own!
We finally had a proper work space and environment with all the right tools to maintain and build on more of our own projects and then we eventually started to take on customers.
This gave us the opportunity to have a shop that fueled my passion for drifting and we now compete on a semi professional level!
Thus came the birth of ZWINGRALLY -
6 months of planning later we actually did it and it was a blast! Can’t wait for future events to be planned! For now our focus is on growing the YouTube channel to supplement this in the future.
Despite Zwingrally being the success that it was. simultaneously we were in the process of opening our very own performance shop to keep the drifting program alive..
We opened a Performance Shop in downtown Seattle!
During this process I started taking on a lot of customers in the shop to continue to fuel my developing passion for drifting..
To further market our shop we decided to build a car that helped showcase some of our abilities leading us to TRANSFORM my personal E30.
October 2019 / November 2019
Covid (plandemic) happened..
This created a heavy financial burden on my business..
Whatever film client jobs I had lined up were cancelled, customers weren’t coming in to the shop as often, and our main title sponsor’s company went bankrupt.. slowing down our drift program, and making affording my overhead near impossible. Despite this we continued to compete in drift competitions to keep the brand alive and one day we came back to a 30 day notice after the property management changed and I spent 9 months searching for a new home for my business. What happened next was a huge blessing
I expanded into a new shop triple the size!!
The best part is that it’s commercially zoned on 1.5 acres of land & comes with a 3 bedroom house!
Currently working to get back on our feet in a building that might be twice the overhead, but has three times the capacity for building wealth and getting back on our feet.
I hope you consider planning a visit sometime to drop your car off and get some work done by myself and my team.
Thanks for Reading :)