Ruined EV: Transforming Electric Vehicles One Bagged Ride at a Time
Custom EVs Taking the Country by Storm
In early 2019, a group of Southern California Tesla enthusiasts set out to revolutionize the aftermarket scene for their beloved electric vehicles. The electric journey began when they connected on Instagram. The original group included CJ Cardinalli, the founder of what would become the nationally renowned Ruined Tesla car club.
“All the lowering springs were out, but it just wasn’t enough,” Cardinalli recounts. “We wanted to bag them.”
The Tesla customizers wanted airbags, also known as air suspension. Like a lowrider, a Tesla could lay low on the pavement with a click of a switch or a phone app. In the pre-COVID-19 days, nobody was making direct bolt-on air suspension kits for the Teslas yet. So, air suspension companies retrofitted existing parts from other vehicles onto the Tesla Model 3s.
“Air Runner did it first, and they just kind of made it work,” Cardinalli says. “And then from there, we wondered, ‘What do we need to do to bag our Teslas?’”
Cardinalli came from the import tuning and euro tuner scene in the early 2000s, when retrofitting parts onto pocket rockets was the norm. Almost 20 years later, that old-school ingenuity came in handy with his all-wheel-drive Tesla Model 3. Combined with the advent of Zoom meetings and live streaming at the palm of their hands, he, three other Southern California Tesla owners, and one up in Oregon took apart their Model 3s and went to work.
The crew was causing such an EV storm nationwide that Velasco and 12 other Ruined Tesla members were invited to represent at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) exposition in Las Vegas.
Through trial and error, the group exchanged intel on how to run the power wires, air lines, fittings, and solenoids, from the air tank mounted in the frunk or trunk to the airbags that replaced the Tesla’s struts, springs, and shocks with airbags. Then, there’s the air suspension controller or the phone app that controls the lifting and lowering of the vehicle.
After the air suspension and bags were dialed in and the deep dish wheels with stretched tires were cambered—the crew rolled out in unison, and #RuinedTesla was born in late 2019.
“We started showing up at the SoCal meets, and everyone was giving us a lot of attention and asking us questions about how to do stuff on their Teslas,” Cardinalli recalls. “We just started recruiting other guys who wanted to bag their cars, and then Ruined Teslas was basically a bagged-only club.”
Eventually, most of the crew would roll with Universal Air air suspension kits.
Cardinalli’s 2019 Model 3 was the only all-wheel drive variation in the club at the time; the others were standard two-wheel drives. Because of the mandatory stay-at-home orders in 2020, more people were customizing and bagging their Teslas at home and seeking customizing ideas online. Ruined Tesla grew to 10 members, with an addition in northern California.
Some owners vinyl-wrapped their bagged Teslas in funky colorways; others went with different colored upholstery and steering wheels. Cardinalli stepped it up, adding a booming aftermarket stereo system, a roll cage, and racing seats while continuing to share and inspire other Tesla builders online—adding more prospects to their growing crew.
…the members grew close, broke bread, and assisted one another during the four-day show. In the end, the nationwide Tesla crew members felt like family.
“And there was a guy out of New Jersey who couldn’t get into our club,” Cardinalli says.
New Jersey resident AJ Velasco grew antsy seeing the possibilities online of how his 2020 Model 3 could be and became the first East Coast Ruined Tesla rep. Velasco recounts, “So in 2020, I’m like asking CJ [Cardinalli], ‘How do I get in?’
“The first thing was to bag my Tesla,” Velasco continues. “CJ helped me a lot with understanding airbags. I had a full list of everything to do. I had wheels coming in, a body kit from Japan coming in, and I was like, CJ, this is everything I’m doing in my car.”
The agreement was that Velasco could only be a bonafide Ruined Tesla member once everything was installed and dialed in on his Model 3. So Velasco added an Artisan carbon fiber lip, side skirts, and rear diffuser, further lowering the bagged Model 3’s body lines and painting the car white. Once it was completed, for the moment, he became the first East Coast-ruined Tesla. Velasco won East Coast car shows regularly, and his car, which bears the “TESLAIR” vanity license plate, was also featured in magazines.
By 2022, Ruined Tesla rides around the country were slammed to the ground and fully built inside and out. All the vehicles cleaned up in their Tesla divisions at car shows throughout the United States.
The crew was causing such an EV storm nationwide that Velasco and 12 other Ruined Tesla members were invited to represent at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) exposition in Las Vegas. It’s one of the largest auto shows in the world, and it is challenging to get in, as a years-long vendor has to co-sign on a vehicle being at the show.
For the annual show, Velasco had 66 Customs NJ in New Jersey add a metal widebody kit, adding girth to the fenders and respraying the car ready for its near cross-country trek to SEMA 2022. The vehicle was parked at the POR-15 booth inside the Las Vegas Convention Center for the 100,000-plus attendees to see.
Many members of Ruined Tesla had met for the first time when they rendezvoused at SEMA. But the members grew close, broke bread, and assisted one another during the four-day show. In the end, the nationwide Tesla crew members felt like family.
The crew has expanded from Model 3s to other Tesla models, including the Model X (including the Plaid)—to all EV builds. There are now members in Florida, the Pacific Northwest, Texas, and Hawaii, and the crew’s new name is Ruined EV. Like their early pre-pandemic days, the crew is still about helping one another on their phones or in real life.
Cardinalli says that on paper, they had about 70 members, some of whom are either retired or no longer active.
“As far as active members, we probably have about 35 members,” he says. “We always recruit on the person and not the car. So you might have the baddest build on the planet, but if you’re an asshole you’re not going to mesh well with the group. We don’t want you.”
