PREREQUISITE: CONVERSION; The parts may be greater than the whole.(News)(Andrae Singh talks about his BMW 330Ci)

Byline: RICHARD CHANG

Andrae Singh, a Queens, New York, resident and computer-store owner, is a self-described techno-geek. That's why he first got into building an audio system for his SUV, but that's as far as the mods went.

"I never really got into doing rims and things like that,'' he admitted, "it was more for practical use.''

But all that changed about a year ago, when he traded in the SUV for a BMW 330Ci. Not too long after that, he was logging an unhealthy number of hours on BMW Internet forums and hooked on the idea of tuning his car. And right away, he diagnosed a defining characteristic of BMW tuning, a pattern he didn't want to follow.

"The thing with the BMW community is that you have a lot of purists,'' Singh explained, "like people who go strictly with Hamann. I didn't want to build a catalog car. I really wanted to mix and match, but you have to be very careful to see what flows well together.''

That's why he turned to Ultima Performance, a highly respected retailer and tuner in the Japanese import scene, where the commingling of body parts, or conversion, is almost a prerequisite. Singh was friends with Ultima's owner Michael Rivera even before he owned the BMW, and he knew Ultima was trying to break into the German market (under the moniker Ultima Technik). For Singh, it was the perfect match.

"Ultima brought their ideas from the Japanese domestic market,'' he said. "They were definitely a big help, offering ideas and insights you weren't seeing from the Euro scene.''