An 18-year-old from Jacksonville is a world champion and even has the belt to prove it.
Like most champions, it took a lot of hard work, even years. It's one championship you probably haven't heard of before, but one that has the Bosque family proud and hungry for more.
If you walk into Miami Pro Audio on Jacksonville's Northside you'll find a wall of trophies. The trophies belong to 18-year-old Joel Bosque, but they're not from his University Christian football days.
“This is where it all started here," Bosque said.
Bosque spent nearly four years building a Chevy HHR.
“We originally bought it as a panel van and then we built it out, put a wall in it and built it out for competition," he said.
The trophies aren’t for the build but what’s inside -- as the decals show.
Inside each door, you'll find six eight-inch, mid-range amplifiers.
Bosque said the hardest part of the installation was probably the subwoofer speakers.
"My brother had to climb through the box to hold the motors of them up while we screwed them," Bosque said.
Bosque's been competing in car audio competitions across the country for about four years.
This year, he's earned the title and belt for the world’s loudest car in the IASCA Worldwide Welterweight Class.
“I just enjoy the music," Bosque. "I like music, you know? And I enjoy helping people and seeing everybody happy.”
Bosque said it's an ongoing project.
"You’re constantly trying to improve," he said. "We’ve probably broken it down and rebuilt it up 12 times."
As one can imagine, the car itself is loud. First Coast News reporter Nick Perreault couldn’t hear a thing standing just a foot apart from the car and that was only from the back speakers.
It's the result of a passion for audio that started young.
“Well, I actually started doing car stereo itself when I was 12," Bosque said. "I started learning from my dad, showing me harnesses first, then showing me how to wire everything up."
“I actually have to make him go home, at night," his father, Marcos Bosque, said. "He’ll come here, work on cars all hours of the night -- because he loves it -- and that’s the neat part about car audio, is that if you love it. It’s never work."
In total, Bosque estimates about $25,000 go just into the audio equipment in the car and countless hours of hard work to do the installation.
“I know how hard he worked at it and it was a big deal to me to see that," Marcos Bosque said.
While trophies are nice, dad said this is about passing down more than car audio.
“If you keep that work ethic in life, if you work hard and you do the best that you can do and keep your education in front of everything else, you’ll do well at everything that you do," Marcos Bosque said.
While he’s passed down his passion for audio, soon it will be his business.
Joel Bosque said you can count he’ll be ready to defend his title next year.