Well with the global car market currently in freefall, its good to see that tuning is still very much alive. Instead of long drawn out paragraphs Im going to let the pictures do the talking... This is only a tiny oveview of what you can see as TAS
Drifting is still big in Japan and one of the 1st cars you saw on walking in the door was Daigo Saitos 2008
D1GP Championship winning Toyota Mark II...
...along with his 2009 D1GP car, a Ford Mustang, will it be as competitive or as consistant as the Toyota? A supercharger should keep the power up anyway
Another all new D1 car and another import - Takahiro Uenos
T&E /
TP Checker BMW335i, Id been following the build of this car on Uenos
blog, an amazing build but Im not madly impressed with the colour, looks a bit too WTCC for my liking, but as anyone in motorsport will tell you, keeping the sponsors happy is vital
But under the (carbon unsurprisingly) bonnet lies a Toyota 2JZ engine with a HKS T51R turbo, good for 650bhp. Many people have said Uenos driving was held back by the big heavy Soarer he used to drive, lets see how he does in the slightly more lightweight BMW...
Apart from import mania, the return of
A'Pexi was big news. With HKS and Trust/Greddy giving the show a miss, A'Pexi picked a good time to relaunch themselves onto the market. A good sign considering the company were rumoured to be on the verge of closing a few years ago and are now back, stronger than ever
Moving on...... (its
DAD-Co's crystal clad Mercedes SL, worth $1million)
Evil graphics on
J's Racing Honda S2000, a week after AutoSalon I visited J's so a few more photos of this car will be seen
Any
Best Motoring DVD fans will know this car,
MCR R34 GTR. With the overload of R35's there were not many older GTR's to be seen
The bodykit designs are getting worse it would seem, with this
URAS R34 GTT
Or are they?
Origin Labs OneVia
Wasnt just new stuff either, this immaculate C110 Kenmari Skyline drew many glances
As did
Impulses spotless AE86. Subtle carbon, every nut and bolt replaced, toomuch to mention
Zele 370Z, not many 370Z's at the show but this was probably the best 1 there
Rauh-Welt 's Porsche 930. A lot been done to this 1 as it is the boss's own car ie the testbed. Personally I feel Porsche tuners like RuF, Gemballa,Cargraphic and Techarts stuff is overlooked unfairly in favour of Rauh-Welt. Maybe if Rauh Welt were not Japanese....
Sticking with the Porsche theme,
RE-Amemiya had this Porsche nosed Rx-7
and this High Speed Lotus Exige themed example which won car of the show for RE-Amemiya for the second year in a row
TM-Squares pair of Suzuki Swift Sportd, I adore these cars
D1GP demo outside
R35 GTR on the
Nismo stand, where the stupidly overpriced R35 V-Spec was announced
And finally for now, my personal car of the show,
Mugen NSX RR-Concept
Kansai is one of my favourite regions of Japan, much more laid back, easy going, bit more off the wall and home to both Toyota and Honda, so we find ourselves at J's Racing, 1 of the better known Honda tuners in Japan. We had passed here in 2008 but being a Wednesday it was closed, but today its not
The crazyness of Kansai explains much of J's philosophy - extreme tuning and n/a only, their motto is 'The Xtreme Honda ride'
Loads of parts and brochures, nearly every Japanese tuner I have visited has a counter like this
Outside customers S2000, Accord Euro-R and Super Taikyu Civic Type R
A closer look at the Accord, J's make their own bodykits aswell as tuning parts, shame Accords are overpriced at home, I do like them
And the reason I visited - to see their Honda S2000 10th anniversary car and winner of the Most Outstanding Performance Award at Tokyo Auto Salon 2009
Even without the graphics J's have made the car look evil and no doubt perform just as well
From every angle its menacing and agressive, and no doubt on the tight and twisty touge roads around Osaka be unbeatable!
