Tokyo Auto Salon 2012 Coverage…Part 3…The Finale…


We observed the largest internet strike of our history yesterday to fight the SOPA/PIPA Act and from how things look so far, the strike was worthwhile. You can do much more reading about it and the effects the strike had on the country but today we are going to get back into the swing of things. I don’t want imposed my beliefs about stuff that’s not directly related to The Chronicles so feel free to do more reading on the SOPA/PIPA stuff at your own convenience. The site was blacked-out from 8am – 8pm EST so I didn’t get a chance to update with the concluding portion of our Tokyo Auto Salon 2012 coverage. Today we will see the final batch of photos that were provided by our friends over at Tactical Art Japan and I will also include some photos from the parking lot of TAS 2012 that were supplied by Koji Karamata. Part 3 will have more photos from the previous two posts because I felt like it would be better if I just closed out the coverage today instead of extending it an additional day. It would have just been a small amount of photos anyways so there was no point into making a separate post. ..

Gonna kick it off today over at the Project Mu section where they had all of their baller brake set-ups on display…I totally forgot that Project Mu had lug nuts in their product line-up until I saw this photo…

Here’s their new Project Mu Monoblock 4-piston brake calipers… They aren’t coated like the usual Project Mu brakes and have a very distinct “MONO” engraving on the face of the caliper itself…There’s no price tag yet because this shit is probably worth more than the car you’re building…haha…

Subaru STI sedan with-said Project Mu Monoblock brakes….

Over at the Rays Engineering area, you will notice a whole new line-up of Gram Light wheels as well as new Volk Racing wheels…

Rays had this Lexus LF-A on hand with a new set of Gram Light 57Extremes in blue…

You can see the rest of the Gram Light line-up here. I didn’t think that the Gram Light line was all that popular compared to Volks but judging from this display, Rays has invested a lot of money into this particular line…

Mad Mike’s D1 Spec FD3s RX-7 that he will be campaigning in 2012 in Japan…This one also on Gram Light 57Extremes…

Toyota Prius Hybrid Super GT race car…

HKS brought out their wild Toyota Veilfire democar for display at their section… Standing next to the Veilfire is Keisuke Morita, an HKS Sales Engineer that we met last year during the SEMA 2011 show in Las Vegas along with the Tactical Art guys…

They had this hole implemented into the fender where you could peek inside…

…and see their HKS Hipemax III coilover system lit up with bright white LED lighting. Pretty cool idea that you will never see done over here because people aren’t done to put holes in their fenders…

This is the same HKS Supercharged S2000 that was at the SEMA show in 2011…Pretty crazy that they had the car shipped back and forth when they could easily just install another HKS supercharger on a S2000 in the states…

The HKS exhaust system on the S2000…

HKS Hipermax III coilovers…

HKS GT Supercharger for the S2000 off the car and on display…

HKS header with dyno numbers for the AP1…

The new HKS F-CON IS piggyback engine management system…

HKS also debuted their new DMR-150D Direct Multi Recorder system…If you’re interested in what this system is all about, click the link here…

A better shot of the Toyota Veilfire van…

GReddy fixie…

Subaru STI sedan on display for Blitz…

Tokyo Auto Salon 2012  marked the debut of RE Amemiya’s latest FD3s project, dubbed the “Super NA7″…More shots of this wild RX-7 over here on Speedhunters…

The R-Magic RX-7 displayed at the Exedy booth…

FD2 CTR race car from M7 Japan…

Ridiculous looking Toyota Crown Japanese Police cruiser from Car Sense…Say what you will about this car, but it was meant to be off-the-wall ridiculous. It’s just a display vehicle for a shop so I don’t know why people are going so crazy about it online and talking about how it doesn’t function. What the fuck do you think it’s for? It’s not a real police car and hell, it probably doesn’t roll anyway…

Just fucking nuts…

S15 Silvia from Okuyama/Carbing…

Evo X also from Okuyama/Carbing…

One of the most unattractive air boxes I’ve ever seen for any car, haha…

They removed the doors to display the cage and interior…

Endless Porsche Super GT race car looking great with the classic Endless livery…

Pink metallic 2GS from K-Break…

A couple other K-Break VIP cars on display…the sedan to the left is actually a Toyota Celsior with a Toyota Century front end conversion…

K-Break Y33 Nissan Cima…

Appropriate to have a bunch of Japanese dudes in suits standing by the car…

Ferrari 458 Italia race car…

Great detail in this interior, whether you like floral patterns on everything or not…

STI version of the Subaru BRZ…

Subaru BRZ Super GT race car…

Towards the end of the day, Yasutaka Shimomukai from Tactical Art (aka the guy who took these photos) ran into a couple familiar faces. Ken and Adam from Wek’Sos/Wekfest were also in Japan for TAS 2012 and they got together for a photo-op… Oh it’s also Yasutaka’s birthday today as well so a big happy birthday shout-out to him. Super Street magazine is visiting them today and Tactical Art has also organized a little Civic meet over at their shop…

Well, that marks the end of the coverage that was provided by Tactical Art. The photos below are from my other source, Koji Karamata, and are mostly photos that I felt you should see from the show that Yasutaka missed as well as some photos from the parking lot. Judging from the photos I saw, the parking lot at TAS 2012 should have been a show in itself with all the nice cars out there… Anyways, here are the pics…

I didn’t even know Rando Sports was still around but apparently they are and they brought out this new Evo X…

A better shot of the RE Amemiya Super NA7…

Another RE Amemiya beauty with Porsche headlights and custom RE Amemiya aero… I love how they did a gradual fade into the exposed carbon on the hood..Just an amazing looking car. RE Amemiya is just one of those companies that has been quietly killing it throughout the years with amazing product and the world doesn’t know that much about them because they have a very specific demographic (RX-7 owners)…

Another shot of the FD2R from M7 Japan…

GReddy’s BenSopra R35 GT-R…this one has to be the best looking of the three at TAS 2012…I love what they did with the burnt titanium look on the gills behind the front wheel…$40,000 for a aero kit is fucking crazy but man, it drastically changes the look of the GT-R…

Akira Nakai from Rauh Welt debuted his newest Porsche project, deemed the “Spearmint Rhino”…I’m sure it has to be a recent inspiration of his from his trip out to Las Vegas last  year…Peep the Fatlace/Illest booth at TAS 2012, Mark is doing it BIG these days…

Now onto some parking lot shots…

Love how simple this Toyota Chaser/Mark II is…I would rock this shit ALL DAY…

Everytime I see a Toyota Celsior built like this it makes me regret owning a Y33 Q45…haha… Man, I love it. If I saw this thing while I was in Japan for TAS, I don’t think I would have gone inside because I’d be staring at this car all day…

I also really liked this Toyota Crown on BBS LMs…

Not sure what these vans are but they look pretty sick…I’ll take either or, don’t matter…

I’d have to do something about the exhausts though…haha but everything else is perfect. I just like how they are all parked perfectly next to eachother. I wonder if they practice this and just go everywhere in perfect symmetry…

This on the other hand, is hideous…cool yes, in a old man creepy way, but totally hideous…

I noticed that in a majority of the photos, there are people sleeping in their cars…The Japanese must be big on afternoon naps, haha. In reality though, preparing for such a huge event like this probably would take a lot out of anyone…

Closing out all three parts of the TAS 2012 coverage of possibly my favorite car of the show, and it wasn’t even inside… This Nissan Skyline 2000GT is on point! Everything about it is just money…

That’s all for today…thanks for looking and I hope  you have all enjoyed the overseas coverage of Tokyo Auto Salon 2012…Thanks to Yasutaka Shimomukai from Tactical Art for making it possible!

Thanks for looking…

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2 comments

  1. love the parking lot shots. i look forward to the parking lot coverage every year.
    thanks for this year’s TAS coverage!

  2. those vans with the 100 on the plates are honda step wagons 🙂

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