What’s up everyone. Welcome back to coverage of The Chronicles 2013 visit to Japan. Hopefully you guys have been enjoying the coverage so far because there is much more to come. Like I said yesterday, I know I went to Japan with the sole purpose of attending the Tokyo Auto Salon event but the best parts of my trip actually came AFTER the show. I think you guys will really enjoy the behind-the-scenes stuff as well as all the random stuff I did in Japan. For those of you who haven’t gone, you’ll finally get a glimpse at what a trip to Japan is like and for those who have, it’ll probably be a good reminder of just how fun it really is…

Today we’re going to take a look at the close of my first day at TAS 2013. I only went two out of the three days so it was honestly a little stressful when it came to time management. We had plans on Sunday already so I really wanted to make sure I had time to walk the entire show and see everything. By the end of day one, I was a little worried I wouldn’t be able to because there were so many different halls within the show. I had been there for a couple of hours and was only able to walk through less than half of the show. There was so much cool stuff to buy as well but I was so pre-occupied with trying to cover the event that I didn’t have time to really comb through what all the vendors had to offer. The size of the Tokyo Auto Salon is very reminiscent to a SEMA event here in the U.S. but the difference is that companies actually sell goods at TAS whereas at SEMA it is mainly a display-only event. After just being there for a couple hours, I can honestly say that it really put SEMA to shame, just in terms of seeing cars that were relevant to my interests, if you know what I mean. SEMA has a great variety of stuff but I really could do without a lot of it since my interests only really relate to the modification of Japanese vehicles. TAS has a nearly endless amount of modified vehicles consisting of a variety of different styles. If it were up to me and I had just gone alone without a group of friends, I think I might have stayed the entire three days and studied a lot more of the builds. In any case, I’m very happy with the amount of coverage that I got and I think I captured what the show was all about. Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to go back in 2014 and will have more time in Japan…

For catch-up purposes, here the links below to each of the previous parts. Today will be much like Part 2, featuring only TAS show coverage but tomorrow in Part 4, you’ll get a look at what we did at the end of the day when we had a big dinner with Hiro Ueda and the guys from USDM Freax magazine…

The Chronicles 2013 Japan Trip…Part 1: Intro and TAS 2013 Coverage…
The Chronicles 2013 Japan Trip…Part 2: TAS 2013 Coverage…

Below is the rest of what I saw on day one, aka the “Premium Day”, of the 2013 Tokyo Auto Salon…

Takero’s, well-known Japanese tuner of the Honda Odyssey and other wagon platforms like the Nissan Stagea, brought out their widebody Honda Fit for display at TAS. I had seen photos of this car before online but was interesting to finally see it in person. The flares and front aero make it look incredible aggressive and though the hood wasn’t popped, the Takero’s Fit also has a custom turbo kit…

Takero’s Honda Odyssey with full carbon front end…

They also brought out this other Odyssey without a motor and half of the front end cut out and exposed. Not really sure of the purpose but maybe it’s to display their full chassis tuning capabilities…

Wild Toyota Aristo convertible conversion by VIP tuning company, K-Break….

K-Break Toyota Vellfire…

The new Lexus GS modified by K-Break…

One of the cars that I was really happy to see in person was this K-Break Toyota Celsior with Toyota Century front end conversion. The Super Street guys featured it last year after seeing it at Tokyo Auto Salon and I really wanted to check it out for myself. Love all the custom body work and the way they did the radius on the fenders to bring the overall chassis height closer to the ground…

Car Sense Toyota Crown Police Interceptor…

K-Break Y33 Nissan Cima…

Custom widebody Toyota 86 parked at the WEDSport booth…

…featuring their new full carbon (and full ugly) hybrid wheel…

Interesting yes, attractive? Noooo….

Meanwhile, Leon Hardiritt had a deep dish variation of their Gral wheel on display at their booth…

Baruta offers a new aero kit for you Subaru BRZ/Toyota 86 guys who want to make your car not look anything like a BRZ/86….

Kyushu-Danji Mitsu Evo wearing Voltex race aero…

Voltex booth at TAS 2013…

Wild VIP/Race-themed Lexus IS350C at the WED’s wheels booth….

While I was over at the WED’s booth, I noticed all the signs posted everywhere where they prohibited show goers from photographing any of their wheels. I don’t know if this was to prevent other companies from possibly getting details on their new wheels designs and stealing them but I remember XXR does a similar thing every year at SEMA because they don’t want companies knowing they stole their designs, haha…

Toyota Mark X Zio with full V-Vision aero kit. You don’t see a whole lot of these Toyota CUVs online but they’ve been around in Japan since 2007…

V-Vision Honda Odyssey…

Nissan S13 Silvia with red Volk RE30s on one side…

…and blue on the other. Not really sure what the DUB badge is all about, maybe to mimic the “USDM style”…

Also a little confusing was this S13 180SX from Central Auto. One side had a full graphical livery…

…while the other was a completely blank canvas with a entirely different rear quarter blister fender….

Wild widebody Toyota 86 posted up at the BOLD WORLD air suspension booth…

Silk Blaze Toyota 86

One of my favorite VIP cars at Tokyo Auto Salon was this Toyota Crown on Vlene aero. I just love the lines on this generation Crown and how the rear slopes. The wheels look like Work VS-XXs but they are actually Work’s new “True VIP Wheel” aka the Work Zistance W10M…

Rando Sports debuted their new Toyota 86 aero kit… You guys probably know Rando more for their Honda endeavors but they are now being smart and jumping into the 86 segment…

Really digging the new Toyota Crowns…this one is also wearing Vlene aero but on Work Wheels’ new Durandal line…

Garson D.A.D. continued their tradition of bringing out their blinged-out Mercedes convertibles…

As I stated in Part 1, van culture is fucking huge in Japan and you’ll see these Toyota Hi-Ace vans EVERYWHERE. Not many are built to these kind of specifications but they have to be the most popular work vans of Japan…

TRD Toyota 86 on Volk Racing TE37SL… I like the “finned” carbon fender grille treatment…

Toyota Vellfire van on SSR Professor SP3s at the Obayashi Factory booth…

Lexus 3GS from Final Konnexion on WED’s Maverick 508S…

This Audi TT on bright green Prodrive wheels caught my eye…

Beautifully done art mural on display at the SHOW-UP/Maziora booth…

GReddy demo Toyota 86 with Tra Kyoto Rocket Bunny aero on Enkei’s new RS05RR wheel…

Top Secret’s booth featured this R35 GTR with its famous Top Secret gold paint and Enkei SR01Mg wheels…

Also at the Top Secret booth was this Toyota 86 with molded-in Rocket Bunny aero. Not sure how I feel about this since one of the key identifying features of the Rocket Bunny kit is the individual panels and the exposed rivets that hold it in place…

Loved this highlighter yellow/green R35 GTR featured at the Phoenix’s Powers booth…

One of the most talked about builds at TAS ’13 was this old Datsun pick-up truck with complete Hakosuka Skyline front end conversion. Really unique look and one of those builds that everyone would appreciate…

Parked next to the truck was this widebody FC3S RX-7 on WED’s Kranze Cerberus II wheels…

I forgot to mention at the start of the TAS coverage that I actually walked most of the show with just May. It is pretty tough doing coverage with a whole group of people, especially since we all wanted to look at different things, so I just arranged a meeting time and place at the end of the day. After I snapped a photo of the FC3S, I realized that it was time to go since we had dinner plans so we left the hall that we were at to go meet up with everyone at the Option vehicle display area…

When May and I got back to our meeting location, we were greeted by Yasutaka Shimomukai and Beeyan Hamada from Tactical Art, as well as Takeshi Kobayashi and his friend Hideo Shingu. They had run into the others while walking the show and were all hanging out together when we got back…

Beeyan brought out his dSLR as well to snap photos…

Once we gathered up the troops, we set off from the Makuhari Messe and took a train back to our hotel. The Tactical Art guys separated from us and did their own thing while the rest of us were set to meet up with Hiro and Ken from Wek’Sos for dinner. We had no idea what we were going to eat, but we trusted Hiro with whatever he had picked. The USDM Freax magazine guys were coming out to dinner with us as well so it would be a good chance to get to know those guys…

There was a 7-11 that was walking distance from us at the hotel so we stopped there pretty much everyday to grab a drink and snacks…Here’s a quick glimpse at what a JDM 7-11 looks like. The best part about it was that they had a separate section strictly dedicated to selling hot bottled drinks so you can get anything from coffee to hot lemon tea…

A snap from outside while I waited for everyone…

Tomorrow we’re going to take a look at our dinner that night with Hiro and everyone. Some of my favorite photos from the entire trip are photos from our dinners so make sure to come back and check it out. Thanks for looking and stay tuned…