My Adventures in Japan 2019… Part 2…


It’s currently 4:17 AM, I’m half asleep but also still need to pack for Hawaii, so I’ll just go ahead and leave these photos for you here to view. As mentioned in Part 1, I decided to take a different approach this year with my photos from Japan. Instead of dividing them into what we did or what shops we visited, I thought it’d be cool to just display them all collectively without any separation in an attempt to tell a better story of our trip through visuals. Of course I’m going to continue to tell you what I did while I was there but I wanted to present the photos seamlessly, as I feel it would just have a much more personal feel to it once you go through it, not knowing what will come next. So far, the reviews and comments have been overwhelmingly positive and I’m happy with the content flow lately. Hopefully you feel the same. Meanwhile I got a flight to catch soon so let’s pick things up right where we left off in Part 1 over at the Makuhari Messe event center for the 2019 Tokyo Auto Salon…

Enjoy…

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Car Modify Wonder was back once again this year with some new aero pieces for their RPS13 180SX democar…

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Car Modify Wonder Glare 180SX from the rear with their 30mm rear blister fender with their over-fenders mounted on top…

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Car Modify Wonder Glare Kouki S14 Silvia featuring their complete aero package…

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30mm rear blisters and 30mm front wide fenders allowing for plenty of room to house the new Work Emotion T5R 2P wheels…

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Varis Magnum Opus Lexus LC500 coupe with their new compressed carbon fiber aero pieces…

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One more of the Car Modify Wonder 180SX from the side…

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The new FK8 Civic Type R seems to be getting more popular in Japan, here was one on display at the Varis booth featuring their new aero add-ons…

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Kuhl Racing and Rohan brought out their 1958 Chevy Impala with Continental kit and their mind-boggling engraved ‘metal paint’ which was also displayed late last year at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas…

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Kuhl Racing R35 GTR with some fantastic air brush work and their new Verz-Design wheels lines…

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Sitting firmly on stage with Kuhl Racing aero and Verz-Design KCV-01 wheels

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The Pandem display was pretty unique this year showcasing their new W201 Pandem widebody kit, an E30 Pandem-equipped coupe, Racing Padock Miyoshi’s neon green/yellow FC3S RX-7, and the Pandem Datsun pick-up truck…

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Pretty cool to see Kei Miura’s personal E30 that was built in the U.S. by LTMW, on display in Japan at the Pandem booth…

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Can’t stop talking about how much I enjoy the Pandem aero for the FC3S chassis. This one from Racing Padock Miyoshi definitely stood out like a sore thumb with its paint under the bright spotlights…

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I had already shot a photo of this Hakosuka from HPI earlier on in the day (As seen in Part 1) but I just couldn’t resist after seeing that they had popped the hood on the car…

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Under the hood was a L-series engine with bright gold horns for the carburetor…

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N-Stage widebody S15 Silvia on Work Zeast wheels…

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Under the hood of the S15 reveals a custom shaved and tubbed engine bay housing a naturally-aspirated SR20DE engine…

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The 326power display booth was massive this year hosting a slew of custom vehicles…

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Prominently displayed front and center was Yuya Goto’s 326 R35 GTR…

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Liberty Walks’ new widebody kit for the Toyota 86…

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I gotta admit, it was pretty cool to see a Super GT Supra sans graphics…

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1990 Fujitsu Ten Supra race car, displayed alongside many other Toyota racing legends…

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2001 Au Cerumo Supra in their traditional orange and silver colorway…

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2007 Toyota Supra HV-R Hybrid featuring a 3UZ-FE with Inwheel front electronic motors…

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I always really liked the ESSO Ultraflo liverys because they usually feature a tiger right on the side but was a little bummed to see that the Supra on display didn’t have it…

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All the older legendary Supra race cars were on display because Toyota and Gazoo Racing decided to bring out their new Supra concept car…

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One of the builds that people kept telling us to go check-out was the 4Laws full carbon fiber bodied Porsche 911. We had no idea where it was parked and almost forgot about it until we randomly stumbled upon it…

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To say that this Porsche was impressive would be the ultimate understatement. The quality of work and the simplicity of it all made it perhaps the sleeper hit of the entire TAS event this year…

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One can never go wrong with the combination of RS Watanabe R-Type wheels and Yokohama Advan rubber. Being able to have it tuck under a carbon body is also noteworthy…

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It was so good I had to get another shot before we left Tokyo Auto Salon…

Sara and Brandon had already been in Tokyo a few days before we arrived but they went snowboarding somewhere and we didn’t see them until they got back. We didn’t know what to eat so we let Sara decide and of course, she picked one of her favorite things to eat… Pork Shabu…

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This particular spot was interesting in that they served the Shabu in a very unique way by layering the meat on top of some vegetables along the rim edge of the Shabu broth….

I myself enjoy Beef Shabu over pork but Sara doesn’t eat beef anymore so you just gotta compromise. This place was delicious as well so there were no complaints from any of us…

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Brandon and Sara while we waited for the food to cook..

The following day, we went back to Tokyo Auto Salon for Day 2 but left a little earlier so that we could make the 1-hour drive over to another city in Tokyo to check out the Spoon Sports Kampachi Auto Salon event. This is the second year that Spoon has done this event and it serves as a way to bring people over to Type One to not only check out their facility, but also to meet Tatsuru Ichishima…

Spoon Sports is always an interesting time so I was excited to see what this year’s gathering would be like…

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The front of Spoon Sports Type One, with some mild rain to set the mood…

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Who would have thought that one day you’d look inside Type One and see a FK7 Civic SI on the dyno…

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A shot into the inside of the first floor of Type One captured through the window of the engine building room…

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The famed Spoon Sports E-AT Civic Group A race car…

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I thought it was pretty cool that they were playing an old Spoon Sports video on a TV next to the AT Civic…

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Anybody notice anything odd about this angle of the Spoon AT Civic?…Hmm I can’t quite put my finger on it…

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The ZC DOHC engine inside the AT Civic…

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Gutted interior with just one single seat and Spoon Sports steering wheel…

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Caught a glimpse of the very old, probably orignal, Spoon Sports decal on the roll cage of the AT Civic…

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A bit of an odd place to put the Spoon Sports certification plaque but whatever…

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Please Keep Your Safty Driving!”

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A couple of Spoon Sports supporters watching the old Spoon VHS tape…

We stayed at the Spoon Sports event for a few hours but then we had to leave to head to yet another part of Tokyo, Akihabara, for a secret Level One Japan meet at the UDX Akihabara parking structure. This was the one spot I tried to host my meet at back a couple years ago but the police were not happy about it at all and shut it down before it could even happen. The Level One Japan guys, who are a car crew from that area, wanted to hold a smaller meet that wouldn’t be overrun by a bunch of annoying assholes and as such, invited only friends and fellow enthusiasts who were familiar with them…

The turnout that evening was great, especially since we also all got together to celebrate Yuta’s birthday that evening…

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The first car that caught my eye while walking around the UDX parking lot was this Honda NSX hosting aero parts from both Sorcery and Marga Hills…

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This R33 Skyline was pretty spectacular, sitting nice and low on black Work Meister wheels and Endless brakes…

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Another NSX that was at the meet pretty early on in the evening parked next to a custom blue BMW 3-series with big flares and an interesting side-exit exhaust pipe…

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This Subaru on bronze Volk TE37V Mark II wheels had the best spot of the entire meet, parked right near the elevator with some bright LED lights that really helped to create some good ambiance for the private gathering…

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Hiroki’s Mugen SS face AP2 S2000 looks great on the white TE37SL. The hood is also a Mugen piece, as is the hard top, and I enjoy the little details of the car like how he chose to fill in and shave that provision in the front that used to house a Mugen center cap…

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Kohei Miyata’s Spoon Sports-themed Honda S2000 sitting on Desmond wheels…

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Had to get a straight-on shot of the Miyata’s S2000 with the Spoon Sports S-Tai front…

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Norifumi Kobayashi’s Mugen-faced Accord Wagon is one of the top Honda builds in Japan right now, with a great collection of parts and even better execution throughout…

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The engine bay of the Accord has also been completely shaved smooth and hosts a supercharged K-series engine. Just take that in and understand how fantastic his engine bay must be to see in person…

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Custom wide body Kouki S14 Silvia wearing red out front and full white inside. Nice choice of Work Wheels and Ganador mirrors on this one…

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It seemed like no matter where we went this time around in Japan, we always somehow managed to run into an RWB Porsche. Rumbling into the UDX parking lot on this particular night was “Rauh Passion”…

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If you’re not into RWB Porsches, there were also some non-widebody, incredibly simplistic and clean Porsche 911s in attendance….

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And we wrap Part 2 up with this slammed and static Lexus IS sedan sitting tightly on Enkei RS05RR wheels…

If you’re reading this and have actually read through it all, congratulations, you finally made it to the end. Also, there are still a shit ton of photos to come…and I’m probably in Hawaii right now for Wekfest. Thanks for looking folks, make sure to tune in for the next update!…

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1 comment

  1. Starting off 2019 on a good note. Looking forward to more great content from you!

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