Written by Now that the build photos for the two Civics have been posted and archived on here, I can show you photos from the pop-up event itself. This was a huge undertaking from start to finish but it was really fun to see the final product. I felt like we had a really good location for our first pop-up ever in Tokyo and the art gallery feel really helped to spotlight the two cars. The concept was to have the entire gallery space muted and monotone so all the visual focus would be on the bright Dakar Yellow Civics. The rest of the space would be used to offer pop-up exclusive merchandise to visitors and some display items we had. ENEOS joined us to support the event so we had some of their branded items displayed. I’m happy that major companies are coming onboard now to help push us to be better…
The Tokyo Pop-Up lasted for three full days with set-up happening on Thursday, a soft-opening for friends and family that evening, and then the event would go on daily throughout the weekend. We had one full day on Monday as well before we packed-up and went back to Osaka. Would I do it again? Probably. But I’d make sure to give ourselves more time to actually get everything done because there was so much planning involved where we ended-up having to cram so much together. All in all, I’d say everything played-out perfectly though. Slight hiccups here and there, not much rest, but everything looked as it was conceptualized…
The gallery space was located in Meguro city in Tokyo and was a pretty nice area. Way too nice for two Civics to be on display at an art space but maybe the juxtaposition was what made it appealing…
The space itself looked pretty decent in size when we first booked it but when the cars were parked inside, there wasn’t a whole lot of room. Throughout the weekend we had so many people come by that we were pretty surprised. Even on the first night during our soft-opening, we had so many friends come by to celebrate with us. January winters in Japan are no joke and with this particular space, there was just one main gate which needed to be left open throughout the day and evening. We were able to bring to space heaters to keep the room relatively warm but it still felt very much like we were standing outside much of the time…
Since we had multiple days to host this pop-up, we were also able to move the cars around too to give the whole set-up a different look. There were people that came by multiple times too just to hang out that probably appreciated the small changes. The space sort of served as a homebase for many of our friends who just came by during their downtime between all the many events that were happening throughout “Tokyo Car Week”…
From January 18, 2026:
I took a very measured approach to our Tokyo Debut pop-up once we figured out what the location was. The art gallery space would pair well in contrast to the two Hondas from Osaka. In terms of size, it was basically the same as your typical Japanese single-unit workshop. There was one long L-shaped wall on one side and the opposite end was a translucent wall which separated us from a vintage furniture store. Since the sizing was similar to Yasu’s shop, I knew immediately how to lay the cars out…
The concept would be simple when it came to presentation; everything was to be monotone except for the cars themselves. When you entered, all your focus should be on the two Dakar Yellow Civics. Everything else was black and white. Anything related to the cars, i.e. the merch, would be in the same color palette as the cars yellows, blues, and whites. The walls would host five A1-sized prints but they would be black & white with a very slight hint of yellow. The frames of course, would be white. The centerpieces to the wall “art” would be the two vented FRP hoods off of each car. The hoods even had quick release hinges on them to make them easier to remove. At first I thought the gallery owner might disapprove of hanging car parts on the wall but he not only obliged, he even offered us whatever tools we needed to make it happen…
When I first saw the wall layout, I already knew I wanted to hang the hoods. That’s why the original flyer was literally just a hood. I couldn’t quite release the livery to the world yet so I wanted to offer the hood with the colors we would be using for the cars. @eneosusa came onboard to help support the event so we applied ENEOS bottles in a subtle way without disrupting the overall flow. Two oil drums were painted and added to the display which served as our countertop for merch.
Over the course of 4-days we had a crazy turnout with people visiting from all over. From chatting with people during “Tokyo Car Week”, it seemed like the concept was well-received overall. The juxtaposition of placing two Civics from gritty Osaka and placing them in the middle of the nice, upscale city of Meguro in a muted gallery space played-out perfectly…
Huge thanks to Sam Du for capturing some of it on video for us…
The only downside with hosting a pop-up during this time was that it didn’t leave us much time to go experience Tokyo Car Week like everyone else. We were open from 10am to 7pm every day so there were only short spans of time when we could go eat and do other things in Tokyo. Tokyo Auto Salon was happening that same weekend and we were only able to get away to go see the show on opening day Friday…
One of the coolest moments actually came during the early morning set-up when the cars first arrived in Meguro. It must have been such a strange sight for residents to see two bright yellow Civics on a tow trailer driving down a small street. Imagine you’re just walking to the train station on your daily life routine and this pulls up in front of you…
Thanks to @renownusa for capturing the moment…
I think that was pretty much it for this set. I didn’t shoot that much during the weekend just because I spent so much time just talking to people and taking it all in. After the pop-up ended and we went back to Osaka, we had more to do the following evening. ENEOS helped set us up for a shoot with a popular social media couple that operated an ENEOS gas station in Osaka. They made fun short-form videos that somehow ended-up getting insanely popular on Instagram and TikTok. I’ll show you photos from that shoot next time as I continue to archive our moments from 2026 here on The Chronicles. Thanks for looking!…