We visit the worlds most unique AE86 shop, known as Noby Booth and get lucky with a private tour of Liberty Walk’s collection as we work our way back to Nagoya.
Thinking back, walking away from Meihan was a tough call. If we stayed at Meihan, it would have been a great show, but we felt that greatness was waiting at Yamanashi. Fuck it, why not be greedy and get two epic events on the same day. Something you could only do in Japan!
We had come up with an ambitious plan, hit D1 early in the morning and then drive five hours to Sports land Yamanashi and potentially meet up with Alexi from Noriyaro and our mate Andrew from Ireland. We heard about a night drift event at Yamanashi and were told not to miss it.
For some of you who have been enjoying these blog posts, I figured some shots of Budonoki would be cool to post here. Ill keep the words to a minimum and let the photos do the talking.
We drove for a good hour outside of Osaka to the outskirts of a town called Nara. This is where the legendary Honda shop known as Zero Fighter is based. After our day of mixed greetings, we didn’t know what to expect with what we were greeted to at Osaka JDM earlier in the day, so our expectations were low.
We got up bright and early the following day after a surprising sleep in a capsule hotel and decided to head out of Osaka and head for the hills. Our fits stop was Osaka JDM, a shop that has seen extreme popularity in the last few years with the popularity of the Kanjo culture.
We binge on world-class drifting, D1 at Meihan, Night drifting at Yamanashi, finishing the night off on a mountain touge. Quite possibly the most drift packed day we’ve ever experienced.
After Feed, we had a quick stop by a shop called Racing Service Factor. They race in the one-make Civic series and the Vitz cup, and both cars had won the league races not too long before we arrived.
If you are over thirty, you’ll be well aware of Trial for their epic demo cars and long history with tuning. They have one of the largest shops in Japan and have been around for over thirty years. I was first acquainted with them in Max Power in both the magazine and their DVD Japan feature back in the day called “beast from the east”. Max Power was the most prominent UK tuning magazine in the early Millenium.
The following day, we got up early again to hit another few shops on the list. I’ve always wanted to see Carland 86. Carland is a famous shop in Kyoto that built the official replica Trueno for Initial D’s voice actor; I’m sure they made the car for the movie too.
We decided to chance Signal Auto. Signal was one of our favourite shops growing up, and after finding in disbelief that their original store is still open and operational, we added it to the list.
One of the coolest Honda shops in Japan, Zero Fighter is packed with Race and Kanjozoku spec Civics. We head to the hills stopping in Osaka JDM and Full Stage along the way before receiving a very warm welcome from the staff at Zero Fighter in Nara.
After the buzz of Car Factory Ai, We decided to chance J’s Racing. J’s is one of the largest Honda shops globally and a household name in the tuning world for years; I’m sure they see a heap of foreigners, so I didn’t expect them to be as welcoming.
Car factory Ai is one of the most excellent ae86 shops in Japan. Its owned by a woman called Ai Koizumi hence the name, and they maintain and run the newer hot version Keichi Tsuchiya N2 Levin you might have seen from time to time.
We visit tuning shops like J’s Racing, Feed, Tra-Kyoto, Signal Auto, Car Factory AI and more. Join us as we binge on our favourite tuning shops in Osaka and Kyoto. This episode is 45 minutes of Japanese eye candy.