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.
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.
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.
After already having the craziest day ever, we were keen to meet up with our new friend we had met online over the coming months leading up to our trip. He had organized a meeting with the local up and coming Honda enthusiasts who frequent the loop in Osaka.
In this episode, we experience Kanjo Racing on the Loop in Osaka with the next generation of Loop One racers. This was one hell of an adventure!
So we are finishing our in-depth photo series on the 2019 Okayama Hachiroku festival with the race cars in the pit area and the final parade lap around the circuit in the rain. I’m skimming the words accompanying these features as I feel we have said more than enough in the videos.
The photos are for people to save and hopefully inspire or give fellow owners an idea or two; that’s why we all lurk these photos at the end of the day. It’s hard to stop a video and see all this stuff in one go. I always like taking pictures to further look at the line to appreciate this stuff at a much slower pace. And I’m trying to knock this stuff out whilst finish the video series, its the most content I’ve ever produced for Juiebox in such a short amount of time.
Some people think blogs are dead, but I do enjoy a good blog post about a particular event; it what I spent most of my time doing for the last fifteen or so years when hunting for car-related content, and I hope these articles bring a little bit of that to you.
I think we talked enough about this Truck in the videos so ill just leave the photos to speak for themselves. This was probably the most Japanese Automotive related machine I have ever seen in my life. Something that could only exist in Japan.
Moving onto part two of the “Show” area. I’m not sure what you would even call this. As most of the cars in here were just well put together streetcars. The killer about having this many good cars side by side is you tend to overlook things. Each of these would be worthy of a closer look if they were out in the wild but I felt caught for time, you wanted to try to document as much as you could but you really only have a few hours. Even as I was shooting the cars in this area of the event, people were packing up and leaving.
So, where to start with Okayama’s annual AE86 fest? The first thing that pops into my head is the sound, quickly followed by a rush of excitement walking up to the paddocks and hearing those cars screaming down the straight.
Your brain is in overload. Add the fact this day had already topped by Rob, allowing me to drive his 86 to the event; I was at capacity for trying to enjoy this experience; the memory bank was full. Looking back, most of it was a blur. It’s only through this imagery and the video that I’m getting to relive this stuff! Thank fuck for these photos.
I have hundreds of photos from 86 festival, and to be honest, I’m going to post most of them here on the website for others to enjoy. There’s always a severe amount of cars at these events, and with most other websites, people have a limit or try to cut down the size of a post to keep things to a digestible amount. Not here! I’m going to dump pretty much anything I thought was cool onto the site over the next few days, broken up into six different blog posts. Just so you guys can get a comprehensive look at what was arguably the most incredible event I’ve ever been to in my life.
Hachiroku Heaven! We head to AE86 Festival In Okayama. Japan’s largest annual gathering of Levin and Trueno’s celebrating the AE86 & AE85 chassis. From N2 race cars to Initial D machines, this is arguably the greatest 86 gathering on earth.
The next day, we were flung straight into the deep end. We hit up an Autobacs, which was just down the street from our hotel room, for a quick look; the car park at any Auto parts shop always has a few gems. Our aircon was broken, which resulted in an incredibly humid night’s sleep, but that didn’t dampen our spirits.