Just a few random photos from Tokyo Auto Salon a few years back. I’m ready for another trip to Japan.
Top Fuel’s all-carbon, turbocharged S2000. This thing is a beast.
Super GT Takata Dome NSX.
Mugen S2000.
Mugen’s original Civic Type RR.
DC5 Honda Integra Type R.
Filed under: Shows and events | Tags: camber, Tokyo Auto Salon, toyota esteem
I’m posting this for no other reason than to show that even Toyota minivan owners do silly things that don’t make sense for the sake of looking “cool.” Just a couple of random shots from the Tokyo Auto Salon earlier this year.
Filed under: Shows and events | Tags: acura, car show, honda, Honda Tuning, magazine, NSX, skunk2, spocom
Last Sunday marked my first SpoCom event. I have absolutely no idea what an “urban dance competition” or a lingerie show has to do with cool-looking, lowered Hondas, but I went anyways. The experience was interesting, to say the least. Each car was supposedly pre-screened and only “the best” were allowed in. Well, if that’s the case, then I do have to ask: Who the hell was doing the screening? Besides a couple of whack builds that slipped through the cracks, there was empty floor space galore. But that’s okay too. There were still plenty of good cars there and seeing everybody is always a good thing. Of course, my favorite car there would have to be the Cricket Wireless time attack NSX. What else would you expect? Oh, and if anybody knows who won the dance competition, do tell.
Badass!!!
I’m not really getting this ‘02+/’01- front bumper hodgepodge conversion for the ‘01 and older pop-up-headlight NSX. It really is hard to improve upon what Honda spent years developing. I say, either leave the pop-ups with the old bumper or convert to the ‘02+ fixed headlight version. Pick one.
Never been a big fan of the RSX. I am now.
But why?
Pretty much my second favorite car there. This hatchback was put together very nicely.
Robert Green from Skunk2’s Kraftwerks-supercharged EK. Funny how many look at this car’s custom crossmember and core support and scratch their heads.
Alex Soto’s latest project.
Morgan Jade’s K-swapped EK9.
What’s a car show without Bisi Ezerioha’s Insight?
Skunk2, representing.
Gary from Project Car magazine’s CRX turned out great. Ballots were handed out to vote for either Gary’s CRX or Super Street’s EF hatchback. I voted for Gary’s wheels—the car got my vote by default.
Filed under: Shows and events
I had hoped to have seen a decent amount of NSXs at this year’s Eibach meet but, unfortunately, there was no such luck. Besides mine, Will Law’s Spa Pearl Yellow NA2 was there along with Downforce’s. And that was it. Will, of course, was representing at the Koyo booth and Peter and the guys from Downforce brought out their NSX to promote their headlight restoration kit, which, by the way, is great stuff. I’ve already restored my NSX’s, TSX’s, and an old Civic’s headlights to like-new condition. But that’s beside the point. NSX owners: If you’re reading this, make a point of making it out to Eibach next year. You won’t regret it.
Filed under: Shows and events | Tags: Eibach meet, Honda Acura show, Honda Tuning
As other show and meet promoters try their damnedest to blur the lines between nightclubs and car shows, they keep missing the mark – the cars. Eibach and its annual Honda meet doesn’t seem to have this problem though. The event is held during the day…outside…sans the club-like atmosphere, dim lights, and silly dance contests. And that’s the way we like it. After all, we are all there for the cars. This year’s meet was no disappointment – although the NSX count was on the low side (there were three, including mine) – the caliber and quantity of cars on display failed to burst anyone’s bubbles. Walking around Eibach’s facilities was like seeing the pages of Honda Tuning come to life. Here’s a small sample of past, present, and future HT-featured cars that were on display.
Filed under: New stuff, Shows and events | Tags: carbon wheels, Tokyo Auto Salon, WedsSport
I’ll admit, when I saw WedsSports’ dry carbon-fiber wheel at the Tokyo Auto Salon earlier this year I was impressed with its quality and construction. You can pretty much manufacture anything in carbon-fiber nowadays and somebody will buy it. But I’m not sure how practical such a wheel is. Despite how well-manufactured the Weds wheel looks, and despite how expensive they’re supposed to retail for—about $10K-plus for a set—carbon fiber is not meant to experience loads or compressive forces that regular steel, aluminum, or magnesium wheels do. Imagine hitting a pothole with these things. Despite that, I expect we’ll be seeing these on a few show cars in the near future. Oh, and they weight about six pounds each, and that’s for some of the larger, non-Honda sizes.
Filed under: Honda news, New stuff, Shows and events | Tags: M-Tec, Mugen, Tokyo Auto Salon
Yesterday we visited M-Tec’s head offices in Saitama — the guys who produce Mugen. This is where the company stores all of its demo cars and is where a lot of the R&D and production is done. The place is huge and its employee parking lot is every bit as impressive as you’d expect. We had an opportunity to check out its NSX-RR concept and FD2 Civic Type RR up close as well as Mugen’s S2000, ’09 Fit, and other various Civic demo cars. M-Tec’s showroom isn’t huge but there’s plenty to see in it, including some of its early Formula 1 engines, which are simply amazing. There was even plenty to see in the employee parking lot like this DC2 Integra. We also saw a couple of pretty sick Odysseys and an older Fit on M5s.
Filed under: New stuff, Shows and events | Tags: Tokyo Auto Salon, Up Garage
Today we went to one of the 80 or 90 Up Garages in Japan — this one was in Chibaminato, about an hour or so East of central Tokyo. Up Garage is basically a used, high-performance parts dealer. This location had tons of used wheels like CP-Fs, CE28s, and a bunch of Advans, Equips, and more that were priced decently. Honda parts were few and the prices aren’t spectacular, which is why I left empty handed, but it’s worth the trip just to see what they’ve got. If you’ve got a WRX, an EVO, or an S13/14/15 then you’re in luck. This location had things like almost-new Buddy Club and TEIN suspensions for less than a grand, used Garrett turbochargers, and an entire wall of exhaust systems. If you’re in Japan and you’ve got the time, it’s sometimes worth it to check out some different locations since they’ve all got different inventories. The Chibaminato location is a little difficult to find if you’ve never navigated yourself around Japan. From central Tokyo make your way to the Tokyo Station, hop on the Keiyo Line, which is the train with the red stripe. Only problem is there is at least one Keiyo line with a red stripe on the same track that flies right past Chibaminato without stopping, so check the lines’ stops before getting on. From Chibaminato Station hop on the monorail and take it one stop; it only goes one way from there. Exit the station on the East side and walk about a quarter mile until you see the bright yellow building.
Filed under: Honda news, New stuff, Shows and events | Tags: Honda display, LA Auto Show
Honda always has the coolest displays. It doesn’t matter where they are, the Tokyo Auto Salon, the Tokyo Motor Show, Paris, New York, or Los Angeles, which is where I was this morning. You do know that the LA Auto Show starts later this week, right? American Honda has a couple of interactive displays that are pretty awesome. The first one is basically a crash simulator. You turn the fake key, push the fake starter button, and wait for the video of the real car to slam into the real wall. I’m told the sound effects are pretty outrageous but I had to enjoy it in silence – Honda PR leaves the volume off on media days so as not to disturb adjacent press conferences. Anyways, once you’ve crashed your car into the big block wall you can turn that shiny wheel on the right, back and forth, to view various points of the accident. Go back, forward, stop, whatever – you can even rewind all the way and pretend it never happened.
Honda’s other interactive display is really just a giant iPhone but with lots of information and pictures of Hondas. You can’t call anybody on it, but you can flick through photos and text on the four-foot-wide touchscreen just like you do on your iPhone. The display basically walks you through everything in Honda’s history that’s green-related, like the old CRX HF, which was the first compact to achieve over 50 mpg, and the ’99 Insight, which was the first hybrid offered in the U.S.
Filed under: Honda news, New stuff, Shows and events | Tags: Honda FC Sport, hydrogen cars, LA Auto Show
“Oh crap!” That’s pretty much what everyone around me was saying when American Honda’s VP, Dan Bonawitz, revealed what was underneath the mysterious cloak at this morning’s LA Auto Show Honda press conference. It’s called the FC Sport and, officially, it’s a design study model, which means it’s a concept car. The thing about Honda’s concept cars is that most of them become reality. Take recent history for example, the FCX Clarity is available, the second-generation Insight goes on sale in about five months, and the CR-Z is not too far off either. All of this means that a RWD, hydrogen-powered sports car like the FC Sport being offered to the public in the not-too-distant future isn’t all that ridiculous. We’ll take a closer look at the concept in the magazine but, basically, this thing is a three-seat sports car with a center-mounted, Formula One style driver seat, massive, cross-drilled rotors and beefy calipers, and a body that, despite it’s race-inspired appearance, still has classic Honda lines – you just have to look harder for them. The zero-emissions FC Sport has a seriously low center of gravity and is reportedly lightweight. The fact that there’s no engine up front left the door wide open for Honda R&D to devise something completely different. And they did.
