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Posted
Nov 11 2008, 01:47 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 42 comment(s)
The other day when I was in Tokyo, I decided I would try a new type of post here on Speedhunters. I was actually remembering my first trip to Japan and just how excited I was to see random cars on the street, and though it might be kind of cool to show what kind of stuff you see "in the wild" on Japanese streets. If you guys like this sort of thing, let me know and I will do it more often. Events and races are great, but there is always something kind of special about seeing an a cool car on the street....
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Posted
Nov 10 2008, 03:27 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 9 comment(s)
Yesterday I spent the afternoon in Tokyo, and while I was there I figured since it was Nissan month on Speedhunters that it would be a good time to head over to Ginza and have a look at the car gallery at Nissan's corporate headquarters. After taking the short walk from the Higashi Ginza subway station, we arrived at the Nissan hon-sha building to find this gleaming red R35 GT-R parked on the street outside the place. Kind of a cool way to begin the visit don't you think?...
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Posted
Oct 07 2008, 08:57 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 4 comment(s)
As I continue my coverage of the Motorsport Japan Festival 2008, I wanted to first illustrate just how crowded this event was. Look at this photo of the Nismo Xanavi GT-R in the Nissan booth, the car is completely surrounded by people! While trying to photograph the car displays at the event, I quickly found that the only way to get unobstructed shots was to use my ultra wide angle lens while getting as close to the cars as possible. Taking photos was kind of tough, but then again it was nice to see this level of enthusiasm for race cars. The people in Japan are crazy about motorsports!...
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Posted
Oct 06 2008, 10:14 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 11 comment(s)
You might have heard people say that Tokyo is one of the most expensive cities in the world. It may well be, but that certainly doesn't mean that you can't find cool stuff for free in Tokyo. For example, how about the chance to see F1 and Super GT race cars performing demo runs in addition to seeing some of the Japan's most historic race cars? That is just the sort of things that visitors to the 2008 Motorsport Japan Festival could see over the weekend. This was the third MSJ event since it was started in 2006, and judging by the number of the people that packed into Odaiba to see it, it has been come quite the popular event in Tokyo......
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Posted
Oct 04 2008, 03:35 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 8 comment(s)
Just a quick shot of the Woodone Advan Clarion GT-R lightin' em up during a demo run at today's Motorsport Japan Festival in Odaiba. Seeing and hearing a GT500 machine roar past you a mere 10 feet away is quite the experience! More coverage of this event coming soon, but for now enjoy the rest of your weekend!...
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Posted
Sep 08 2008, 04:42 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 10 comment(s)
Even without the legendary street racing, the Bayshore Route of the Shuto Expressway in Tokyo and Kanagawa is quite impressive in itself with all of its bridges, underwater tunnels, and high tech traffic control systems. It is a feat of engineering to say the least. I am in the process of gathering photos and information for a full story on the Wangan, but for now I just wanted to post a quick shot I snapped the other night in Odaiba where the Bayshore Route connects with the Rainbow Bridge into central Tokyo. This was fairly early in the night so there is still plenty of traffic on the highway, but a little later when traffic clears up, the seaside air will start to fill with the sounds of high powered machines running flat out into the night....
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Posted
Aug 13 2008, 02:10 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 7 comment(s)
I'm sure you have been enjoying all the Japan-related content we have been running lately. I know I have been reading Rod and Antonio's content from Ebisu and am seriously regretting not being able to make it up there with them last weekend. When I read Rod's thoughts on the Japanese appreciation for aesthetics and quality when it comes to car builds, I couldn't help thinking of the VW movement here in Japan, which I got to experience during this year's Street VW's Jamboree in Odaiba....
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Posted
Jul 22 2008, 12:04 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 14 comment(s)
It's time to continue the coverage from my trip to last weekend's Tuning Powers show in Tokyo. As you saw in my first post, there were plenty of really cool and unique cars to be found at the event. While I said that the show draws a lot of the smaller tuners from around Japan, as you can see in the photo above, it also draws some of the bigger ones like JUN Auto who brought out their now famous Evo X demo car. They have done even more work to this car since the last time I saw it and I'm hoping I'll get the chance to see it in action at Tsukuba Circuit again soon......
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Posted
Jul 21 2008, 04:20 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 27 comment(s)
When you think of annual Japanese tuning shows, the big ones like Tokyo Auto Salon or Osaka Auto Messe probably come to mind. But there is another tuning show held every year in Tokyo that is very much worthy of a look. The show is called Tuning Powers and unlike TAS, this show is geared strictly towards hardcore gearheads who are interested in seeing the latest in performance technology. At Tuning Powers you won't find any flashy VIP sedans or crazy wagons, nor will you see any campaign girls surrounded being ambushed by photographers. What you will see are some of the most impressively built performance machines from all over Japan. With a select mix of domestic and imported cars of both classic and modern styles, Tuning Powers is more about the technical aspects and ingenuity of tuning than outright flashiness....
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Posted
Jun 27 2008, 08:12 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 11 comment(s)
I already did a post about Toyota's Megaweb in Tokyo, but I had to save the best part of Megaweb for last. While Megaweb itself has a lot of cool stuff to see, the History Garage is even better. Megaweb has all the new cars and high tech things, but the History Garage is where you will find all the cool classic cars and vintage racing machines. It's the car geek's section of Megaweb, if you will......
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Posted
Jun 24 2008, 01:35 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 5 comment(s)
Maybe I am am wierd, but lately I have been having these strange fantasies about cruising around Tokyo in a super loud muscle car with lumpy cam. When it comes to the Tokyo muscle car scene, a woman named Hiroko Sakuma has things on lock. She is the owner of the '70 Cuda seen in this photo that I took at this year's JCCA New Year Meeting in Odaiba. She also owns a Mopar specialty store in Tokyo and publishes a Japanese muscle car magazine called IGNITE, (hrm maybe that deserves its own post...
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Posted
Jun 19 2008, 04:00 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 3 comment(s)
Last month, we took a look at Toyota's Amlux showroom in Ikebukuro and now it's time to look at Toyota's second Tokyo facility, Megaweb. Located in the popular seaside tourist area of Odaiba (site of D1GP, JCCA New Year Meeting, and countless other car events), Megaweb is a much larger and more extravagant place than Amlux. If you are in Tokyo and would like to check it out, it's very easy to get to......
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Posted
Jun 17 2008, 05:00 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 3 comment(s)
Now by popular demand, more photos of the Tec-Arts "street" AE86 Trueno from the D1 Odaiba event. Tec-Arts -Mike Garrett
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Posted
Jun 12 2008, 12:30 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 6 comment(s)
I don't have quite the amount of historic Le Mans photos that John Brooks has, but at least I can share this photo of the Toyota GT-one living the quiet life as a display inside the History Garage at Mega Web in Tokyo. This car was campaigned ten years ago in the 1998 Le Mans 24hr race with Keiichi Tsuchiya as one of its drivers......
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Posted
Jun 11 2008, 01:00 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 16 comment(s)
Now that you have seen the first day of action from the D1 Grand Prix Tokyo Drift exhibition round as plus the demo runs and girls from the event, it's time to wrap our coverage with a look at Sunday's exhibition contest. It would turn out to be a very exciting day......
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Posted
Jun 10 2008, 05:00 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 24 comment(s)
Fans who attended the D1GP Tokyo Drift exhibition match over the weekend were treated to much much more than just your standard D1 drift competition. Given the event's high profile locale and the desire to make sure ticket buyers got their money's worth, event organizers saw to adding several demo runs and performances that were held over the course of the weekend......
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Posted
Jun 10 2008, 07:45 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 7 comment(s)
I know you guys enjoy seeing the ladies almost as much as you like the seeing the cars, so I have put together a small gallery of some of the race queens and flag girls from the D1GP Tokyo Drift event in Odaiba. While D1 is not known for its race queens like Super GT or Tokyo Auto Salon, there were still quite a few of them to be found in Odaiba......
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Posted
Jun 09 2008, 01:30 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 16 comment(s)
As popular as the D1 Grand Prix is in Japan, almost all D1 events are held at racing circuits located quite far from large urban areas, and given the expense of travel in Japan, it makes it difficult for many fans to attend the events. For a couple years D1 held a round at Odaiba in Tokyo, but the event disappeared after the 2005 season. Earlier this year I got word that D1 would be returning to Odaiba for a special two-day exhibition event known as "D1 Tokyo Drift in Odaiba". I couldn't...
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Posted
Jun 07 2008, 08:40 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 14 comment(s)
So it's almost 1am on Sunday morning in Japan as I'm writing this. I spent all day Saturday at the D1GP Tokyo Drift exhibition match in Odaiba, and I am exhausted. My skin is sunburnt dark red, my whole body is sore, I'm going on about two hours of sleep, and I'm covered in shredded rubber. Despite all that, I am in a good mood because the event was AWESOME. I'm not going to write anything about it right now, as I need to go to bed so I can get up early and go back tomorrow, but...
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Posted
Jun 02 2008, 01:32 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 3 comment(s)
I can't believe it's June already, I guess time flies when you are working on Speedhunters. Here in Japan, June means endless rainy days and sticky, humid air. As I sit here watching the rain fall outside, I thought it was a good time to look back to January and the Japanese Classic Car Association New Year Meeting in Tokyo which was held under beautiful crisp sunny winter skies.
As I have stated before, the GC10 chassis Hakosuka Skyline is one of the most iconic machines in the history of Japanese performance cars, and there was no shortage of them to be found at the New Year Meeting. Here are few Hakosuka photos I snapped while wandering around the parking areas outside the event. ...
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