I come to Japan twice a year because my folks live here, and in the town where they live there's a small tuning shop that focuses on drag racing and building up GT-Rs. I always stop by for a few hours whenever I come because there's always a car or two that are worth taking pictures of there, but today was a little different.

For once, I saw an FD parked in their lot. Boy, it sure has a lot of stickers on it...APEX'i stickers...Oh. OH. It's Imamura's championship-winning D1 car. So basically I got an hour to fart around with and inspect this car inside and out, and sit in it etc. etc. Apparently a few days ago there was a little event at the shop around the corner, with Greddy bringing out their V35 Skyline product mule, and also seeing appearances from the HKS Fairlady Z, the shop's 9-second R33 drag car, and the HKS Driving Performer R34 GT-R. If only I had booked my flight a few days earlier...

At any rate I took a bunch of pics of the FD, and I'll post a few of them when I finish editing them. The car seemed pretty nice. Personally I'm not really into drifting, but it was nice to see a professionally built race/drift car in person. It had all the stuff I'd expect in a drift car, from a super-clean engine bay, to basically every APEX'i part you can cram into a car. Not to mention it had all the stuff you'd expect of a quality-built race car. Fully welded chromoly roll-cage, a custom built dry-carbon enclosure for the nitrous tank, plus goodies like fiberglass doors and lexan windows. I was surprised to see electric windows, and it actually still had the stock AST (relocated). The Bride buckets it had were also not very compatible with a 186cm-tall gaijin like me, but sitting in it, the car definitely felt good. Anyways I've got to get back to photoshopping.

 

want to trade places next time you get to go to Japan? you can sit in the shop cleaning parts and i can visit some of the tuning shops from the other side of the world. you know you want to.

 

*Anxiously awaiting pics*

 

ya.. lucky

 

do you have a pic of the ast???

 

Only a few for now, since I live in a fairly rural area and they only have ISDN for internet access.









^ this file is named "luckysob.jpg"

 

sweet!!!

 

<==jelous

 

oh maaan. droool.

 

Where in Japan is this shop?

 

Kuroiso, which is in Nasushiobara City, in Tochigi prefecture, ~1 hour north of Tokyo via the bullet train.

 

How could such a crazy car have suck bad fitment on the front bumper!

Those 57 Pro's polished like that are just too beautiful.

 

AWSOME..... dude.... im just a armenian guy and i got off my *** and trying to learn japanese......... so far i just understood there are 3 differernt writing i guess "versions"... i belive they are "kaji" "katakana" and i frogot the other one stats with a H

haha.... anyone willing to help me out :] lol

sorry for jacking thread.......... awsome pics

 

Great pictures. Somebody should talk to them about their bumper fitment though.

 

wow, im a full blooded white college kid, english=primary, german=secondary and japanese=learning tertiary, and to finish your though, its hiragana (easiest) katagana (harder but tought later) and kanji (pictographs taken from chinese (to my understanding))
but that car is CLEAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i love the partially chromed door!

 

SWEET!!! I have family in Tochigi-shi. Know where I'm goin' the next time I visit oba-chan.

Off topic:
There's three sets of characters used in Japanese writing: Kanji(Chinese characters), Hiragana and Katakana(used mostly for imported words).

 

WOW, awesome...thanks for the pics!

 

he has the same wheels as i do

 

It's common for front and rear bumper fitment to be off since those parts commonly come off during drifting anyways. Often they just ziptie those parts on during competition between runs.

 

love that vmount.. any chance you have any pics of the rad gaijin..

 

Awesome pictures dude!

Thanks for posting them up

 

Huh? He's the Gaijin (round eye; white person)

 

very impressive!!

 

something just became my new desktop background.

sick pics.

 

You took some fantastic pics there mate!!hoe did ya get the car to stand out from the murky background?new screensaver for me too lol