Gallery

It’s 7:30am and my phone rings. “You’re on a 1 pm to Tokyo, pack your bags and get the gear together,” said Matt (Deputy Editor). So I tossed my somewhat-clean laundry into the most accessible suitcase in my closet and managed to rent some camera gear in the city, while still making it to JFK International Airport with 40 minutes to spare. Stressful? Not at all.

I was on my way to meet the guys from Rauh-Welt and gather all the information and photos possible in four days.

On such a tight schedule, I doubted I’d have any downtime to check out what Tokyo had to offer, but somehow I pulled it off with some time to kill. I really wanted to grasp a feel for the Japanese car scene, beyond sideways-hanging HKS carbon mufflers and bumper canards on cars that’ll never see a road course.

I remembered a sweet blog I’d seen a few weeks earlier: 7Tune. This lead me to the email address of Adam Zillen, the Japanese correspondent for 7Tune—don’t be confused though, he’s an Aussie. One email sent and a few hours later my phone rang again. I pretty much told Adam I wanted to do something not-so-touristy, and the plan was set.

Tony (our Photo Director) happened to be in Tokyo as well, so we grabbed our tripods, some flashes and cameras and were on our way. We hopped on the JR Subway to Ebisu Station and were greeted by the deep burble of a 2.5L flat four. Both of us love this exhaust note, but even better was that it was emitted from the rear end of a World Rally Blue Forester STI—one of the most badass wagons ever produced. This particular vehicle also happens to be Tony’s dream car, and it’s Adam’s daily driver :drool:

Ripping through a tunnel at 150mph in this tuned boat was a ridiculous feeling. The highways around the city seemed to be inspired by a video game; weaving through an endless sea of buildings with elevation changes after every cambered turn. We arrived—an accomplishment in itself—at a giant parking lot, surrounded by layers of intertwining roadways with a harmonic symphony of motors you can only dream of housing in one garage. It was Daikoku Futo, a notoriously epic car meet location in Yokohama.

Unfortunately, the night we chose turned out be pretty mellow and short-lived, mostly due to the overwhelming amount of kids that showed up on old-school two stroke bikes. And these weren’t just young high-schoolers on motorcycles, half of them were in costumes. One dude was wearing a pink bunny costume and almost ended up as roadkill on the way home. Keeping their throttles pegged at redline—while stationary—and riding like complete idiots pretty much sums up the reason we were forced out of Daikoku. These teens on machines take the place of todays generation buying hideous pre-modified bubble-back Hondas with giant mufflers and speed holes in the rear bumper.

Nonetheless, some of our favorite cars showed up, and some we’ve never even seen before. So we grabbed a few shots just to give you an idea. Check out the gallery here.

Lastly, I’d like to give a big thanks to Adam for taking us out and showing us a good time on such short notice.

[Photo: Alex Bernstein]