Warm Welcomes at Zero Fighter
We drove for a good hour outside of Osaka to the outskirts of a town called Nara. This is where the legendary Honda shop known as Zero Fighter is based. After our day of mixed greetings, we didn’t know what to expect with what we were greeted to at Osaka JDM earlier in the day, so our expectations were low.
To our surprise, the lads who worked there welcomed us with open arms. It was unexpected, we felt a little bad again for rocking up uninvited but used our best google translation to apologise for disturbing them during work hours, and it worked.
They brought us in around the premises. Upstairs they showed us the spray booth, which has a lift to bring the cars up to be painted, maximum use of the space! Downstairs once we were introduced to every staff member, the lads gave us a tour of the entire premises.
An unexpected Alfa!
Civic overload, there was way too much to process here.
Zero Fighter has been around for a long time; it’s one of the largest shops in the Osaka/ Nara, well known for selling and building badass Civics.
In the last few years, they have been active in the one-make race series in both the Civic and Fit chassis. All the employee’s race, the shop was littered with customer cars and their unique builds. It was literally Honda heaven.
Looking back, I couldn’t get over how hospitable they were. Everyone stopped working and introduced themselves and were more than happy to have a chat. The owner called out, showed us his EK and the recent crash he had at the Central circuit, showed us his other cars and bikes; it was a fantastic experience.
I’ve always loved this company. They had recently moved from a smaller spot down the road into this old garage which was quite literally a one-stop tuning and paint shop for race and Kanjo inspired Hondas and proper race machines.
Out front, they had a lot packed with Hondas for sale. It was nice to see a few younger chaps in there looking for stuff to buy. Zero Fighter has been supplying the area with top-notch Hondas for years, and it fantastic to finally see the place in real life.
This was an epic sight, arguably one of the best lineups we have seen on the trip.
Only for these photos we would have very easily forgotten about all these cars. When you got to a place like this, your brain has a hard time remembering several cars. Zero Fighter had way too much cool stuff in the one spot.
Perfects EF’s.
American inspired Coupes and Sedans.
This EG6 was incredible.
I love how tightly Japanese shops are. It must be a nightmare to move anything.
EG coupes are seriously rare in Japan.
This DC2 was insanely cool.
An LHD Coupe.
It was impossible to get good photos of the cars as Zero fighter tightly pack their cars.
So much to take in!
A front shot of this epic DC2, id loves to see this out on track.
I couldn’t get enough of this EG6. Shame the fence was blocking our view.
What a workshop! I didn’t realise they had such a big operation these days. Racecars were being built in one corner, and road cars were being restored in the other.
They had a big enough staff. The place was super busy; I love how a shop can dedicate itself to more or less one chassis and make a living dong so.
How cool is this sticker?
Every car had something worth photographing. IM sure this Civic has a few stories.
Zero fighter front lips and other rare goodies being stored upstairs.
This has to be the coolest table ever.
Zero Fighter does a lot of its own parts, too, coilovers, exhausts, manifolds etc.
The shop inside is very impressive; the guys have made full use of the old dealership with this epic display of Honda related parts.
Such a cool experience; the lads loved it!
I got them all to sign a license plate for me at the end of the tour, and they were delighted. This is what it’s all about! we left Zero fighter with the biggest smiles; it was a once in a lifetime experience. Not a bad existence, nestled in the quiet hills of Nara, building, selling and racing Honda Civics! It almost sounds like a dream setup.
Getting lost down dodgy single lane roads on our way to Nara Park.
The Deer was a nice way to finish off the day.
We had way too much fun hanging out with them.
Reuben looks a little worried here.
Long lost relatives?
How cool is this Tree growing through the building?
I love this photo, the lantern light reflecting against the deer and concrete floor.
This local legend had a long chat with us about the animals. The lads look a little worried here.
The old local explained that the deer do attack people regularly, and if they are violent, they get their horns removed.
This guy wasn’t too bothered with us…
The view from our fancy hotel room.
We used booking.com a lot to book places to stay along the trip. Most Hotels don’t take reservations after ten, so we tried to book places early enough unless we knew we would be out late and inevitably crash in Hotel Alphard, or “Alfart” as it had now been affectionally nicknamed.
We pulled into a McDonalds in the rain in Nara; this turned out to be one of the best choices of the entire trip as the Hotel made a mess up and booked us into the penthouse sweet on the top of the building for essentially nothing. The room came with its own elevator and was arguably the best place we stayed on our journey.
Another incredible day dusted with mixed emotions, a little sad to be leaving Osaka but happy to move up towards Meihan and Tokyo. We were halfway on the trip, and already we accumulated a lot of stuff. We tried to organise it over a few beers and figure out the rest of the journey.
Looking back at these photos, I’ll never forget that night, laying all those magazines out on the table with the lads, sipping a few beers, right in the middle of our journey and just being so happy.
Like I mentioned earlier, after having a shit few months, it was fucking fantastic to be in such a good mood. With two of my best mates, on a trip of a lifetime, in a fucking penthouse outside of Osaka, reading a collection of magazines I have wanted for well over ten years.
What made it even better was that we would hopefully be attending the BM cup at Nikko the following weekend. It couldn’t get any better!
We had an earlyish night as the next day we were heading to D1 in Meihan and Yamanashi for a night drift event.