A chance encounter with Smokey Nagata and Hiroshi Tamura, otherwise known as MR GTR at Daikoku PA. We also stop at a few legendary AE86 shops and drop the gold bonnet off at JDM Distro.
We decided to head out of Nagoya and start heading as far as we could north. On the way out of, just on the outskirts of the city, is Rocky Auto, it was getting late, but we decided to change it anyways before it got dark.
Day 12 was upon us. We woke in Nagoya and wanted to check out the Woow circuit Super AutoBacs, featured in the Driftwiorks outsiders video. We missed this place on our last trip, and from what I had seen online, this is one of the best Autobacs in Japan.
We visit the worlds most unique AE86 shop, known as Noby Booth and get lucky with a private tour of Liberty Walk’s collection as we work our way back to Nagoya.
We were heading back into Nagoya and felt we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to Liberty Walk. The shop has seen a massive amount of success in the western world in recent times, and many people would say wats the point in visiting these shops? They’ve seen enough coverage over the last few years. We are fans of the stuff this shop puts out.
That night, we decided we would work out way back towards Nagoya, stopping off in Hamamatsu for the night for a few beers and food and walk the city streets. We enjoyed the slightly slower pace of life this city had to offer.
After a long night of drifting and about two hours of sleep, all of our phones made a crazy sound simultaneously, and we freaked out. Luckily it was an Earthquake warning, just like the ones Alexi told us about, warning of an earthquake in the area.
We visit the worlds most unique AE86 shop, known as Noby Booth and get lucky with a private tour of Liberty Walk’s collection as we work our way back to Nagoya.
Thinking back, walking away from Meihan was a tough call. If we stayed at Meihan, it would have been a great show, but we felt that greatness was waiting at Yamanashi. Fuck it, why not be greedy and get two epic events on the same day. Something you could only do in Japan!
For some of you who have been enjoying these blog posts, I figured some shots of Budonoki would be cool to post here. Ill keep the words to a minimum and let the photos do the talking.
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.
We binge on world-class drifting, D1 at Meihan, Night drifting at Yamanashi, finishing the night off on a mountain touge. Quite possibly the most drift packed day we’ve ever experienced.
After Feed, we had a quick stop by a shop called Racing Service Factor. They race in the one-make Civic series and the Vitz cup, and both cars had won the league races not too long before we arrived.
If you are over thirty, you’ll be well aware of Trial for their epic demo cars and long history with tuning. They have one of the largest shops in Japan and have been around for over thirty years. I was first acquainted with them in Max Power in both the magazine and their DVD Japan feature back in the day called “beast from the east”. Max Power was the most prominent UK tuning magazine in the early Millenium.
The following day, we got up early again to hit another few shops on the list. I’ve always wanted to see Carland 86. Carland is a famous shop in Kyoto that built the official replica Trueno for Initial D’s voice actor; I’m sure they made the car for the movie too.