For the final 15 years, I’ve owned a workshop in Auckland, New Zealand, servicing, constructing, and tuning Japanese race and highway vehicles. JTune, and a number of the automobiles I’ve had a hand in creating during the last decade and a half have beforehand been featured on Speedhunters. After just a few busy years, I lastly determined to take a break from full-time on the store and embark on just a few adventures in Japan.
My first journey this 12 months was for Tokyo Auto Salon, at which era I additionally travelled all the way down to Fuji to satisfy with HKS a couple of particular Toyota GR86 undertaking. I returned in the midst of summer time to verify in on the progress of the construct, and likewise go to another retailers. A type of was Automobile Store Glow.
Although I missed 7’s Day (7/7) in Japan by every week, I used to be decided to go to and study extra about one among Tokyo’s most famed RX-7 retailers. Automobile Store Glow is right this moment most well-known for its customized LED lights, however it additionally does servicing and full automotive builds from a humble constructing in Nerima-ku close to the center of Japan’s capital metropolis.
Automobile Store Glow was established in 2006, with its proprietor, Yukimitsu Hara, initially promoting his LED gentle merchandise on-line. By April 2008, he opened a showroom, focusing primarily on customising American and European vehicles.
In 2009, a buyer – who was a supervisor at Tremendous Autobacs – provided Hara-san his ex-Knight Sports activities Mazda RX-7, which he was not driving, at a hard-to-refuse worth. Not eager to cross up the chance, Hara-san purchased the FD3S, signalling the start of the Automobile Store Glow demo automotive.
Taking the RX-7 to Tsukuba Circuit in the identical spec he bought it, Hara-san clocked a 1:06 lap time on 17-inch road tyres, setting a benchmark for future upgrades.
At the moment, lots of the different FD3S RX-7s within the Tsukuba paddock had been geared up with RE Amemiya widebody kits, so Hara-san had one put in and completed the outside off with a contemporary paint job and a pair of his customized tail lights. The equipment improve allowed for wider tyres, prompting a return to Tsukuba on the earliest alternative, the place Hara-san minimize his TC2000 PB lap time all the way down to a formidable 1:02.
From that second, he was hooked on time assault.
As Hara-san continued competing in time assault occasions, proudly flying the Automobile Store Glow flag, the corporate started receiving tail gentle orders from Japan and overseas, additional boosting its profile.
On the again of this, Automobile Store Glow expanded its vary to incorporate lights for different fashions – the Toyota Supra, Honda S2000 and NSX, and Subaru Impreza, amongst others – and ventured into aero elements, exhausts and suspension, all of that are right this moment offered in Japan and overseas.
Through the years, Hara-san’s FD3S developed by numerous time assault seasons, changing into lighter, extra aerodynamic, and extra highly effective. You possibly can learn all about it Dino’s 2015 characteristic.
The RX-7’s finest time at Tsukuba Circuit is a formidable 56.4-second lap – achieved with OEM-based brakes and the manufacturing facility ABS eliminated. That setup would possibly increase some eyebrows, however given TC2000’s monitor format – quick with only some heavy braking zones – it is sensible that balanced and simply warmed-up brakes could possibly be more practical than an enormous brake equipment. Generally, simplicity wins, particularly whenever you don’t need to spend an excessive amount of time fine-tuning brake steadiness and bias.
At present, the RX-7 is absolutely stripped again, with huge plans on the horizon. Once I requested Hara-san about his objective for the automotive, he shared that he’s desperate to push the bounds and go even quicker; a 53-second lap is the dream.
In Tokyo and different Asian cities, bodily area is an actual luxurious, however in relation to modified vehicles, that doesn’t imply that construct high quality is compromised. Many fanatics construct spectacular machines proper of their driveways or house garages. Working example, one other Automobile Store Glow RX-7: Tani-san’s wild ‘GT race automotive for the highway’ as lately featured by Toby.
To coincide with our go to, Automobile Store Glow organized for just a few customer-owned vehicles to cease by the store after which head out for a drive in convoy.
Given Hara-san’s penchant for time assault racing, when seeing some other aggressively styled RX-7s outdoors Automobile Store Glow, it could be straightforward to imagine it’s a race automotive, too. Whereas a few of these builds do hit the monitor, most are completely road vehicles closely impressed by Hara-san’s FD3S. No matter how modified they’re below the hood, seeing these vehicles out on the highway is fairly cool.
I need to give an enormous because of Hara-san and the Automobile Store Glow employees for opening up their doorways to us, and for everybody who introduced their vehicles out. Keep tuned for the night time cruise!
Jacky Tse
Instagram: jtune_nz
Images by Ash Bechan
Instagram:Â pixeltoon_media
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