For the final 15 years, I’ve owned a workshop in Auckland, New Zealand, servicing, constructing, and tuning Japanese race and highway automobiles. JTune, and a number of the autos I’ve had a hand in creating over the past 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 yr was for Tokyo Auto Salon, at which period I additionally travelled all the way down to Fuji to satisfy with HKS a few particular Toyota GR86 challenge. I returned in the midst of summer season to test in on the progress of the construct, and likewise go to another outlets. A kind 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 certainly one of Tokyo’s most famed RX-7 outlets. Automobile Store Glow is at this time most well-known for its customized LED lights, but it surely additionally does servicing and full automobile 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 automobiles.
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 desirous to move up the chance, Hara-san purchased the FD3S, signalling the start of the Automobile Store Glow demo automobile.
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 outfitted 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 reduce his TC2000 PB lap time all the way down to a powerful 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 components, exhausts and suspension, all of that are at this time bought in Japan and overseas.
Over time, Hara-san’s FD3S developed via numerous time assault seasons, turning into lighter, extra aerodynamic, and extra highly effective. You’ll be able to learn all about it Dino’s 2015 function.
The RX-7’s finest time at Tsukuba Circuit is a powerful 56.4-second lap – achieved with OEM-based brakes and the manufacturing unit ABS eliminated. That setup would possibly increase some eyebrows, however given TC2000’s monitor structure – quick with only some heavy braking zones – it is smart that balanced and simply warmed-up brakes may very well be simpler than a giant brake equipment. Typically, simplicity wins, particularly whenever you don’t wish to spend an excessive amount of time fine-tuning brake stability and bias.
At the moment, the RX-7 is absolutely stripped again, with large plans on the horizon. Once I requested Hara-san about his aim for the automobile, he shared that he’s desperate to push the boundaries and go even sooner; a 53-second lap is the dream.
In Tokyo and different Asian cities, bodily area is an actual luxurious, however in the case of modified automobiles, that doesn’t imply that construct high quality is compromised. Many lovers construct spectacular machines proper of their driveways or residence garages. Living proof, one other Automobile Store Glow RX-7: Tani-san’s wild ‘GT race automobile for the highway’ as lately featured by Toby.
To coincide with our go to, Automobile Store Glow organized for just a few customer-owned automobiles 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 every other aggressively styled RX-7s outdoors Automobile Store Glow, it will be simple to imagine it’s a race automobile, too. Whereas a few of these builds do hit the monitor, most are completely road automobiles closely impressed by Hara-san’s FD3S. No matter how modified they’re below the hood, seeing these automobiles out on the highway is fairly cool.
I wish to give a giant due to Hara-san and the Automobile Store Glow employees for opening up their doorways to us, and for everybody who introduced their automobiles out. Keep tuned for the evening cruise!
Jacky Tse
Instagram: jtune_nz
Images by Ash Bechan
Instagram:Â pixeltoon_media
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