IM in Japan – Tokyo Auto Salon 2013

I’ve traveled to Japan multiple times in the last few years but I have yet to be able to attend the "holy grail" of tuner car shows – the Tokyo Auto Salon. Ever since I was in high school, I’ve wanted to attend this show and experience what the Japanese automotive scene is like firsthand. Now that I’ve attended, I have to say that it was both a unique and awesome experience.

Getting to Tokyo Auto Salon was a trip in itself. I took a bullet train from Nagoya (where work has me staying) to Tokyo. After getting there, I took another 1 hour train ride to Makuhari-Messe, Chiba Prefecture. Luckily, I had my friend tag along with me to translate any questions I had. Once we arrived at the venue and began standing in line, I could hear the sound of tires screeching, the distinct exhaust note of a D1 GP drift car and smoke billowing out of the side parking lot. People all around us were obviously getting excited just to get in the door. After waiting in line and traveling for four and a half hours we finally got into the show.

The Tokyo Auto Salon was broken up into 12 different sections – 11 halls and 1 outdoor demo. The moment I walked through the entrance doors I was in tuner’s paradise. There were various ranges of cars from the Compact-K cars to exotic hyper cars. Every style of vehicle was present at TAS – from stanced cars, functional race cars and extreme WTF (my term for over-the-top) cars.

As soon as I entered the halls, I was hit with the sight of tuning company flags and other promotional displays. It was difficult getting from one section to another because there was a "flow" of people moving around the show. It was also difficult to get nice photos as people kept jumping in front of me. Once the booth babes came out, it got even worse as a flood of people were then trying to take pictures of them and not the cars.

It was a little bit of a culture shock for me since it wasn’t just a handful of people trying to get “the shot”, picture waves of people trying to get “the shot”. You might notice that in some of my shots I snapped a few pictures of the people taking pictures. Haha.

The show was dominated by GT86’s and BRZ’s. Of course since it is still the new hot car many companies were focused on it. Hybrid car tuning was another big thing. There was a Prius GT300 and plenty of Toyota Aquas (aka Prius-C). One car in particular that I thought stuck out from the crowd was the BenSopra 380SX which I’m sure most of you have seen by now. It was one of the most unique, well-built cars in the show. Another car I was glad to see there was the Nissan DeltaWing which is a car that I consider the most extreme in motorsports at the moment.

I would say the largest display in the show was the Toyota/TRD/Gazoo Racing booth. Like most of the other tuners out there, they focused on the GT86 but their car looked nothing like the factory GT86 (see below).

I would have to say one of my more "unique" cars I saw there was the leopard print Lamborghini Murciélago. I'd say a booth that made me drool would be the one that contained a line of 3 Ferrari F40s. Unfortunately, half of my SD card was corrupt when I returned and I lost half of my photos which is why you won’t see pictures of either of them in the gallery below.

After a long day of traveling, walking and standing, my legs were done. My trip to the trip to a beer vending machine after the show was icing on the cake. Though I lost half of my photos, it gives me another excuse to return to Japan.

I plan on covering a few more parts of the Japanese automotive scene in future posts on Import Meet. I’m here for work for 3 months and there are plenty of things I want to see.

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