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 few 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 12 months was for Tokyo Auto Salon, at which period I additionally travelled right down to Fuji to fulfill with HKS a couple of particular Toyota GR86 undertaking. I returned in the midst of summer season to test in on the progress of the construct, and likewise go to another retailers. 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 one in all Tokyo’s most famed RX-7 retailers. Automobile Store Glow is at the moment most well-known for its customized LED lights, however it additionally does servicing and full automobile builds from a humble constructing in Nerima-ku close to the guts 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 – supplied Hara-san his ex-Knight Sports activities Mazda RX-7, which he was now not driving, at a hard-to-refuse value. Not desirous to cross 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 have been geared up with RE Amemiya widebody kits, so Hara-san had one put in and completed the outside off with a recent paint job and a pair of his customized tail lights. The package improve allowed for wider tyres, prompting a return to Tsukuba on the earliest alternative, the place Hara-san minimize his TC2000 PB lap time right 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 at the moment offered in Japan and overseas.
Through the years, Hara-san’s FD3S developed by way of varied 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 greatest time at Tsukuba Circuit is a formidable 56.4-second lap – achieved with OEM-based brakes and the manufacturing facility ABS eliminated. That setup may elevate some eyebrows, however given TC2000’s monitor structure – brief with just a few heavy braking zones – it is smart that balanced and simply warmed-up brakes may very well be simpler than an enormous brake package. Typically, simplicity wins, particularly while 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. After I requested Hara-san about his purpose for the automobile, he shared that he’s wanting to push the boundaries and go even quicker; a 53-second lap is the dream.
In Tokyo and different Asian cities, bodily house is an actual luxurious, however in relation to modified automobiles, that doesn’t imply that construct high quality is compromised. Many fans construct spectacular machines proper of their driveways or house garages. Living proof, one other Automobile Store Glow RX-7: Tani-san’s wild ‘GT race automobile for the highway’ as just 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 another aggressively styled RX-7s outdoors Automobile Store Glow, it will be straightforward 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 beneath the hood, seeing these automobiles out on the highway is fairly cool.
I wish to give an enormous due to Hara-san and the Automobile Store Glow workers for opening up their doorways to us, and for everybody who introduced their automobiles out. Keep tuned for the night time cruise!
Jacky Tse
Instagram: jtune_nz
Pictures by Ash Bechan
Instagram:Â pixeltoon_media
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