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 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 period I additionally travelled right 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 in addition go to another outlets. A type of was Automotive Store Glow.
Although I missed 7’s Day (7/7) in Japan by per week, I used to be decided to go to and study extra about one in every of Tokyo’s most famous RX-7 outlets. Automotive 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 guts of Japan’s capital metropolis.
Automotive Store Glow was established in 2006, with its proprietor, Yukimitsu Hara, initially promoting his LED mild 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 not driving, at a hard-to-refuse value. Not desirous to go up the chance, Hara-san purchased the FD3S, signalling the start of the Automotive 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 avenue 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 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 Automotive Store Glow flag, the corporate started receiving tail mild orders from Japan and overseas, additional boosting its profile.
On the again of this, Automotive 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 right this moment bought in Japan and overseas.
Through the years, Hara-san’s FD3S developed via varied time assault seasons, turning into lighter, extra aerodynamic, and extra highly effective. You possibly can learn all about it Dino’s 2015 function.
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 may elevate some eyebrows, however given TC2000’s monitor format – quick with just a few heavy braking zones – it is smart that balanced and simply warmed-up brakes may very well be more practical than a giant brake package. Typically, simplicity wins, particularly while 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 wanting to push the boundaries and go even quicker; a 53-second lap is the dream.
In Tokyo and different Asian cities, bodily area is an actual luxurious, however with regards to modified automobiles, 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 Automotive Store Glow RX-7: Tani-san’s wild ‘GT race automotive for the highway’ as just lately featured by Toby.
To coincide with our go to, Automotive 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 exterior Automotive Store Glow, it might be simple to imagine it’s a race automotive, too. Whereas a few of these builds do hit the monitor, most are solely avenue 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 need to give a giant because of Hara-san and the Automotive Store Glow employees 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: pixeltoon_media
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