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2007 Tokyo Auto Salon - Intro

We're back in Japan to find out the next big trend in tuning.
We're sure that you have been wondering just why the hell we've been updating the IGN Cars page at totally random times. Well, if you're reading this story, we're pretty sure that you now have things figured out. For the slower readers out there, we'll spell it out, but not literally: we're in Japan for the 2007 Tokyo Auto Salon.

The show is still going on, and we haven't had enough time to even think about sorting through our photos, brochures and newly-acquired tuning information. It's going to take us days to sort through and process just what went down at Makuhari Messe. That said, we figured we owed it to you to throw out some information (and some photos) while things were still fresh in our minds.

VIP-style tuning is now officially the "next-big-thing". We bet you think that you already knew that, as many American magazines have been saying that for months now, despite the fact that VIP style has been popular here in Japan for years. Make sense? Not really? Forgive us, we're still tired from fighting off jet-lag while trying to hike through the miles of show…


Now where were we? Oh yeah, VIP. Well, American magazines are focusing on "new" VIP-style tuning as it applies to luxury sedans, which as we mentioned in the above paragraph, is nothing new in Japan. What is new in Japan's "Bippu" scene is the new VIP vehicle type(s) of choice: the Kei car and the van.

You read correctly, VIP-themed Kei cars and minivans are all the rage. After the disappointingly small amount of vans at last year's show, we've got to say that it is nice to see the vans make a come-back. We'll give you more info on this next week. In the meantime, check out our Media Page for some of these VIP-styled vans, real tuning cars and other cool rides of the Tokyo Auto Salon.



The other main attraction (or real main attraction, depending on your point of view) of the Tokyo Auto Salon is the campaign girls. We know that most of you care more about campaign girls than you do cars. We know that's how we feel, so we've got a few can-gal pics in our media page for your viewing pleasure.



As we said, we have way too many pictures to go through, and we're not even done covering the show. We'll have a metric ton of photos for you to peruse next week, but enjoy the pics we've got in our Media Gallery over the holiday weekend.



source: ign

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