We may love the wagons and the girls, but the Tokyo Auto Salon really is all about the tuner cars. Though SEMA may be the "bigger" aftermarket automotive show, the Tokyo Auto Salon is
the show to attend if you want to see what the "next big thing" in tuning will be. Unlike SEMA's rows upon rows of parts for 40-year-old cars, the trends seen at TAS will be the next million-dollar industries. Sport compact tuning, tuning for drift cars and now VIP auto fashion all launched from the floor of Makuhari Messe; we just wonder what's next. Perhaps the stuff on these pages will give us a clue...
The sub-compact/B-segment has been around for years in Europe and Asia, but these small cars are just catching on here in the States. Notable B-segment cars from the show include Nissan's Nismo S-Tune Tiida (Versa) as well as various high-strung Suzuki Swifts tuned by big-name companies like HKS. While we liked those uber-JDM rides, our favorite B-segment cars had to be the J's Racing Honda Fits. Though identical on the outside, one car sported a fully-built 1.5-liter while the other car sported the engine you see here: an individual throttle-bodied, 320 horsepower K24. Beautiful.
If a full engine swap seems a little extreme for a Fit, HKS offers a complete turbo system for the 1.5-liter motor. 155 and 180 horsepower kits are available.
We're in love with this Top Secret-built Skyline. (Yes, the G35
is called the Skyline in Japan.) This white coupe is crazy; under the carbon fiber bonnet sits a 712 horsepower VK45 4.5 liter V8.
The new Skyline (new G35 sedan) just hit Japan, so not too many tuners were prominently featuring the car - maybe we'll see more next year. We just hope that next year's tuned Skylines are as nice as this Nissan-built sedan.
We admit it: this blue 350Z from Power Enterprises isn't much to look at. But we didn't shoot this car out because it's pretty, we shot it because it's packing a stroked 3.8 liter 703 horsepower VQ.
Bride seats are always in style, but who can resist a Bride seat with a rear shell sprayed with Maziora color-shift paint? These seats are the ultimate in JDM-bling.
Do you like the look of titanium exhausts but hate paying out the nose for some cool metal? Fujitsubo now offers these titanium-look exhaust tip covers for most aftermarket exhausts. Fake titanium is the new carbon fiber-look!
We probably should have thrown this pic into Part 2, but we love the WRC so much, we figured we could sneak another WRC car into this article. This is the WRC-spec Suzuki SX4; it will run three WRC races this year and will jump into the series full-time in 2008.
Mugen knows a thing or two about tuning cars, and judging by the looks of this S2000, the company is pretty good at styling cars as well. This Mugen-built S2K's 250 horsepower may not seem like much, but remember who tuned it; we'll bet that this "show car" can shame most dedicated race cars on a track.
You are all probably wondering who this guy is. This is Sato-san. In addition to being a totally cool dude, Sato-san is a mechanic for rotary tuner Pan Speed. Why should you care about Pan Speed? Well, you see that Pan Speed-built RX-8 behind Sato-san? That car ran Tsukuba in a minute flat with a naturally-aspirated 13B.
Here's a better look at the engine of this N/A rotary.
Of course, we couldn't fit all of the go-fast parts and go-faster cars in this article. We've got more hot cars and such in our Image gallery. This is our biggest Tokyo Auto Salon gallery yet, meaning that you'll have more than enough pictures to check out over the weekend. Get a good look at these cars now, because next week we're all about the style wagons!
source: ign
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