I do know, we’re all right here for the tuner automobiles from the largest names within the Japanese automotive aftermarket, however for some cause, being a automotive nerd means having an unhealthy curiosity in bizarre, outsized and undersized vehicles too. Automobiles that typically make no sense in any respect.
If there’s one factor you possibly can depend on from Tokyo Auto Salon, it’s the large, small, extraordinary. And the 2024 occasion was no completely different.
Perhaps we’re not all this manner inclined, however we all know from earlier TAS protection on Speedhunters that there’s loads of curiosity within the different sides of this enormous occasion.
Let’s begin off with the outsized SUVs and pickups. Whereas principally designed for off-road use, right here in Japan these autos usually spend their lives as gargantuan grocery getters, taking on two automotive areas and getting caught underneath low bridges.
Off-road model isn’t simply reserved for the anticipated makes and fashions both. AutoVeloce in Shiga usually design and construct physique kits for supercars, however they’ve actually gone off the crushed path with their Cross-V Bentley Bentayga.
If you’re feeling like a little bit of a metropolis escape, why not ask Direct Automobiles to whip you up considered one of their BR75 Hilux SUV journey campers. It gained a Good Design award final yr, which isn’t in any respect shocking contemplating the environment friendly use of area, which sleeps 4.
Subsequent up are the little ones – metropolis automobiles which have mutated into every kind of issues. There’s nothing these kei machines can’t do.
For example, DAMD will flip your Suzuki Jimny into an superior Renault Turbo II or Lancia Integrale look-alike.
Or you might ask United Aomori to rework your kei truck right into a rolling sauna. As a result of who wouldn’t need a type of?!
We noticed this rotary-converted 1972 Mazda Chantez GF-II from Goda Bankin in Nagano ultimately yr’s Tokyo Auto Salon, however how may we not take one other look?! With a TD06-equipped 13B from RE Amemiya up entrance and fender flares nearly as broad because the automotive itself, basic kei automobiles don’t come any wilder.
Professional-Employees is a 4×4 specialist from Osaka who builds lots of customized kei automobiles and vehicles for off-road use – or model at the least. Having additionally modified Porsche Cayennes for further off-road-ability, their newest challenge is a lifted Porsche Boxster 986 drop high with bash bars entrance, aspect and rear.
Tokyo Auto Salon at all times has its justifiable share of the weird, and this yr there was loads of head-scratchers and some builds that would empty your abdomen put up haste. However we love all of them.
Constructed by college students at Shizuoka Skilled School Of Vehicle Know-how Sports activities (SAT’S for brief), the Hoty Roty is a modified HH4 Honda Acty Avenue kei van physique with American scorching rod styling, sat over a customized chassis that includes System Suzuki Hayabusa underpinnings. The Acty physique has been lengthened, widened, chopped and sectioned, whereas the System Suzuki Hayabusa’s GSX1300R engine – which is nice for 237hp – sits proper behind the motive force’s seat to energy up the enormous rear slicks. This factor is loopy!
Parked alongside the Hoty Roty was one other faculty construct, this time from the Worldwide Data Know-how and Vehicle School in Fukushima. There have been two inspirations for this V36 Skyline Coupe-based construct – Nissan’s iconic Skyline Tremendous Silhouette race automotive, and Machine RS-1 from the Nineteen Eighties Japanese tv collection Western Police.
Obayashi Manufacturing unit in Ome are well-known for his or her loopy customized builds, however their Monster Leaf Customized 2230, which options wild, futuristic physique work and hydraulic doorways and roof is simply subsequent degree.
This all brings to Nihon Automotive School, in any other case recognized NATS, an acronym for Nihon Automotive Know-how Faculty. Their Tokyo Auto Salon sales space by no means disappoints, and for 2024 there have been three actual standouts, beginning with the NATS Corona-OG. Based mostly on an RT20 Nissan Corona, the automotive’s scholar builders seemed to American customized tradition for inspiration. With lead sled design cues and lowrider-esque hydraulic suspension from Skipper, it’s a tremendous construct.
Subsequent up is the Phantom Chibi Meri, which NATS college students customary in Kenmeri Skyline model from a 1983 Suzuki Mighty Boy .
Final however not least is a automotive you’re positive to have seen someplace on-line over the previous week – the NATS Jimny J1. It could seem like a Hummer H1 that’s been stretched sideways in Photoshop, however in actuality it’s a heavily-widened JA11 Suzuki Jimny physique – with an additional pair of doorways – draped over a Suzuki Escudo (Vitara) body. One of many college students’ important objectives was to have the J1 sitting as little as potential on air suspension, and I feel we are able to all agree that they positively achieved that!
Toby Thyer
Instagram: _tobinsta_
tobythyer.co.uk
Further Images by Rick Muda
Instagram: ardskellig
