A while back (damn, time really does fly), I took a detour from the beaten path of the annual Tokyo Game Show to check out the Motorsport Japan 2007 Festival. Located in Odaiba, a suburb about a half-hour outside of Tokyo, the Motorsport Festival is a free car show open to people of all ages -- think of it as a county fair on a national level, and instead of clowns and cotton candy, the fairgrounds are slammed with some of the hottest JDM and JGTC vehicles ever made.
And although this was my first attendance of the festival, this year seemed to be no exception from past traditions -- sexy cars were in abundance everywhere. Armed with nothing more than a phone camera (Nokia N70, which does not actually function in Japan's CDMA-dominated cell phone world, btw), I snapped a bunch of shots and wiped drool from my stubbly chin.
So imagine you just stepped off the densha (electric subway) from Tokyo and into the warm, oppressive humidity of the open air at Odaiba. The Motorsport Festival looks out just beyond the train platform and in the nearby distance you can hear the rumble of engines and (smell) the protest of tires. Keep in mind that some folks have commented that it looks cold in these pictures... nope, it's in fact, 80 degrees and overcast with some light drizzle; in other words, a crappy day for an awesome car show.
Below Left: Team Arabian Oasis set up shop at the Festival with their tent full of schwag and racing gear. The highlight was of course their Fairlady Z decked out with Arabian Oasis livery. For those of you who may not know, Arabian Oasis is a brand of drinking water in Japan and they're apparently also involved in F1 racing.
Below Middle: Toyota Team Tom's SC430 GT car made an appearance slathered in Japanese sake livery. Yes, that's the alcohol. In fact, it's my father-in-law's favorite brand of sake. Anyway, this SC430 was in competition in GT class last year, sporting approx. 480 hp. and about as much torque to boot.
Below Right: The Castrol Mugen NSX, built on the platform of a 2000 Honda NSX, gets over 600 hp on its naturally aspirated V6. Looks familiar, huh?
Below Left: The famous Raybrig Honda NSX which competed in 2003 for the Japan Grand Touring Car Championship.
Below Center: The famous RE Amemiya speed yellow RX-7 FD (driven by Tetsuya Yamano and Hiroyuki Hirii) which competed in the 2006 season GT300 (JGTC/SuperGT) in Japan and captured the title.
Below Right: An inside view of the RE Amemiya RX-7 cockpit and panels. Looks almost space age... like those lunar landing modules from the 1960s.
Below Left: A Subaru STi optimized for Japan's JGTC/SuperGT series in 2004.
Below Center: Two race cars from Autobacs Racing Team Aguri. On the right is the ARTA Garaiya Super GT 300, a boutique JGTC car packing 300+ hp. On the left is the 2002 Acura ARTA NSX, a 2500 lbs, 480 hp beast.
Below Right: The Calsonic Xanavi Nissan R390 GT1 race car -- Japan's entry into the 1997 and 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race. Weighs 2200 lbs. and packs 641 hp.
Below Left: A little too young for the heel-and-toe, methinks, but this kid is definitely getting an early start on life in the fast lane.
Below Center: The Monster Motorsport Suzuki XL7 hillclimb rally car, driven by Pikes Peak record holder Nobuhiro Tajima. For more info on this car and how Tajima beat the record in 2007 with this 1000+ hp monstrosity, click here.
Below Right: Another view of the XL7 hillclimb rally car. Check out the crazy downforce kit on the nose of the car. Shoveling snow!
Below Left: Practically a JGTC icon these days, this Xanavi Nismo Fairlady Z took home top honors from the Super GT's GT 500 class for Nismo. As you can see from the pics, the car is a heavily modified Fairlady as the nose of the car was extended to meet Super GT's homologation requirements.
Below Center: Another view of the Xanavi Nismo Fairlady Z. I really like its intimidating Super GT makeover.
Below Right: The 2003 Xanavi Nismo Skyline R34 GT-R. Another JGTC icon.
Below Left: I was pretty stoked to chance upon this sweet ARTA F.O.S. Eunos NA8 (NA models with 1.8 L engines as opposed to the NA6 with their 1.6 Ls). Driven by Mieko Ohtake (yup, she's a woman) on team Autobacs, this car was clean both inside and out.
Below Center: Although the car isn't packing too much power to weight, (2200 lbs. at 130 hp) you can be sure the ARTA NA8 is loaded with plenty of performance mods to keep this Eunos glued to the track.
Below Right: The "Eunos" Roadster. Sounds just as random a "Miata", I suppose. I guess it's a little difficult to pull at the heart strings with a non-descript name like "MX-5".
Below Left: Over in the Mugen tent, engineers were getting readings on their 2007 Civic Type-R, which later ran in the day's auto-cross exhibition event. Notice the front wheels in free spin.
Below Center: Tapped right into the Civic Type-R's ECU to change settings on the fly.
Below Right: A look at the inside of the Mugen Civic Type-R. Carbon fiber everywhere...
Below Left: Adjacent to the Civic Type-R was a fiery Mugen-tuned Civic RR.
Below Center: Complete with Mugen rims, Brembo calipers and slotted rotors.
Below Right: The ultimate Rice Dream, to be sure.
Below Left: And now begins the part of this photoblog where we show you lots of pictures of Nissan cars from across the generations. To kick things off is the 2007 Nismo Fairlady Z. Keep in mind that although the car only costs around $38k, Nissan only made 300 of these bad boys so you'd be lucky if that's all you end up paying for these things.
Below Center: Obvious difference with the Nismo version of the Z is the bodykit based on the Super GT championship car, with front fascia and chin spoiler, side skirts, rear fascia and underbody diffuser. Pretty darn sexy if you ask me.
Below Right: Interior styling is also classy and suitably sleek. Definitely a step up from the 2004-2006 Z's where the dash and trim felt a little plasticky and cheap.
Below Left: Another view of a Fairlady's rear.
Below Center: Forged RAYS alloy rims with gold Brembo calipers.
Below Right: The belly of the beast. All 3.8 liters of its VQ35HR heart pumping 350 hp.
Below in General: For the next handful of pics, you get lots of vintage Japanese racing cars (especially Skylines), and a Porsche.
Below: Having grown up on a steady diet of Sega Rally 2 and 3 (haven't tried Revo yet), seeing the actual Castrol Toyota Celica GT-Four WRC rally car was like coming face-to-face with an X-Wing fighter in real-life. I also loved the fact that the car was kept in its battle-damaged condition for exhibition. 300 hp out of a four-banger? Whoa.
Below: A couple different Subaru Impreza WRC rally cars. On the left and center is the Subaru Impreza 555 WRC98 car that Colin McRae drove to victory in the 1998 San Remo Rally. To the right is the 2006 Impreza piloted by Peter Solberg which he drove at the Monte Carlo rally event.
Below: This section of the festival got me feeling a little sad. In the middle of their rally car displays, they had a special tribute to Colin McRae who had just died in a helicopter crash the week before. They had a fleet of the cars he drove in past races on display, and had a signing table for fans to leave their final farewells. RIP, Colin!
Below left: Pretty random pic, but there's the Boss-sponsored Japanese Formula car in the team paddock. For those who don't know, Boss is a coffee drink maker in Japan and their "mascot" for the past few years has been Tommy Lee Jones. Yes, the actor. And he's in some of the strangest commercials over there, always playing the odd (white) man out in Japan's homogenous culture.
Below center: After the auto show, we walked around the nearby mall and I snapped this cute little picture of a Japanese kid with obviously no clue what to do with an Xbox 360 controller. It was like he had found some sort of alien artifact and was picking up something exotic for the first time in his life. I guess you had to be there for "teh funny."
Below Right: For the last pic of the blog, I leave you with an interesting concept -- Mexipan!
