Car culture. Defined as simply as it sounds. It is all about the lifestyle of cars and enthusiasts along side; expressing their love and interests on the piece of metal shell thats mated to an internal combustion engine. It can be looks, it can power.. but one thing for sure is, when it all comes together – it sets to leave you in awe.
Every country attains very different styles and attracts different cults – but currently the most powerful and influential country is Japan; The Land of the Rising Sun. May it be the Euros, Supercars and most definitely JDMs; this is where the world points to when they talk of ‘Car Culture’ and to those who has been will understand what it all means. But for some of the unlucky ones, it is always a dream to experience and participate in the Japanese car culture.
Every year – enthusiasts from all over the world conglomerate themselves in Tokyo for an event known as the Mecca of modified vehicles. This is where tuners showcase their masterpiece work and when kit crafters brings to life concepts to exhibit their ideas and skills all for the love and interest of modified cars. For 27 years, the show has brought the best-of-the-best in the modified society and a step better every year since. This is where we want to be. So this is our journey to Tokyo Auto Salon 2014!
Our journey began on the 7th of January, heading towards the winter weathered city. Flying overnight after a short two hour transit in Changi Airport, Singapore from KLIA; the flight was set to arrive at 7:45am on the 8th of January. Not knowing a single Japanese except for “Arigato” which is probably “Hello”, we took the 7 hour flight expecting the best.
Upon arrival – the cold breeze of wind shot our skin, quickly escalating our excitement. Tokyo Auto Salon 2014 was not until Friday, 10th of January so we convinced to spend our time getting to know Japan more.. beginning with their train system. Famous for their ‘by the second’ punctual schedule, it was excellent to know that their train system is connected to almost anywhere! Getting to our place of refuge meant travelling almost 2 hours on train from Narita International Airport, this gave us time to get use to the surrounding, the people and the train system.
Switching trains is second nature for the Japs, and we immediately noticed that in a city of 13 million people where almost everyone travelled by train, our Malaysian style of walking was not even half as brisk as the Japanese. Everyone around walked briskly and with the utmost purpose of not missing the train. Good learning lesson for us there…
As we got to our hotel, we dropped our stuff and quickly ran off to Shibuya for some grub. Whilst eating, we decided to google for “Pagani Showroom Japan” and Uncle Google pointed us the direction, showing 2 train stops away plus a 3 minutes walk. So you probably can guess what we did next…
As we found the place – we were rained with shock to find the beauty that were kept in storage. A selection of rare race cars and Supercars were parked side by side in the rather confined showroom, befalling an estimated net worth of at least $20 million in front of our eyes. I’d love to talk about BingoSports here but await for more on this later..!
Day 2 began and it took time to get use to the air conditioned weather. It had rained all night and it was Zero degrees when we woke up. Shivers aside, this was set to be an exciting day – because we were set to head for the RWB gathering at the Hard Rock Cafe Roppongi where we will be seeing the magnificently crafted wide-body overpowered Beetles or more highly recognised as the Porsche 911s. Other than Tokyo Auto Salon itself; this was the bigger highlight!
After a little sightseeing at Asakusa – we took the train straight to Roppongi (with the help of Google Maps) and was greeted with a hint of Signal Green from our far sight, reminding ourselves of our little green Mini back home. As goes with this as well, we’d love to tell you more about it here but RWB requires its own space on this trip, so await for our update on it soon too…
After heading back to the hotel, it was D-Day in the morning and we called the night early at 11pm set for an early morning to head to Tokyo Auto Salon. Held in Makuhari Messe, a convention centre located just outside of Tokyo in the north west corner of the Chiba Prefecture – it was going to be an almost 2 hour train ride so it was important to get up early to be at the doors early to apply for our media passes..
Day 3 – 6am wake up call tucked with a quick breakfast at the coffee house downstairs, we rushed to train station. Google maps guided us that we had to change trains 3 times, heading to Shinjuku station – switching to the JR line towards Tokyo – and a final train change towards Kaihinmakuhari station. A combination of train rides and long walks meant it would drain us for the next 3 days but the excitement was stronger.
As we arrived at Makuhari Messe, we were greeted by the sound of RB26 engine courtesy of an R32 GTR screaming down the road in front of the convention centre. We told ourselves; “This was it… we have made our journey to Tokyo Auto Salon.. !”. Look forward in the coming days about Tokyo Auto Salon as we bring you our exclusive scoop of TAS14 from Zerotohundred.com!
