|
Not to be too picky, but a few corrections to that article:
"I was somewhat disappointed in the quality of the cars at the show. I felt that certainly they were not much better than the cars here. The cool thing is that most of the cars were battered and used like they were actually being driven and driven hard"
The difference in customization between the States and Japan is large. It's mainly driven by the fact that any car on the road in Japan has to pass the Shaken tax/inspection every 3 or 2 years, and there are a bunch of rules that forbid many of the modifications that Americans would take for granted. Most major tuning or modification in Japan requires a bunch of paperwork to do it legally. Engine swaps, new paint schemes and more are frowned upon. So it's not exactly cost that has driven down the amount of customization here in Japan, it's the legal hoops that you have to jump through to do them. It doesn't mean that people don't switch in new turbo's, or change the cams, ecu's, etc., but it's much harder to go to the levels of custom work Americans go to.
"Even the booths of major manufactures were lacking much in the way of crazy tuner cars. Another weird thing was the Yakuza or Japanese mafia had a booth at the show, full of scary looking hoods giving everyone the evil eye. I didn't go near that booth."
Those are the VIP car people. They aren't Yakuza, more accurately they are Bosozoku, street gangs. And even then, they really aren't even that, at least any more. They mainly dress and act that way because the main customers of their parts and customization is the bosozoku, who currently love big V8 Japanese cars (VIP cars).
"After Autobac's we went to Akiabara": Should be Akihabara.
"I wanted to go see some street racing and drifting but the locals told me that the Yakuza had just about put an end to this activity in Tokyo and you had to go way out of town to do any of it."
It certainly happens, and every night to boot. Most Tokyo racers simply run around the inner-city expressway, the Shutoko. They do laps and laps against the clock, or against each other. This has been the basis for the Tokyo Highway Battle game series on the Playstation, Playstation 2 and Dreamcast. There used to be drifters out at the Hirano wharves, and I imagine they still do it. Yokohama is full of street racing after dark. In general, the thing is that most racing in Tokyo, and I imagine the other cities as well, takes place well after 12pm. The basic rule is to not involve any "civilians" in the racing as much as possible - partially out of simple courtesy, and mainly because the police will crack down for quite a while if there is an incident.
Cheers,
Paul Hansen
|
I'm moving to Tokyo. 
Linear Mode
