Tokyo Auto Salon 2009

{borrowed from Supraforums.com}

Hey Guys -
Experienced TAS yesterday morning via the "Press Pass" option . It's a much better experience when you don't have to fight through the throngs of Japanese men all jockeying for position to snap some pics of a scantily clad Japanese girl. Don't get me wrong, I took my fair share of eye candy pics too but my SOLE PURPOSE for going to TAS wasn't to get that coveted upskirt shot of a barely legal Japanese chick in a maid outfit.

So anyways, we left the house at 7am and arrived in Chiba around 8:30. TAS was scheduled to open up for the press at 9 and 1pm for the general public. The entrance itself was split into two walkways, the press side was wide open, the GP side was already stacked about 200 people deep. We strolled on up to counter, picked up our passes and walked on in....Nice!!

Comparing last year's showing to this year was a bit of a letdown. A number of shops opted not to participate due to the high cost of floor space. Trust, HKS, Bee-R & Phoenix Power were a few of the ones notably absent. The overall feel of the Auto Salon was that less emphasis was being placed on "power tuning" and more on energy was "show". Of course there were a few exceptions. There were a few Supras still being represented, probably about even with R34's which was a bit of a surprise. I only spotted one R33 . The FD3S RX-7 is still alive and well in Japan. Many shops had one in some state of visual distress

One of my favorite stops was the Blitz booth. They had the an R35 adorned with stickers sporting their new 20" magnesium wheels. Nothing too out-of-the ordinary, but it did have a small mirror under the rear bumper. A lot of shops do this to show off their shiny new exhaust. My buddy and I stopped, did a double take, and stooped down. A Blitz employee saw us chatting and came over with a big smile. "What do you seeing? Do you see something...anooo... different?" I smiled back and asked him where the transmission went.... "Ahh....good eyes....it has a Hollinger with R34 final drive now..." That was pretty cool. He said they weren't quite sure what they were going to do with it yet. No matter what though, this should fix the fragile transmisison problem. The motor was stock (for the moment) and to the best of their knowledge, they were the first to swap a manual box in.
So rather than write a book here, I'll move on to the pictures with the occasional snippet. I've got about 500+ pictures, I'll sort through them and add them as I go along:

9am: Very quiet. Here's a couple pics of the East Hall. TAS encompasses a total of three large halls:




























Oh Yes! The Knight-Industries 2000 made an appearance, not only in proper hardtop form but also as a convertible! Look how happy that little Japanese dude is!



















A rare bird though...only around 350 were produced produced over a two year span....but did you know it was SUPPOSED to be a Datsun instead? So rather than continue the facade.....how about taking the 2000GT back to it's roots with a motor swap?

RB26 powered 2000GT:

 

BADDASS bro... thanx for sharing

 

sick man...great pictures.

 

There's a lot of nice Nissans in there!

 

Thanks, great photos. Hard to pick a best of car.

 

 

im loving the mines gtr.. i was hoping of a shot at the spoon booth cause i heard they have some interesting little tid bits.

 

my favorites are both mine's cars

 

 

Again! Great pics, the girls are not too bad either.

 

Rip nsx :(

 

Hello to all from RHDJapan!! First off we hope that everyone had a great New Year and would like to wish everyone a healthy and exiting 2009!!


Along with the start of the New Year come the Tokyo Auto Salon and RHDJapan was there early on Friday getting coverage for those who could not make the trip to Japan for this event.













Additional coverage from the event can be found at the following link:

TAS 2009 Tokyo Auto Salon 2009 - a set on Flickr

You can sit back and watch the slide show at the following link:

TAS 2009 Tokyo Auto Salon 2009

 

excellent post, tokyo auto salon is the best.. wud luv to go one day!!!

 

ah, i love how over the top, colorful, outlandish...how japanese tokyo auto salon is!

the yellow rex was great, the mugen nsx was insane, very cool jdm accord, some sweet evos and z's, and the noblesse fit actually looked ok.


some of the chicks were cute too. (but def not all.)

what type of car had the anime on the hood? it was awesome. and is it just me, or is the toyota iq starting to look like a squashed, two-door xd?

 

looking back, that racing ef is def the best car there next to the mugen rr nsx.