For the past 15 years I have had a workshop in Auckland, New Zealand, servicing, building and tuning Japanese racing and road cars. JTune, and some of the vehicles I’ve helped create over the past fifteen years, were previously featured on Speedhunters. After a few busy years, I finally decided to take a break from my full-time retail job and have a few adventures in Japan.
My first trip this year was for the Tokyo Auto Salon, and at that time I also traveled to Fuji to meet with HKS about a special Toyota GR86 project. I returned to in mid-summer check the progress of constructionand also visit some other shops. One of these was Car Shop Glow.
Even though I missed 7’s Day (7/7) in Japan by a week, I was determined to visit one of Tokyo’s most famous RX-7 stores and learn more. Auto shop glow is best known these days for its custom LED lighting, but the company also services and builds entire cars from a modest building in Nerima-ku, near the heart of the Japanese capital.
Car Shop Glow was founded in 2006 and its owner, Yukimitsu Hara, initially sold its LED light products online. In April 2008 he opened a showroom, focusing mainly on personalizing American and European cars.
In 2009, a customer – who was a manager at Super Autobacs – offered Hara-san his ex-Knight Sports Mazda RX-7, which he no longer drove, for a price that was hard to refuse. Not wanting to miss this opportunity, Hara-san purchased the FD3S, which marked the beginning of the Car Shop Glow demonstration car.
Taking the RX-7 to the Tsukuba Circuit in the same trim he bought it with, Hara-san clocked a lap time of 1:06 on 17-inch street tires, setting a benchmark for future upgrades.
At the time, many of the other FD3S RX-7s in the Tsukuba paddock were equipped with RE Amemiya widebody kits, so Hara-san had one installed and finished the exterior with a fresh paint job and some of his custom taillights. The kit upgrade allowed for wider tires, prompting a return to Tsukuba at the first opportunity, where Hara-san reduced his TC2000 PB lap time to an impressive 1:02.
From then on, he was addicted to time attacks.
As Hara-san continued to compete in time attack events and proudly fly the Car Shop Glow flag, the company began receiving taillight orders from Japan and abroad, further raising its profile.
As a result, Car Shop Glow expanded its range to include lights for other models – including the Toyota Supra, Honda S2000 and NSX, and Subaru Impreza – and ventured into aero parts, exhausts and suspension, all of which are sold today in Japan and abroad.
Over the years, Hara-san’s FD3S has evolved over several time attack seasons, becoming lighter, more aerodynamic, and more powerful. You can read all about Dino’s 2015 column.
The RX-7’s best time at the Tsukuba Circuit is an impressive lap of 56.4 seconds – achieved with OEM-based brakes and the factory ABS removed. That setup may raise some eyebrows, but given the TC2000’s track layout – short with only a few heavy braking zones – it stands to reason that balanced and easily warmed-up brakes can be more effective than a large brake set. Sometimes simplicity wins, especially if you don’t want to spend too much time fine-tuning brake balance and bias.
Currently, the RX-7 is completely stripped down, with big plans on the horizon. When I asked Hara-san about his goal for the car, he said he would like to push the limits and go even faster; a 53 second lap is the dream.
In Tokyo and other Asian cities, physical space is a real luxury, but when it comes to custom cars, that doesn’t mean that build quality is compromised. Many enthusiasts build impressive machines in their driveway or garage at home. An example of this is another Car Shop Glow RX-7: Tani-san’s wild ‘GT race car for the road’, as recently presented by Toby.
On the occasion of our visit, Car Shop Glow arranged for a few customer cars to visit the store and then set off in convoy.
Given Hara-san’s penchant for time attack racing, seeing other aggressively styled RX-7s outside Car Shop Glow it would be easy to assume it’s a race car too. While some of these builds do indeed appear on the track, most are strictly road cars heavily inspired by Hara-san’s FD3S. Regardless of how customized they are under the hood, it’s pretty cool to see these cars on the road.
I would like to say a huge thank you to Hara-san and the staff at Car Shop Glow for opening their doors to us, and to everyone who brought their cars. Stay tuned for the night cruise!
Jackie Tse
Instagram: jtune_nz
Photography by Ash Bechan
Instagram: pixeltoon_media
More IAMTHESNELHUNTER to inform
How to join the IATS program: We have always welcomed readers to contact us with examples of their work and believe that the best Speedhunter is always the person closest to the culture itself, right on the street or in the local parking lot. If you think you have what it takes and want to share your work with us, you can apply to be part of the IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER program. Read here how you can participate.
