If you need a car-related reason to come to Japan for a week or so, the Tokyo Auto Salon is one of the best events to plan a trip around. Not only is it one of the most entertaining car shows in the world, the weather in January isn’t even too bad. It’s certainly better than the horrendously humid summers Japan gets.…
I can honestly say there’s no show quite like the Tokyo Auto Salon. There are other tuner shows like SEMA and the Essen Motor Show, but the TAS has its very own and unique style. When the rest of the world is oohing and aah-ing over the latest tech and the latest trucks, this unmistakably Japanese show is where things…
Controversial Japanese tuner Liberty Walk wanted to make an impact.
Without the crowds, without the ‘booth babes’, without the hustle and bustle, the Tokyo Auto Salon is a gorgeous affair comprised of everything from widebody Porsches to drift cars to body kits for Civic hatchbacks. It’s an incredible display of incredible cars, and I’ve personally always wanted to attend. (Update: …
While we’re prepping for the Detroit Auto Show over here, the 2018 Tokyo Auto Salon is underway. If you’re in the area, you should make a beeline for Subaru’s booth, because there is some truly awesome stuff there.
It’s that time of the year. A fortnight hasn’t even passed to give us time to recover from the New Year meets, we now have the grand circus that is the Tokyo Auto Salon weekend and the craziness surrounding it. While North America prepares for the first big “proper” motor show in Detroit, Japan continues the wild…
Mercedes-Benz and Aston Martin have recently shown off ultra high-strung Formula 1-style roadgoing supercars. They’re fine. But Toyota’s Gazoo Racing just debuted the GR Super Sport Concept, and it’s better. Instead of being F1-inspired, Gazoo’s “road car concept model” is based off its 24 Hours of Le Mans program.…
The Tokyo Auto Salon happens this week too, and with it comes an STI version of the Subaru Viziv Performance Concept. Here’s a teaser. Let’s hope the wing is adequately huge.
So we didn’t get a new Toyota Supra at any of the auto shows in 2017, and it doesn’t appear to be coming to the Detroit show next month either. At this point I’m all but convinced it exists only internally so Toyota employees can rip burnouts as a stress-relief exercise. But! Something interesting and unexpected is…
The Lexus LC is already a vision of excellence, the most badass Lexus since the LFA, the car we willed into existence, a Japanese Aston Martin. Now we can expect it to get even better, as Car and Driver reports. Twin-turbo F version 600 horsepower better.
Let’s be honest, the Tokyo Auto Salon isn’t exactly known for its high number of classic vehicles. Instead it’s known for all the utter insanity of its modification. When a classic shows up, it sticks out. And the WWork rich blue Triumph TR3A is a Rembrandt at a hipster modern art gallery.
In 2016, it was disappointing to see the very few Honda vehicles at Tokyo Auto Salon. And, it has to be admitted, I still have a great deal of disappointment that so few ‘90s Hondas like Civics, CRXs, and Preludes showed up at 2017, too. However, a number of modified S660s, Honda’s tiny kei car roadster, were…
The lone Abarth at Tokyo Auto Salon proudly displays its Italian loyalty.
Corazon isn’t a well-known player in the Japanese aftermarket world, but the Subaru parts company brought the glitz and glimmer to Tokyo Auto Salon. Not content to just add aero features and ground effects to their show pieces, they gave them the appearance of etched stainless steel. The effect looks like it just flew…
Toyota Gazoo Racing 86/BRZ in Bridgestone Livery in the Potenza booth at Tokyo Auto Salon.
The new Toyota C-HR is meant to take on the Honda HR-V and other dull little crossover/hatchbacks around the globe. It’s not an interesting type of car, and Toyota must know it—the company modified the hell out of a bunch of C-HRs at the Tokyo Auto Salon this year.
Every year at Tokyo Auto Salon, the students of Nihon Automotive College build some pretty crazy customs. And one of the things they seem especially good at is making tiny cars into versions of other cars that weren’t originally so tiny. This year, a Suzuki Cappuccino became a mini Mazda RX-7.
Last year at Tokyo Auto Salon, Lexus had a pretty large booth that mimicked some kind of Nordic dance club bar one might see in Oslo or Stockholm, all white and glass and steel, with flashing lights, dancers, and Lexus staffers in thin, crisp reflective suits. This year? Carbon fiber race cars. That’s it.
It’s not terribly surprising that Nissan would bring a NISMO GT-R to the Tokyo Auto Salon, but it was somewhat of a surprise that most of Nissan’s booth was NISMO. Including a NISMO Fairlady Z, a NISMO Juke, and a NISMO March!
A reader recently inquired on the initial Tokyo Auto Salon 2017 post about if any vendors from China were present, and if so, how bad were they? Well... the answers are “yes” and “pretty pathetic.”
