Yokohama – Gripshiftslide

Japan Day 2 :: Daikoku Futo PA

Grant — Mon, 06 Apr 2015 09:32:31 +0000

After 36 hours in Japan we finally hit up some car action at none other than Daikoku Futo PA! This tiny car park in the middle of a man made island in the Yokohama harbor is a thing of legend. If you’re into Japanese cars chances are you’ve seen more than a few photos from this location. Here car owners from different walks of life all gather and soak up the experience that is Daikoku Futo any night of the week and during the day on weekends.

Staying in Yokohama meant the parking area was just 15 minutes from our hotel. So hurried back after dinner and set off on our adventure.

The very first sight we were greeted by as we drove down the long spiraling off ramp into the parking area. This ‘Tron’ looking BMW convertible that had light glowing from everywhere. We parked up and ran around like kids in a candy store.

I can’t explain the ‘fizzy’ feeling you get standing in this spot at night… The cars, the orange light and the sound of engines revving is just unlike any car meet at home. The scale of the freeway ramps that circle you create this theater filled with the sounds of cars entering and leaving the car park. It really is just massive!!

The amount of cars even on a quiet night like this was staggering, cars were coming and going all the time. It was impossible to keep up when shooting on a tripod.

These three where all friends.

We loved this bumper-less Crown. It was also refreshing to see a modified Crown after the sea of Japanese Taxi’s getting around Tokyo!

The wheels were on the smaller side for a car of this size bit it still looked great all together.

Our second night in Japan and we were already treated to the sight of a Hako Skyline.

It was beautiful!!

This matte green air-cooled Porsche was a very cool sight amongst all the domestic cars.

There was a small army of MX-5’s out in force.

I’ve only ever seen one or two cool looking MX-5’s together at home so it was awesome to see more than 5 at the same place.

This little dark green one was rocking some wide wheels on the rear. Photos don’t do it justice!

Our favorite MX-5 had to be this BN Sports kitted black number. The level of dish was high with this one!

There was a few Honda’s out and about too.

This little blue EG Civic was sitting stupidly low, it looked awesome from every angle.

The greatest Civic Type R in our eyes… The EK9. These things are just pure awesome!

Another Type R on the same TE 37 wheels.

Over in the corner some local bosozoku bikers were meeting and revving their bikes. When I got closer I realised they were playing songs. They had each made up their own song and began reciting them one after another simply using their engines.

This was one of the coolest aspects of the parking area, getting up close to these amazing machines/people I’ve heard so much about.

Old Suzuki’s and Honda’s seemed the bikes of choice and they all had their own personal touches.

Our personal favorite of the entire night had to be Kazuki’s flawless 86.

The subtle red glitter in the paintwork was beautiful. We were digging the mismatched wheels. Work Equips up front.

TE37V in the rear.

This is seriously one very cool street driven hachiroku!!

Not to far away we found some very nice looking Infiniti’s.

This FX was dropped on it’s airbag suspension while it was parked and had heaps of top end audio gear inside. The roof racks had a very cool flower wrap on them too.

The G-Series sedan was sitting low on a set of 3SDM 0.08 wheels.

These wheels looked the business gleaming away under the street lights.

As it turns out the Toyota Prius is one of the most modified cars in Japan, seriously every second one we saw had blacked out taillights, wheels and an exhaust. This one was a little bit different and certainly had a bigger budget then most sitting pretty atop a set of fifteen52 Tarmac wheels. This thing looked killer.

From big budget to low budget this ‘diy’ Legacy wagon would look at home at most grass root race events. The matte black paint and custom front splitter design along with the rear wing made for a menacing looking street car.

One of the few Supra’s we saw, this was definitely the more wild looking of the bunch. Check out the rear diffuser setup!!

The car park fell quiet for a short time, the silence was quickly interrupted by the unique burble of this Porsche arriving. The sound stuck out like a chip packet being opened in a church.

One for the rotary fans. This spotless white FD RX-7 was certainly worthy of a few photos.

The body kit seemed like a simple lip kit at first but became all the more extreme when you got closer. The rear diffuser alone was a work of carbon art!

A late and brief attendee was this Evo wagon, such a shame we don’t see more of these in Australia. I’ve only ever seen one in real life before this.

This Scion XB was pushing the camber out on the rear wheels, lots of character here. mismatched panels, rusted bonnet and stone chips galore. This was cool!

This tiny Suzuki Alto was just tucking these 14″ mesh wheels in the rear.

It had some patched up fender damage on the front from running so low around Tokyo’s streets.

Later in the evening another cool 86 arrived, this time a coupe!!

In the infamous two tonne black & white combination and on a set of Watanabe wheels… Perfect!

It doesn’t get much cooler than this, sitting behind an idling Toyota Sprinter in Yokohama.

There was truck loads of Toyota’s by this point. Check out the crazy fitment on this Crown.

This Chaser was in pristine condition and funnily enough had the loudest sub woofer I’ve heard on the street. It was ridiculous!!

It had a nice amount of dish too!

One of the toughest looking cars of the night had to be this black Nissan Cima.

The big chunky wheels set it off perfectly.

It’s hard to describe this car without using the word “gangster”…

Even more Toyota Crowns!! They’re literally everywhere here! We were about ready to call it a night before the police did it for us After a few too many cars got a bit loose when leaving the car park.

Then this arrived… The hero car of the night. a sky blue liberty Walk R35 GT-R.

The huge over fenders of the rocket bunny kit perfectly covered the massive rear wheels.

This thing was big!!

Seeing a car like this here in Japan was really a special moment for me, I stood still just enjoying it not even touching my camera for a few minutes before I felt the pain in my feet that comes from a 15 hour day of walking none stop.
So that was that we called it a night and headed back to our hotel.
Thanks for reading,
– Gwyn.

Japan Day 2 :: The Night Life.

Grant — Mon, 06 Apr 2015 07:17:49 +0000

The sunlight of day 2 began peaking through the hotel curtains, like a kid on Christmas morning I was too excited to sleep in. This was our second day of the trip and the plan was simple… Do some exploring, catch a train to Yokohama and get our rental car. Easy!

The view out our window was a perfect snapshot of how densely populated most of Japan is. The buildings press up against one another like people in crowded lift, with dozens of air conditioner compressors thrown across the rooftops. We actually spotted plenty of rooftop gardens with their owners tending to them in the early hours.

Back on foot after we checked out of our first hotel, we wandered Ginza in search of food and treasure.

They hustle and bustle of Tokyo was all around with the sound of sirens constantly blaring.

There always seems to be something happening, we found two police cars and an ambulance outside this building.

Only a few hundred meters away from all the traffic and noise of the city was Hibiya Park, one of the smaller parks of Tokyo it was still a beautiful place to sit and rest.

With several flower gardens and two large ponds it was still rather large by Australian standards.

Benches!! We finally found bench seats!

We also found some strange “free range” kitties running around the park. It seemed they would become a regular sight of our two week trip.

Within the park there was also large amphitheater too.

Across the road we found the king of monsters, Godzilla!!!

This amazingly detailed statue just happened to be outside a First Kitchen, so we decided to stop for breakfast.

First Kitchen is kind of like Macdonalds but better in a few subtle ways, it by no means is to be considered great food but the pancakes sure hit the spot!

After finishing our meal it was time to wander back to the train station.

Along the way we spotted all kinds of cool restaurants, this one was tucked away underneath the train tracks.

The warm glow from the lights from this restaurant was very inviting underneath the bridge, they certainly waste no space at all here in Japan.

We walked back through some of the alleys of Ginza just to take in as much of the place as we could.

It wasn’t long till we were car spotting again, Ginza really seems to be the home of exotics and high end European cars. This California would have been our 4th or 5th Ferrari spotting in 24 hours.

Being our first trip to Japan I have to admit I was quite taken with all the tiny Kei cars and strange wagons. The Honda N-Box seemed to one of the most popular.

The council was busy all morning hanging up these banners from all the posts in the streets, it seemed everywhere was getting ready for some kind of festivities. With the Cherry Blossom/Sakura’s ready to bloom there really was a lot happening in all the towns.

One of the things we quickly noticed was the dedicated smoking areas around Tokyo, it seems it is very much frowned upon to walk and smoke at the same time.

After a surprisingly quick train ride we arrived in Yokohama and managed to pick up our rental car. The next step was finding our hotel. It was an easy find as it was the tallest building in Yokohama (2nd tallest in Japan!)

This thing was huge!!!!!!!!

After dropping off our bags we descended into the basement car park. Of our brief 15 minute drive in Japan this was possible the most daunting task. The car park was at least 3 levels deep and there was motion activated sirens at every blind corner to alert other drivers you were approaching.
Given the fact we couldn’t read the signs it was an intense few minutes. Once we relaxed to the soothing sound of car park music (Yep they were playing music throughout the car park!) we parked in the “whale section. (Yes they also distinguish the different areas with things like whales and grapes!). We parked up near this tough looking G Wagon.

The elevator propelled us to the 56th floor at an astonishing speed, lucky our breakfast was only small as it was rather sickening traveling so fast in a lift!

This was the largest hotel room of our entire stay, it was also surprisingly cheap compared to hotels back home. This room was less than $200aud for the night.

The view was awesome!! There was also a large window sill you could sit on so we spent most of our time with our noses against the glass.

Everyone looked like ants!!

After a few hours of staring darkness fell and the view changed dramatically.

Lights as far as the eye could see!!

We ventured out to get dinner and kill a few more hours, the amount of light coming from the Cosmo clock was insane!

This giant Ferris wheel is the worlds largest clock and we were amazed at all the different light patterns it had. Every hour it would perform a spectacular light show.

Now it was closer to 9pm we decided to go back and get the car, it was finally time to head to the holy grail of car meets… The Daikoku Futo parking area!!
Out in the middle of a man made island in the Yokohama harbor is a spiraling network of expressway ramps leading down to a public car park. Here a few food stores and shopping outlets welcome tired truck drivers to stop and rest.
Many years ago it was also the staging grounds for a lot of street racers to meet and scream off into the night, now with increased police activity it has become the go to place to see some of Japan’s best street cars.

The drive from our hotel was super short and after only 15 minutes we had arrived!! The experience of driving down the ramps leading into the parking area was breathtaking. I was truly speechless, the atmosphere had all the hairs on my body on end! The sounds of engines revving, cars downshifting as they made their way into the car park was one of the greatest things I’ve ever experienced.
Check out our full coverage of the Daikoku Futo PA here.
Thanks for reading,
– Gwyn.

WTAC '13 :: Film Only

Grant — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 10:09:24 +0000

Hands down the World Time Attack Challenge is the biggest event on our radar, each and every year Ian Baker and the team step it up constantly raising the bar. We’ve been fortunate enough to follow the transition from the old Super Lap event days, into the world class spectacle it is now known and loved by, under the current name as the World Time Attack Challenge or ‘WTAC’ for short.
The first ever post on gripshiftslide.com was you guessed it, WTAC 2011! To say the event has held a special place in our hearts ever since, would be a massive understatement. We thought it would be a great tribute to create an entire post capturing the event on good old fashioned 35mm film. The charm of anything analogue is hard to deny, the hiss of a record, black & white movies and the grain and colour of a film camera.
We hope you enjoy our unique look at last years event and let us know if you would like to see more posts like this in the future by leaving a comment at the end of the post…

Once again we returned to Sydney Motorsport Park, having access a day early let’s us get up nice and close to the teams as they began final testing before attempting some ‘hot’ laps over the weekend.
It also helps not having any of the crowds around as WTAC is one of the only event’s that spectators can literally walk up to the pit bays see teams working around the clock preparing their car for each session.

The first day of racing last year will be one to remember, as bush fires threatened the nearby blue mountains thick smoke blocked out the sun.

The scene was a very uncomfortable one with reports that hundreds of homes were under danger and the eerie light from the smoke meant there were next to no shadows.

The soft light did make for some remarkable photos though as we spent most of the afternoon watching the drifters set up their pits. While WTAC is all about the remarkable machines pushing the limits of engineering and the laws of physics, at the same time it is arguably the highest profile drifting event in Australia, with many international guest taking part in the competition that takes place in the evening.

One of the biggest appearances last year was from local Melbourne lad, Nigel Petire and his extraordinary home built drift Ute. He made the trip with not one, but two cars!

The Ute was handcrafted in a garage barely bigger than the car itself, don’t believe us? Check out our feature of the build here.
This was the first public event for the Ute to not only be displayed to the public but also be driven on track!!

Nigel was grinning from ear to ear when he wasn’t losing his voice talking to the crowds about his stunning build. He was both nervous and overwhelmed from the excitement of driving his precious creation on track with other cars for the first time ever!

While the car itself doesn’t comply with current competition regulations, Nigel isn’t bothered as he built it for demonstration purposes and of course tyre shredding FUN!!
He brought along his tried and true 180SX for competition duties. So when he was behind the wheel of the Ute, he was just concentrating on getting to know his new friend.

After the first night of track demos in the Ute, something didn’t go to plan and of course that’s just cars for you! Due to the ultra light weight, yet super strong body, the transmission was not having a good time dealing with the punchy SR20 and very grippy tyres, ultimately giving up and retiring the Ute from track duties much earlier then expected.

You could tell it was not how Nigel envisioned his first weekend away with his new toy, he had contemplated getting busy and swapping parts over from the 180SX to get it going again. After the crushing blow the spirits were not high in the Petrie camp and Nigel pulled the pin and left the Ute to be a static display for the rest of the weekend. Since the WTAC he has traveled to New Zealand with Ute and enjoyed hassle free drift demos for all to see and Nigel is set to bring it back to this years WTAC event. We can’t wait!!

Speaking of NZ, Kiwi drifter Mad Mike was over here competing in the drift comp with his world famous “Madbul” Rx7.

The heart of the car is a quad rotor, which produces a very haunting and howling exhaust note that sounds like an F1 car possessed by a demon.

This fire spitting Rx7 has been seen the world over with trips to America, Europe and Australia 3 times now!! Mike sure has a lot of international events under his belt!

Another car that made the trip over from New Zealand was the PPRE RX4 featuring a massive 6 rotor!!! Yep 6!
Mad Mike was invited to pilot the crazy coupe around the full circuit, paying absolutely no attention to any sound restrictions, it broke necks and made ears bleed!

South Australian drifter and “Wunderkind” if you will, Jake Jones is one of the youngest Australian drivers competing on an international level.

His aggressive driving style has seen him go door to door with the worlds very best and scored him international drives in drift competitions in both Japan and China.

Jakes Onvia has even rubbed panels with Daigo Saito most recently at the Melbourne round of FD Asia, check out how he went against the current drift world champion here.

In between all the track action, there’s always plenty to see off the track. Each year the show and shine grows in size and the quality of cars is always impressive.

We’re suckers for old school cars and what better to fill up our roll of film then a pristine Sunny truck.

Remember when Corolla’s were cool! We loved this white duo, the KE30 was our pick of the two.

The Heasman steering girls were all smiles despite the blistering sun beating down against the concrete.

We said each year Ian and the team step it up – this year they had a half pipe with BMX demos all day long.

This sort of entertainment can easily go unnoticed at such a large motorsport event, I remember stopping and watching for a good 15 minutes. These guys had talent!!

One more standout from the crowded show was this striking bright yellow widebody RX7, the RE-super G bodykit is one of the wildest looking kits for the FD RX-7. So aggressive!!

This tubular framed beauty is very serious Nissan Stanza built for the sports sedan series and was part of the Turbo Legends segment were power houses of yesteryear get to prove they still have what it takes to put down a quick lap time.

Back near the pits we hunted around for some of the most impressive builds we could find. This RX8 looks to be a future competitor but for now it was just a static display. If you think the aero looked great the engine bay alone has had more money and time spent the some cars see for their entire build.

The Evolution Custom Industries Porsche was literally the black sheep of the field. One of the only European based cars it had a massive cult following going into the event.
The car is a work of art and seriously fast, the team didn’t get to show their best with a turbo failure ending their chances early.

We thought it would be nice to include this picture of Agges’ 180SX of Insane Drifters fame, some 8 months and many, many events after WTAC the mighty red 180SX finally had it’s last collision at an event here in Melbourne.
Drift cars receive quite a beating and when you’re as competitive as Agges it’s bound to happen sooner or later and sadly this 180SX won’t be seeing the track again.

Melbourne based workshop and tuning specialist Road Track Rally had been achieving great wins with their Evo X. Sadly the Evo lost control at high speeds and collided with a concrete wall.
The team has been busy repairing and will be back for 2014!

All eyes were on the reigning champion Nemo Racing Evo, this engineering marvel had taking the rule book and thrown it out the window and really forced the Australian and Japanese time attack community to go back to the drawing board of what’s possible.

What goes up must come down and in a strange turn of events the team behind this magnificent car crumbled during the weekend sending rumors flying. The car only managed a couple of ‘safe’ laps before being retired back to the pits without a chance to hold onto it’s winning trophy from the previous years WTAC.

With so many classes competing at WTAC you really get a great comparison for times against so many makes, models and platforms. How does a tuned FWD Mitsubishi Colt perform against an street trim Nissan GTR? You’ll find out at WTAC.

Many Japanese teams have started to really to take to series, this year saw some very big hitters from Japanese tuning culture attend.

Top Fuel returned their super agile S2000 to Sydney to once again take on the worlds best, the previous year the car was relatively untested and effectively “out of the box”.

However driver Nobuteru Taniguchi still found the car too challenging to achieve it’s goal, the car performed a lot better but we think Nob will be back to prove he and the car have what it takes.

The Esprit NSX was easily one of the most anticipated international cars this year and with Tarzan Yamada behind the wheel it was a hopeful podium finisher too, after a few hairy spins and a small engine fire the mighty NSX did not get it’s time to shine.

One of the most eye pleasing cars was the RE Amemiya Hurricane RX7, this car was originally built as an Autosalon demo car. This just proves that the Japanese do not do things half-arsed at all, this car is not just a show piece and can really strut it’s stuff in the Time Attack arena!

Back to Australia and the Queensland based Mighty Mouse CRX, This David vs Goliath honda was determined to hold onto it’s NA FWD record from the previous year, Rob and the team did just that. Now with pressure on for a third year the team has since converted the car to left hand drive for better weight distribution… Yep, they’re determined to win again in 2014.

A rare sight outside of the original Fast & The Furious movie here in Australia, The Mitsubishi Eclipse is not something we’re used to seeing racing let alone driving on the street. This FWD racer is owned by aero extraordinaire Andrew Brilliant.
The car originally raced in the America and had many victories under it’s hat, at one point it was the number 1 car out of 50 high powered RWD and AWD cars. A true testament to Andrew’s skills aerodynamic skills.

After three long days of racing the last cars rolled back into the pits, most came back under their own power, some returned to the pits on tow trucks. WTAC is not for the faint hearted and you have to be willing to put it all on the line to win.

After all the action stops the show is packed up and we begin counting down the days till next year, thankfully as we post this we’re less than two months away from the 2014 World Time Attack Challenge!
Don’t miss out on the biggest event on the calendar and book tickets, time off work and accommodation now!!
Check out all the details here www.worldtimeattack.com
We hope you’ve enjoyed this nostalgic glance at our favorite event, it took two rolls of film and nearly a year to get it developed but we love holding a real photo in our hands!
Thanks for reading,
– Gwyn.