Japan's Fading Car Scene: Lost Tuning Shops & Forgotten Race Tracks
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- On our mission to Osaka, we salvaged our trip to Japan by stopping at Fuji Speedway to see the old racetrack bend and visit a forgotten tuning shop.
❱ Patreon - / juiceboxforyou
❱ Discord - / discord
❱ Shop - shop.juiceboxf...
❱ Website - juiceboxforyou....
❱ Instagram - / juiceboxforyou
❱ Facebook - / juiceboxforyou
Japan with a Plan Ep 2
Shot in April 2023
#ae86 #juiceboxforyou
The 57 year old guy, and his trapped in time tuning shop... I'm not going to lie, it got me a bit teary eyed. He's an absolute legend, whomever he may be. Its a shame that these older passionate shops are dying off, because its the very essence of Japan that I love. Some day I may actually make it over there, but I fear that I would never be as accepted as you guys were there.
that's what i'm saying, man. i remember seeing that shop in the little preview and i was super excited to see if they went inside and saw cool car goodies. now that they actually did go inside i feel sad.
Thank you for documenting this
my thoughts exactly
I don’t understand though. He got so much worth of stock he could sell online and make a big buck. There is absolutely no reason to hoard it.
@@marvinvisser5039 that’s not the point
You only need to think how many audio shops, wheel shops, exhaust shops, window tint shops, etc have closed down in your area over the last 15 yrs to see how much car culture is disappearing.
In my city, there used to be a dozen places specializing in each of those and theyre all almost gone.
I think cars becoming extremely reliant on technology using electrical rather then mechanical parts has led to cars becoming harder to work on.
Theres also been a decline in retail stores in general. Parts are typically sold online now instead of your local tuning shop also. Im only 30 now so the golden days were actually before i could even drive but i still remember the scene.
Cars have had all the fun regulated out of them. I can count on one had the number of new cars i find remotely appealing.
@@eclipsegst9419 Miata...Lotus cars with a manual trans.....the Camaro....oops it is gone now....the new Mustang is so tech bro plastic fantastic so meh on that unless dark horse......that is about it besides some couch built stuff and small shop stuff like things Morgan makes....also some Kei cars from Japan
@@eclipsegst9419 Now that Nissan has it's paint shop up and running the "new" Z is actually coming over here and the markups are disappearing. Because it's a Z34 with some chassis stiffening there's still a ton of aftermarket for it. It's a good thing too because if they actually built an all new chassis it would have to comply with a whole lot of electronic nannies and other unnecessary stuff they are forcing on new chassis codes. It's the best Z chassis, with their best turbo motor (well besides the R32-35 motors) with great looks all for almost half the price a 300ZXTT cost in the '90s considering inflation.
I have lived in Tokyo since 1991 and speed cameras and unmarked police cars have killed the street racing scene from back then and now electric and hybrid cars are taking over.... scores of speed shops and speed equipment makers gone down the tubes and in the last couple of weeks BBS ( Wheels ) and Recaro in bankruptcy
Gawdamn. That part of the old tuning shop frozen in time almost made me shed tears. Its not only the nostalgia for me being a teenager in the early 2000's being obsessed with everything JDM, but the story of the owner going blind & reminiscing. Thank you Neil for sharing these beautiful stories with us.
Fun fact: that Soarer at 10:05 is Kataoka Tatsuya's practice drift car
My favourite part of the week 💪
same
Weeks just don't go by fast enough for this lmao
Please remember the places that give you a trinket. If you ever return provide them a token of appreciation in return. It's something a lot of people miss but it's important to them and you'll make a lasting impression on them.
Awesome video too, love seeing all the hidden places that are so integral to the history of Japans car culture. Enjoy your stay boys! 👍
Right! We brought some small Texas themed gifts with us to give to our Air BnB hosts to show our appreciation.
I just realized about 5 minutes in that i am constantly smiling while looking at this. Thank you guys!
That Punto is a HGT 1.8 twin cam great little hot hatches they used to race them in Mondello owned one myself!
I got so excited when I saw that and then they smack talked it and I was sad. I daily a yellow mk2a sporting and those hgts with a full abarth kit are impossible to find anymore, and on 17 inch coupe alloys, I’d say it has some stories. Only 3 left on the roads in the uk and I’d say none in Ireland anymore. Mad bitta history
Might be worth adding some kind of label to the title to signify it's a series. Amazing stuff.
That tuning shop is incredible. "His google is behind you on the wall" really beautiful bit of history.
You really couldn't just type in whatever you wanted. You had to find people, talk with them, get the right books. Incredible stuff.
Oh man, it takese me right back to when I was in Japan 2000 to 2001, so much of that guys shop was like what I saw! I mostly just wandered around and sometimes had a few convos in okay English.
I went back couple weeks in 2005 and couldnt afford much but wandered around half starving and checking out used book shops and the occasional Skyline. I was broke, haha, and have been meaning to go back, but with proper (and respectful) shopping and touristy wandering.
What’s sad is the vast number of RUclips channels and media coverage over-hyping Japan’s 90’s car culture craze is what’s leading to its disappearance. All I see anymore is foreigners in Japan trying to relive what already happened. Don’t get me wrong, I love that period of Japan automotive history, but it’s a double edge sword: giving it coverage so people without the means to travel there can experience it, while simultaneously creating a massive appeal and influx of those who can travel there and now know where all these places are. Daikoku PA is the shining example of this.
I'm from the same era as these guys, in my 20's here was the era of the grey import. Everything was cheap and plentiful. I've had a lot of fun with cars over the years but really my enthusiasm for them has waned over the recent years, I still have my ZN6 which I bought last year alongside piles of fun parts but i've done one trackday this year and thats pretty much it just due to life and work getting in the way.
Leading to its disappearance? Not sure I see the path, could you clarify?
Considering how many Americans and Europeans moved to Japan for a car hobby. I think the scene over there will be fine for awhile.
But they do it for the internet shares likes and subscribes.
And the internet tire of new fads so fast, if someone comes out with a new fad, it has to get progressively better and better to the point where what it started out as is "meh, mid" within a week.
Like, literal cancer to car culture.
They don't do it for the actual culture & spots like 14:00 or someone woulda made a video on it already, which they didn't, points to Juicebox there.
Clout chasing isn’t sustainable. I rarely see foreigners outside of influencers owning cars period in Japan.
@@QuattroSG they not in Tokyo guy.
Those old speed shops are incredible. I understand not wanting to sell that stuff but at the same time I feel like he should sell stuff while he still can. The Japanese honor is legit.
Thanks for documenting the "mistery" tuning shop it is just magical!
That fella with the mirage Asti will get some buzz off this video when he sees it 😂
Who knew, fuji and mayo having the same climate.
The tuning culture in the US 25 years ago was real. Whatever it is now it's more like a shadow of its former glory. Great video guys
Before it all fades away i need to get my kids to japan to experience the feels. you guys do such a good job at the emotions of these videos appreciate it.
This whole trip seemed so bittersweet.
Also that's a legit Abarth Punto HGT. Those are insanely rare nowadays. Most of the ones on the road have fake bodykits and badges, but you can see that's the real deal because of the placement of the badges and because of the specific interior. Like, that's so damn cool.
So excited for this series, spent the last week rewatching Japan in a van. I already know I'll be rewatching this in a few years time!
Sounds similar to the decline in American hotrodding after the 60s and 70s. I've been in a couple of old garages in Pennsylvania that had a similar vibe... Mopar crossram intakes, Schwinn bicycles, an old Barracuda that will never be sold...
I hope Auto Garage TBK is still doing well
We literally just got 2 episodes and I am already not looking forward to the last one. Just you guys goofing around in good old Japanland is the funniest shite ever.
I can already tell that episode 3 is going to be insane, will it be Near Death Kanjo Experience part two? Find out next week :P
AHHH! WHY DID IT END! I WASN'T READY!!!! god i love this.
It's a shame to see Fuji Speedway's bank in such poor conditions... Why they don't do something like the old Sopraelevata at Monza?
Getting anything done there infrastructure-wise seems to be very cost-prohibitive. Kinugawa, which was one of the places the lads stayed at during the Japan in a Van trip, has tons of abandoned places going as far back as the early 90s. Race tracks might be absolute hell to renovate there.
This series is focken awesome! Nice work man, keep it up👍
I love that new Toyota Juicebox😂
Random fact for the day:
Picks up a wheel and says - "twelve by four J" and it's labelled 12x4.00B
J and B are different bead profiles on the rims, "J" isn't a term for width
Neil… the way you can give viewers goosebumps when talking about some 57yo man’s time warp shop is amazing
wait wait,,, he bought a ham factory ? 🏭 🤣🤣🤣
Oh my God. In the 90's in America my friends and I survived high school with backpacks full of Japanese car magazine and fantasizing about driving our civics and integras in Japan one day. Never happened but I still remember, God bless y'all's adventures and being able to share these amazing things with us!
Japan is a special place....would love to live there for a year or two.
I love the reverence you have for these shops and this culture. ❤️
When people talk about 'fast' cars in Japan, few ever list the Prius and Probox. Those who know...know.
I feel you on the dying tuning culture here. Back for summer vacation and post-2022, yes, it is getting slimmer and slimmer. No one wants anything special or to do anything DIY. Sure, there are a few...but I 'member 2001-2004 and 2010-2016 and these were a heyday compared to now.
I lived in japan on and off for 20 years and i noticed youngsters are just not interested in cars like they used to be.
I help out a couple of nights a week at an English school and the young boys have no interest in cars or motorbikes. And if i ask them what sort of car they would like when they are older, their answer is almost always a Kie Wagon.
Even the Yankie motor bike boys who like to rev around Naha at night are no longer boys but older guys who look a sad old lot.
To be honest i think the days of young people having spare cash to soup cars up are long gone but also the culture has changed and they would rather sit with their phone or Switch and play games.
Its much the same when i go home to the UK and walk around a classic car event and the average age is 55 plus
Wish I had the confidence to go to Japan, love watching the videos!!
17:37 looks like an OBD0 CR-X or Integra ECU. Would love to spend a couple days picking that gentleman's brain and listening to his stories from that era of tuning Hondas.
It’s a gold mine now. He can get top dollar. In ten years most of it will be worthless.
The boys were whispering like they were in a church 😃❤
Love these videos. Keep up the great work lads 😊
I would never have imagine that kangoo were so popular in Japan, very proud to be french!
I saw quite a few around Hiroshima. They even have clubs and meetings. It's a camper, outdoors, family, dogs car
I grew up with a guy in Canada named Josh when I was teenager, he had heavy Irish ancestry and he looks, acts, talks (Canadian version) exactly like your Josh does. I honestly thought he moved out there and was hanging with you guys when I first started to watch your channel a couple years ago, he became anarchist punk and I would see him busking on the streets of Edmonton Alberta around 2011-13 never seen again 😅
These just keep getting better and better. The quality of filming and the content. Like everyone goes to Ebisu it's cool and all but it's so oversaturated now. So it's actually refreshing to see all the old school time capsule shops with BNIB parts and wheels.
So good, absolutely loving this series 😍 the guy showing you how he used to tune is insane, I worry what happens to collections like that once he’s gone.. 👎🏼
Cool to see your love for 90s JDM culture. Car culture doesn't die if we don't let it!
Yes! This series.. just hook it to my veins
Need more of Alex 😅
I'm so glad I was a driver just before and IN the Gran Turismo era. Shout out to the Primera E-GT 4X4 at 19:04. Rocking horse shiz.
I lovingly maintain and continue to upgrade my amazing JDM 1997 Tommy kaira M20b wagon. :)
I need to visit so bad!! I have so many old garages/dealers and rotting cars saved on google maps In the hopes to go and visit some one day probably got hundreds of locations so might have to just pick out the best😂 trying to sort out a deal for an 82 starlet so hopefully if I get that I’ll need parts so that will be a good reason to go to Japan, slightly concerned that none of my friends are as sad as me and probably won’t want to go hunting for 86s parked in hedges😅
All good things must eventually come to an end, and we can't be sad that it's over... be happy that it happened. This video definitely tugged at the heart strings. I was lucky enough to visit japan in 2018 and i wish i could have spent forever there. What a magical place. Im sure the charm may wear off after some time but a lot of the history we idolize is right there..Thank you for taking us along
Tah-Lah-Day-Gaaaaa
“What racetrack left in the world that has a bank like that?”
The United States of America has entered the chat 🇺🇸
In all seriousness FSW bank is like 30degrees which rivals the likes of Daytona, Talladega etc. and makes up a part of circuit which makes it incredibly cool.
Haha yeah, I guess I wasn't thinking about the Nascar tracks, but more a normal track with a wild Nascar-style bend, whats fascinating is the fact that Fuji was supposed to be a Nascar-style track, but they couldn't get the cash together to make the other side of the track, I wish I mentioned that in the video when I was there. Its such a cool part of its history
@@juiceboxforyouwow actually didn’t know that but makes perfect sense now that you’ve said it.
The people who care about the tuning scene are getting older and the younger generation wants to play a video game about racing instead of doing it
Nice production filming wise but the microphones y'all talking through made it incredibly hard to continue listening along
My favorite part of this series is just three misfits hanging around in Japan doing things centered about their passion
Just in time for my lunch break 😋
Time capsule of how nuts the world went over a scam surrounded by amazing japanese cars and culture.
A scam? Care to expound on that? I thought it was okay, outside some video games (NFS Underground style ones). Appreciate some JDM cars, but not as nuts as these types do.
@@PJBlick locking people in a room over an injection that neither stopped transmission or contraction of a virus.
Awesome lads. My only complaint is, these episodes are to short..
this series is getting me excited for when I go, always been a bucket list location just the flight from scotland is killer
The scene began fizzling as soon as the BNR32 became legal in the USA, then COVID and now its in its death throes. Diaikoku is closed more and more, a fence was erected in front of Tatsumi. Seems no one is doing the Tokyo 1 lap, and for sure the Hoshizaki run hasn’t happened in a LOOONG TIME. I used to hit Daikoku every weekend, been over a year since I’ve hit it at night, it’s pretty much hit and miss now. Seems to be more undercover cops rolling the WANGAN, especially around the Haneda tunnels and the TOMEI. Tis definetely not the same. Used to see GTRs every where now those are almost nonexistent. I hardly drive my BCNR33 anymore, just a speeding ticket waiting to happen…
This is how cars get stickers. Just meeting people and forgetting about it. Looking forward to the journeys.
There a few tracks that have insanely sloped banks like that left… A lot of NASCAR tracks are insanely steep. I know for most people NASCAR seems boring but just thinking about what’s actually happening is insane.
33° banks, going over 320kmh/200mph inches away from dozens of other cars while inside of a sauna is insane
They make such nice cars. And motorbikes
Should have made the tuning shop a dedicated video. Fawk. That brought me right back to the 90s buying up all the magazines, getting Option imported and just looking at the photos because I couldn't understand a single character. Getting buddies in the military to send back VHS tapes of the drift scene. Spending endless hours tinkering with our cars when not working and saving up every penny to buy new parts. Never did get a set of Volk TE37s... It'll never be like that again.
7:59:"Not one race track left in the world with banking like this" really? Go watch some nascar races. Have you ever watched any nascar races? There's oval after oval with steep banking that nascar races at. Go to a talledega race. 33 degree banking thats 3 story's tall. 2.66 mile collosal sized oval race track.... Atlanta motor speedway has 27 degree banking.... Charlotte motor speedway has 24 degree banking. Way steeper than what you guys were on. And nascar still races at these racetracks. It was cool 👀ing the mothballed part of fugi racetrack though.
I lived in Northern Japan from 97 to 2002 this really hurts me to see the deteriorating tuning culture. I used to love going to Yellow Hat and Autobacs then I found the smaller shops... Had a small child and a wife so I couldn't really afford much there but it's still nice to look at it really cool time in my life.
I live right next to rokko and minoh and drive rokko multiple times a week and minoh maybe once a month. The reality is that barely anyone is running them. I have only seen one mx-5 properly run rokko (it was a silver one going crazy in a rainstorm if you're out there say hi). You see nicer cars cruising and maybe driving a bit spirited but don't go to these famous placing expecting to see the car scene that we all heard about growing up. It's not like that at all anymore. You'll mainly see minivans.
the majority of people with nice 90's cars are taking really good care of them now. They are being babied for the most part.
That's no ordinary punto. That's a HGT punto fitted with a bulletproof 1.8 litre. Only problem was the ancillaries(the rest of the car) fitted to that engine were shite 😂
Old Fuji is so cool! Do you have a link to the footage of those Datsuns racing the old course?
Lol the "Golden era"... yeah I remember a different "Golden Era" when we used to tune cars by ear and smell... I wonder how many people around today can rebuild and adjust an eight carburetor setup...
I just bought a 97 Celsior in the US. I so wish we didn't have the 25 year rule, I would have loved to see the GTR's and all the other good stuff here when I was young.
Wow.
That was a cool video. You got me thinking of my Technics amp and Gran Tourismo. Good times.
This entire video just feels like that beyond KFC soyboy picture
Weird question but would you ever think of learning Japanese or moving there?
Man. I'm going to Japan next year, and I'm kinda upset my trip is going to be nothing like this....
You have to have some kind of money to collect all that stuff for sale but not sell it, And just pay rent on holding it there in a shop. That concept is totally beyond me. He must own the building or something. How's he make money?
"In the Pro Box, trying not to break the speed limit, but also trying to break the speed limit!" 🤣👌Oh and that JDM Ralph is amazing!
Just because it leaves japan doesnt mean it dissapeared tho❤❤❤
Those people stuck something in hearts around the globe and it cant be denied
Theyll be fine trust me❤❤❤😊
im feeling sad. like japan 2000 is peak cool culture. and that i wished the younger generation continued on. and hope japans population be back to its heyday
"There is no war on cars!" - What I am seeing here says the opposite...
I'm gay
The fact you looked at a yaris and thought it was cool is the reason it's in decline. No one is willing to put in the effort anymore. Luckily I am into american cars so there's 0 issues.
The content is so good! If you guys were to invest in a camera gimbal it would really tidy things up.
Its hard to not think that the low birth rate in Japan is making all these inter-generational hobbies and industries decline even worse than it might've otherwise. There's so little new-blood coming into these scenes...
Fumes from soldering messed up his eyes? Well guess I am effed.
I would have loved to see races on the old bank section the closest I’ll get now is Bristol motor speedway in the states it has 32 degree banks and is only a half mile long track
Challenge: drink every time they say "look at thisss!" or "look at theeeese!" 😵😄
The main reason is because company's lik Toyota nissan are sponsoring drivers so all the cars are so far ahead of these old school guys who really are the ogs of ruining what a privilege to meet one
Montlhéry track in France is steeper and still going 👌👌
Maybe the owner of the Fiat got the car to reserve the special number plate?
Mondays are the best but I’m getting massive FOMO
very shocked to see the abarth punto in japan, really fun car had it since my license
i know this wasnt supposed to be a sad video about Japanese car culture but...im sad about it
Monday = shitday until i leave work and enjoy a relaxing evening watching Japan with a plan !!! Thanks so much Neil, i enjoyed the two previous series so much !
Never knew old Fuji had a fucking super speedway NASCAR bank. 😮
HOLY FUCK JAPANESE RALPH 😮😮😮👁️👁️👁️👁️
I still have my recaro cell phone seat from 20 years ago.
makes me want to go to Japan and help out all the people who are aging and have no help 😢
another great watch lads ❤ loving it