The Tokyo Auto Salon started in 1983 under the name “Tokyo Exiting Car Show” (yes, they really should have kept that name!), it was organized by Option magazine’s original editor-in-chief Daijiro Inada and got really popular abroad during the Fast and Furious era.
With the crazy builds, the legendary tuners, and big public reveals, it really was a middle finger to the Tokyo Motor Show. This was in contrast to the very polished and professional manufacturer show. When the Salon first debuted, mainstream Japanese public opinion didn’t think too well of anyone with a modified can and was more likely to associate tuner vehicles with street crime.
Public perception has changed greatly, though the cars remain absolutely wild. I told you about some of the youth projects, the throwback 2000s cars, and the NASCAR-style Mazda truck build.
In the more than 40 years since its inception, the show has also grown greatly in size. Close to 1,000 cars were showcased in total this year, and doing an article per car would take me quite a while to say the least. So how about a good ol’ photodump?
Let’s get going!
The star of the salon was of course Liberty Walk’s Lamborghini Miura. Whether you love it or hate it, it really was quite a sight to behold!
Rocky Auto brought their latest R380 replica, the Rocky380
All photos by the author
Thank you SO much for the great photos Flavien!
That little weird crimson Mazda (2? or something even smaller/domestic?) with the oddly tall greenhouse and insane fender flares is by far my fave! Gimme one of those to drive around LA and I’d be much happier than is my norm.
The most exciting thing here for me was the random red RX-7 A-Spec.
I understand they are quite rare, a dealer installed factory package. I’ll take one in CYM
Say what you want about Liberty Walk, but at least they aren’t Mansory.
These are the same cars…
I’m confused. Is the grey Chinese EV looking thing a de-badged Purosang meant to look inconspicuous or is the Purosang a body kit for the Chinese EV looking thing?
It worked on me, i thought it was just 2 purosangs
it’s neither… One is the Toyota Crown SUV the other isn’t.
So Toyota is just using the Purosang as a comparison to the Crown Ute?
The grey Chinese EV looking thing, if I’m not mistaken, is a Toyota Crown Sport.
Great photos! thank you.
The Suzuki Swift is such a great car. Such a shame they exited the US & Canada.
That Miura is giving me MAJOR Need For Speed vibes. Heck the whole show does.
I log in today expecting just normal Autopian stuff, but instead I saw this furry had invaded the home page. I was like “Holy crap, what’s that doin’ there” and I just had to click on it.
It wouldn’t be a Japanese car show without a furry or two.
Didn’t the Japanese military use a furry to recruit people once?
In a country where you can buy used women’s underwear out of a vending machine, anything is possible.
Re: ‘Exciting Car Show’ , translating any language can be tricky, but Japanese has some interesting, say, hyperbolic, nuances that can be tricky.
In my 1970s copy of Japan; It’s Not All Raw Fish, there was the story of a serious & precise engineer who lept at the chance to spend a few weeks in America. Preparing for the visit, he perused his Japanese-English dictionary.
in Japan, the phone was answered with ‘Mushi-mushi’. ‘Mushi’, singularly, translates as ‘if’
riiing….riiiing… “If-if?”
The closest I came to embarrassing consequences was, under duress of quite a bit of hydraulic pressure, confusing ‘benjo’’ (bathroom’) with ‘bento’ (box lunch) and being directed to the opposite end of the station from where I urgently needed to be
I’ve driven my Elise on the road with about that much bodywork fitted! I kept the doors on though.
I was checking the effectiveness of “upgraded” engine mounts and I wanted to skip having to refit the rear clamshell in case the new bits were dreadful. The vibrations made the rear view mirror fall off, so I returned it to standard.
FD RX7s are still soooo pretty. All of the body kits make them worse.
Some day I will see this show in person. I’m still angry at myself for not getting to Rocky Auto during my time at Mitsubishi. They’re in Okazaki, same city as Mitsu’s tech center.
Thanks for the pics Flavien! And I can’t even be mad at the LB Miura. It’s awesome.
Nice! Thanks for the pics. I’ll take a Skyline GT-R, that Lambo Miura, and definitely that Testarossa please…
The Caroll looks like a delectable death machine.
I believe it’s the Mazda Carol, with just one L. There is a typo in the article.
(Actually, there are several typos. Apparently editing is expensive and most people won’t notice, so the heck with it.)
I think the main point of this show is to demonstrate that perfection in car wheels design was achieved 60 years ago and perfected to reach an absolute peak in the nineties.
The sad things on the Prius are there just as a counterpoint to show how the might have fallen.
what? the prius is an awesome!
Now I’m desperately looking for a Prius in the photos but can’t find one.
What Prius are you talking about?
IDK if they were referring to it, but the front of the Purosangue looks a hell of a lot like the new Prius.
Yeah, it’s a Toyota Crown Signia with a body kit on it.
The ultimate car wheel was actually made 40 years ago when Ronal made the Teddy Bears
Nah. I remember them. Nah.
At the Exiting Car Show, they’re all about showing you their taillights.
And modified cans.
I’m sure there’s nice pipes for those that enjoy them.
I know some may love them, but I really wish LW would stop chopping up rare and valuable cars.
You want to make crazy Skylines and Hondas? Have at it. But, come on, leave Miuras alone! It’s already one of the best looking cars of all time. Have you no shame?
What’s next? Hacking up an E-Type into a boxy wide-fender abomination?
Slap a giant wing and some huge bolt-on fender flares on a Ferrari 250 GTO?
It’s entirely possible they found one in really rough shape, like rusted up to the sills.
I’d love to see a widebody E-type. There are plenty of them.
https://www.ultimatecarpage.com/images/car/5600/Jaguar-E-Type-V12-Group-44-45017.jpg
Hell yeah.
https://images.pistonheads.com/nimg/39281/Showpiece_Gr44JaguarXJS_01.jpg
*fizzies*
All e-types are already a widebody. They’re like a foot wider then the track width.
If there’s only a small handful of a particular car built, then I can understand wanting to keep most of them unmodified, but there were hundreds of Miuras built, and tens of thousands of E-types (probably four times more than the R34), so I’m quite happy for people to modify them as much as they like.
There’ll always be a few unmodified ones in a garage somewhere, (slowly dry-rotting and never being driven).
Decades back I ran a C-store on a rather fun road to the local rapidly-gentrifying lake, so I’d occasionally see interesting cars. A well-used, but definitely modified E-type was a favorite. Caught the guy while fueling up one day and was told about—then shown—the stroker sbc mated to a 6-speed manual. Car had rotted for years with a bad gearbox, so he didn’t feel bad making it his own. Low, wide, with plenty of rubber, and reinforced hoop inside. Said he could have had ‘a fancy Porsche’ for what he put in it—but it was exactly the way he wanted it. Respect.
You can only improve the aesthetics of an E-Type. It looks like a tongue and/or a dildo.
So you’re saying the E-Type will actually attract women, instead of just men like most fancy cars do. 😉
The owner of Liberty Walk posted quite a few pictures of the build process for the Miura on his instagram, they didn’t chop up anything. The front and rear clamshells are all fiberglass parts that they made and the rest of the things they modified like the side skirts and the suspension are all bolt on parts. You could convert that car back to stock pretty easily.
This would have been my guess.. Easier to work with I imagine as well