With this month being dedicated to luxury and exotic cars, you can expect to see a nice selection of VIP cars over the next few weeks here on Speedhunters. To get started, I thought I'd share a few of the cars done by a shop in Mie Prefecture called Garage Excellent. G-Excellent is all about the "dress up" style – whether its on traditional Japanese sedans, European luxury cars, or the always-popular minivans. Looking at some of G-Excellent's recent demo and customer cars, you can get a good feel for the current state of the dress up and VIP scene in Japan.
This Y33 Nissan Cima is pretty basic as far as VIP sedans go. A simple color, and a slammed stance with big wheels cambered nicely into the fenders. Apparently it's using parts from an S14 Silvia, though I'm not sure which ones.
Another project is this Toyota Century AKA, the grand daddy of all VIP cars. G-Excellent did the one-off suspension on this car. What do you think of the wheels? They're a bit different than traditional Japanese luxury wheels.
This Y33 Nissan Cedric was displayed at the Osaka Auto Messe this year. The Y33 is an older platform, but there's plenty of life left in it. The radiused fenders, unique color, and one-off aero modifications are staple elements of the modern VIP car building.
Check out the Z34 style rear "diffuser" with integrated marker light. I thought this was a pretty nice touch.
The JZS16 Aristo is another one of those textbook VIP platforms, but this red car is a bit different than most. Nearly all VIP cars these days are on air suspension, but a one-off coilover set better fit the owner's aggressive driving style. Under the hood is a 2JZ with ECU tuning and upped boost. The Aristo's hubs were also changed to the BMW 5×120 bolt pattern and then fitted with a set of 19" Breyton wheels.
This S-Class Mercedes is another project car that was shown at Auto Messe this year. When you think "big body Benz" this probably isn't the image you get in your head, but I think it came out nicely.
The Elysion is the flagship Honda minivan sold in Japan. This one's rocking a set of coilovers and some large diameter one-piece wheels – typical stuff among the vanning crowd.
Finally, a G-Excellent tuned UCF30 Celsior looking boss as it cruises down the expressway.
A slammed Celsior and Aristo rolling down the highway in the twilight – such a nice image of Japanese car culture.
-Mike Garrett