There was so much awesomeness at Wekfest Japan 2021 that it was hard to take it all in. But for this final story from the Port Messe Nagoya event, I’m concentrating on cars that stood out for their uniqueness.
There’s no better place for me to start than with RE Miyoshi’s drop-top Mazda FC3S RX-7.
I love all FCs, but the convertible version of the second-generation RX-7 really stands out to me for its relative rarity and balanced look.
What Miyoshi have done with this car is take the classic chassis and give it a contemporary feel with refreshed components and a full Pandem conversion. The color is a more modern take on Mazda’s ‘Mach Green Metallic G4′, as available on SA22C RX-7s; a hue that works really well against the Work wheels. Power-wise, it’s all geared toward reliability and street use.
Is this the perfect JDM FC restomod?
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions aren’t the first cars that come to mind when I think of a stance-oriented event like Wekfest, but that doesn’t mean they can’t fit in.
The first I found was an Evo VI on air suspension, dumped low over RAYS Volk Racing TE37Vs.
With a stripped interior and Recaro fixed buckets also in the mix, it’s all resulted in a curious stance-meets-circuit mash-up.
This de-spoilered Evo III somehow seemed to do it so right.
I put it down to the simple stock exterior dropped aggressively over a well-chosen set of vintage ’80s wheels.
Those would be Tomei Racing Turbos, a two-piece wheel with a brake-cooling fan design – or at least that’s what it was marketed as back in the day.
The white-on-white with polished barrels and tight fitment really nailed the look.
Which brings me to another 4WD Japan special, the Subaru Legacy Outback (or at least it was 4WD initially). I actually met the owner of this car some years ago on a flight back from Malaysia, and since then he’s been building up the wagon into something special. At first glance it looks like a nicely lowered Legacy on a fine set of BBS LMs, but like most things in Japan, nothing is how it seems.
This 3.0L flat-six wagon has actually been converted to RWD – complete with a 6-speed manual gearbox – so it can be drifted at local amateur events. I bet you wouldn’t have picked it for that if you’d simply walked past it in the show hall.
A Couple Of Interesting Nissans
Let’s talk Nissan…
Think of Nismo-branded R33s and I bet the first car that comes to your mind is the 400R.
What you might not know if that Nismo developed a full aero kit for the R33 GTS.
It might possibly be the rarest thing ever to come from Nissan’s performance and racing arm, alongside the S14-based 270R complete car.
The thing that makes this mid-’90s bodykit unique and at the same time quite wild, is the adoption of an exaggerated one-piece rear spoiler.
It comes from an era when fitting rounded-off JZA80 Supra-style rear wings was common practice amongst Japanese manufacturers.
I remember flicking through Nismo catalogues back in the day and seeing the ‘Aero Kit D’ advertised, but this might be the first time I’ve ever seen one fitted to a car other than Nismo’s own red demo machine.
The fact that the car is sporting perfect stance, has two-tone paint and is running Nismo LM-GT2 wheels made it one of the best Nissans of the event for me. Simply awesome.
Like the Ishikawa Body S13 I spotlighted in a previous post, this white Silvia had me coming back for another look time and time again.
While the white-on-white with TE37s works very well, the car as a whole is a perfect example of how good a simple and only slightly-widened S13 can look. I say ‘simple’ because the look here was achieved through the use of FRP overfenders rather than full-blown metal fabrication.
For The Honda Guys
In the Honda camp there was much to feast one’s eyes on, but this EF7 CR-X hit the home run for me.
Up front there’s a beautifully presented B-series swap running a Kinsler throttle body setup and Rywire harness. All the work was done by Tactical Arts, who also shaved the engine bay.
Every area of the car has been customized; just check out the tan leather and suede interior trim by 9010 Design.
The exterior is finished off with a simple Mugen hatch spoiler and a fresh lick of silver paint. Sitting on Osaka JDM suspension and Mugen CF48 wheels, the CR-X really has a factory-tuned feel about it.
Even at the very first Wekfest Japan event in 2015, the Honda guys were a step ahead with an attention to detail that at the time was still rare in Japan. It’s really become the norm now, and the whole scene has continued to evolve.
3x Kyusha, Just Because…
I dropped a couple of images of this shakotan Skyline into my Wekfest Japan 2021 intro post, but I had to show you more of it.
While we see our fair share of these vehicles in Japan, they’re almost always rolling on vintage Japanese wheels.
The deep-dished BBS mesh wheels on this Yonmeri almost seemed out of place at first; they’re something you might associate more with a ’70s BMW or Porsche – not so much a Skyline.
But it somehow worked.
Fast forwarding one generation from the Kenmeri, we have the Skyline Japan.
This four-door version probably could have won a best-presented engine bay award; it looked like the L-series was floating!
Again, it’s nice to see this mix of approaches and different schools of thought being applied to platforms that for so many years have been done in the same sort of way.
It brings a welcome freshness to it all, but at the same time I’m sure it’s not being digested too well by purists who don’t like change.
I’d be keen to hear your thoughts on it, as this is one subject that is often up for debate. I mean, take this S30 Z, probably the most modified Japanese chassis from the 1970s.
Do you feel sad when you see one running a more modern engine, like this car and its RB26? Or do you get excited like I do and can’t wait to dive deep into the details?
The Germans
What would Wekfest be without a serious dose of German metal?
Aside from the fact that any car I see on OZ Futuras gets my pulse racing, this E36 was hiding a few more surprises.
Corvette power in a BMW? Well, it’s nothing new in the US I’m sure, but we don’t get to see many colorful LS swaps here in Japan, so it was a surprising sight.
And the orange lettering on the plastic cover was brought right into the cabin with a very eye-catching dose of color matching.
E28 Alpinas and E30 M3s stanced on period correct wheels will always have me salivating.
But it was this E34 M5 wagon that garnered a lot of attention.
The S38 straight-six must sound amazing breathing through those open velocity stacks.
You may have spotted the W124 pairing lined up alongside the BMWs; they were dumped right to the ground and looked so mean.
But which one does it for your more, the coupe or the wagon?
Or maybe something a little older hits the spot?
Ultimately it was these two 964s that I was zooming around most of the day. I’m a real sucker for this generation of the 911, the very last of the original shape before it all went a little too rounded for my liking.
The red Carrera 2 on US-market bumpers really stood out with its single-lug conversion to mount BBS mesh race wheels. That would have been a labor-intensive and costly mod just to nail the look, but just like every other car at Wekfest Japan, the final result was well worth it.
This year’s event really killed it, and I hope you guys have enjoyed all the coverage.
Dino Dalle Carbonare
Instagram: dino_dalle_carbonare
dino@speedhunters.com