Street racing is still happening in the country, even if it’s not as prevalent as it once was. Like an active organism, it continuously evolves to something else, though traces of its past remain at the fabric of the culture. They can all do 160 mph without breaking a sweat.Īll of this points to one inescapable fact about Japan’s car culture. It’s a far cry from the Midnight Club’s 160-mph rule, though, if we’re being honest, a lot of these eye-popping rides are European exotics. Some car clubs in the country have put more focus on requiring members to build flamboyant rides. Lamborghinis with metallic foil wraps has replaced Supras with 600 horsepower on tap. Top Gear went on a trip to the country and experienced first-hand what it meant for a car to have maximum Instagram appeal. Go to Japan these days - or once the coronavirus pandemic is over - and you’ll see just how Japan’s car culture has evolved throughout the years. If it's not different, then it's not cool. For as long as a car stands out with all its glitters, underbody lighting, and flamboyant liveries and decals, Japanese car owners will go home happy and proud to show off their bespectacled rides for everyone to see. Whether it’s a JDM sports car or a European exotic, nothing was left off the imagination. It wasn’t enough that these cars could win races they also had to look good doing it. From tuning their cars to show what it can do in a race, Japanese car owners now embark on making their cars stand out the most from an aesthetic perspective. This new-wave movement started gaining popularity just as social media was exploding. While there are still a lot of car owners that abide by the “skill before swagger” mantra that was prevalent in the glory years of Japanese car racing, a different group of Japanese car owners has focused more on the “image” of a car than what it can actually do in a street race.
Vanity can be a funny thing, and it’s even funnier if you look at it from the context of how Japanese car owners view their cars these days. Aesthetics became as important - maybe even more important - in the way owners presented their souped-up performance cars. Suddenly, power and performance weren’t just the requirements among Japanese sports car owners.
It also helped that we started seeing a lot of fantastic JDM sports cars hit the market in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, from the Toyota Supra to the Nissan Skyline to the Honda S2000 to the Mazda MX-5 Miata and all the other Japanese sports cars that arrived in that era, the demand for aftermarket tuning shops skyrocketed to the point that it became a cultural phenomenon of its own. So when the club disbanded in 1999, that presented opportunities for members of the club to go into other ventures. Maybe it was timing or maybe it was just a coincidence, but it’s worth noting that a lot of the top tuners in the country got their start in car clubs like the Midnight Club. But just as street racing’s popularity waned at the turn of the decade, the aftermarket tuning scene started to explode in Japan. It even pre-dates the glorious era of street racing in the ‘80s and the ‘90s. To be clear, the Japanese tuning scene has existed for a long time. The conflict ended up injuring several bystanders, and it is believed that the single incident spelled the end of the Midnight Club, in part because the conflict violated one of the club’s most important rules on safety. According to reports at that time, a Bosozoku gang - Japanese motorcycle gangs - interfered with a Midnight Club run in 1999. The demise of the Midnight Club closed the chapter on Japan’s golden age of street racing. Likewise, local governments adopted traffic laws that prevented street racers from going about their business the way they used to. Between a few high-profile incidents - including one that caused the end of the Midnight Club - and inherent dangers of the sport, the police began going after street racers, slapping them with heavy fines and potential jail time if they were caught. For Japanese street racing, the end began in the latter part of the ’90s when law enforcement authorities started cracking down on street racing. Street racing in Japan reached its apex in the 1980s and 1990s, but like most golden ages, there’s a start and an end to it.
0 kommentar(er)
