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A conversation about cars, trucks, tugs and other machines of transport that flows like an ADHD fever dream, hosted by Hoonigan co-founder and 321 Action Action director Brian Scotto. Enjoy, it’s gonna be a bizarre ride.
S2 E16 Audio
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What's up everybody? We are back with another episode of Firing Order, and I am your host, Brian Scotto. Today's topic ranking the greatest JDM tuners. And to do that, we have none other than John Nads Naderi and Mickey Andrade. And while the whole point of the show is for us to create a list, we know you have your own opinion on it.
So please drop it below. We'll compare it at the end. Enjoy the show. Each week you hear me talk about how great heatwave sunglasses are, but today I wanna talk about their co-founder Justin Hertel and his fantastic tasting cars. Here's a quick sampling top of the list. He has a sick third gen Ls, a powered sequentially shifted Pontiac GTA on the flip side.
He's got a one 90 E Cosworth evil one, if you know, you know, plus a proper vintage NASCAR in the iconic tide delivery. What else? A rad Sea four vet a race. Miata a GT three RS oh and another nascar. I can't keep track. Speaking of, he tracks all of his cars, but the pinnacle of his collection at 92 Kenworth custom hauler slash motorhome.
I've never been more envious. Ugh. Anyway, go check him out heat wave visual.com and help support a fellow vehicular hoer. So what if all of his run? So I went to Fat Ice Race to help my friends at BBI capture some content. Normally, I'm not the one on GoPro duty, but it was a one man show. And if you know anything about action camera mounts, you'll know that thumb tightening is no match for an 800 horsepower nine 11.
Instead of carrying six different Allen keys and a screwdriver, I brought one Wera bit driver, one tool, three bits all fits in my pocket Wera actually started with screwdrivers in bits over 60 years ago. So they know what they're doing. Whether you need one that ratchets is tiny like this one or has a bevy of bits stored in the handle.
Where has got you dialed? Go find your favorite on weratools.com.
What's up boys? I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to have both of you on the show, only because it's gonna be a good fight today.
Ding, ding, ding. Let's go baby.
Yeah. Uh, can I just say in the interest of just a kumbaya mentality, how excited I am to be here because I'm so proud of my boys here striking out and doing their own things.
Director Scotto, Mickey's got his own thing, so I feel so good as the elder statesman to know that. I don't wanna quite say the next generation, but tailing right behind me is we're gonna be fine kids.
Taking a page right out of Martin Luther King's book is you start by building up your opponent to then sweep their legs out from underneath.
Nads comes in immediately.
This is how you tap gloves. This is this gloves you're like right before, right before your rain blows down on your opponent.
I'm pretty sure we could say the same to you, sir. You've sort of branched out and
Yeah. I'm a, you know, I'm a cat with so many lives. I've been run over by a few cars.
I'm glad I'm on firing order 'cause I've been
fired more times than I carried mention, you know?
Wow. Okay. Well here we go.
It's crazy though, 'cause both, I'm sure both Mickey and I grew up reading things that you wrote.
Yes, absolutely.
I, I heard you mention me on, uh, Toro's uh, podcast. So yes, shout out to the Racer Boys and, uh, Tom Cookie.
And that was, I was, uh, someone said, did you hear it? I'm like, no. And I watched it and thank you for that. Great. Appreciate some
of you only listened to things when you find out that you were mentioned. Like, let's just be honest.
Let's be honest, I wasn't gonna
listen, but I've
watched three episodes of Donut and I was in all three of 'em.
I mean, that's fair.
You
know, there's a lot of media these days.
Yeah. Well I grew up with Super Street just like you, Brian. Yeah. So like, it's. John was a character to me when I first knew who he was. Na,
the character,
now he is my homeboy, which is super cool and And one of the nicest guys I ever met on the NPI tour actually.
Oh yeah, that's right.
Oh, did you go on npi? Yeah, man. I drove my Civic on the NPI tour.
I dreamed of going to npi, like I can remember reading Super Street and just being like, man, I really want to go. I think at the time I was just too much of a broke kid to afford one, A road trip all the way down. Like 'cause was Atlanta, was it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right
from New culminated
in Atlanta. We started New York. Yeah. Sometimes we started in Massachusetts. We, but we like literally drove all the way down
to also never really had that reliable car. I still don't know if
that Oh no. No one did and no one had the money. They would sleep in their cars and I'm like, dude, what are you doing?
It was definitely one of those events that I thought I'd eventually go to, and then it just stopped.
Yeah.
For those who are young and maybe don't know. N do you care to just tell the audience before we get in, before we get into it? Let
the old guy speak.
Yeah. Let the old guy talk first. Well, because he's gonna need the nap first.
Okay. Michael and Mark Myers were heirs to a Volkswagen brand.
Okay. This is a lot of
information. This, this may be too far back. Just they, and they, they, they had a company called Number one parts international selling Volkswagen Parts
n.
Npi, which became npi, and then they kind of got into the, uh, the import performance market.
They did very well. They were the turn 14, the mail order catalog before the Amazon existed. They had like 12 page ads, you know? Yeah. And then they, they wanted to have their own event series. So they had at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, which is a 2.5 mile super speedway oval, they would fill the infield place was massive.
It was massive, but thousands of cars.
But I think what made the event cool was what Super Street did.
We did something because obviously I'm nothing but a rip-off artist, so we patterned something. It was before my time, so I, I can't take credit for it, but we patterned it super streete, patterned it after the Hot Rod power tour.
Right. Which I know everyone's familiar with that one. So we did a version of that called the Super Street Tour to npi, and we started, we did a north leg, a south leg, and a west leg. But the north leg was the one, like, kids would like thousand cars strong on the highway.
It would just be such an amazing thing to see the photos of just like taken from overpasses and for as far as the eye could see, just like show gun kits
rids for days.
These cars were not safe for the highway.
No.
Yeah, they just took off and did this road trip, you know,
and some poor, like mom and Illumina just stuck in the middle, just like, just like a scene at a mad Max. It just doesn't know what's happening.
I can't even tell you how many times I stopped. I, we met up with the tour, I think it was West Virginia or somewhere along those lines.
It was me and my homeboy, Mike Wagner, who had an eg. Or sorry, he had a coop Civic back then. Oh, EJ one. EJ one and I had my EM one and we mobbed down together, but we stopped probably a dozen times to help people fix shit on the side of the road.
It's kind of the best part.
Its what it was. It was what made it awesome.
For sure.
That needs to come back. Anyway,
something along those lines. But yeah,
they're trying, they're trying to bring it back. They invited me to come out to Atlanta and I'm like, ah. I just, you can't, you can't relive it sometimes, you know?
But, but I owe a lot to you John, and I've never told you this. Oh boy.
If we can get into this for two seconds. You took pictures of my em one in the in track suspension booth.
Oh yeah.
I was a scab. 'cause their car fell out at the last minute. They had a mutual friend of mine, I don't know how someone in California had a mutual friend of mine in Ohio reach out to me and said, Hey, can you make the tour if your car's in their booth?
I said, I had a week's notice. I said, yeah, I can do it. Let's do it. I had no business going on this trip, sleeping in my car, no money. Anyway, I ended up there. You took pictures of my car. I met you there. I met you on the way down. Uh, I met the whole team actually. And then my buddies, EJ was also pictured in Super Street as well, in the black and white section.
We didn't get a full color shot, but you had a lot of nice things to say to me about the car in person and also in the book, which then that interacts relationship led me to, uh, meeting Robert at Modern Image, which led to me moving to California and working here and getting into the industry. So, without you, John, I may not even be here today.
Okay. My turn now to tell Nads about how important he's to me.
Yeah, just let make your head go a little bit small. I know.
So for me though, like, you know, and I'm gonna get into this more, but like, I was a Volkswagen kid, but the only real good magazine in the US was Super Street. So even though I like Volkswagens, I still read every single issue of Super Street, which is weird 'cause it didn't talk about the cars I like, but it was one of the first magazines along with like Max Power in Europe that had this like, where the characters who made the magazine felt like they were a part of it, right?
You had nad you had Ricky, like all these people, um, you know, rj like all these people. And even though RJ wasn't even like part of the mag, but he seemed like he was he
did. Yeah. Adopted son.
But, but if you think about it, that was the sort of the archetype for what we then ended up building Hoonigan as.
Right. Which was like that the people who were making the content actually started to be, they were the characters become the personality there. And that was it. It was a breaking the fourth wall that a lot of magazines were not comfortable with at the time. Right. Like, writers got a byline and they never got a mention.
Right. Exactly. And you guys broke that model where the people who are making the mag were part of it. Same thing with Max Power, right? I mean, fly, right? Yeah. Like Andrew became historic and he's actually going to be, he, he'll be brought up again today. 'cause something that Max Power did, I think was very important in this conversation.
I know exactly what you're gonna say. So, so that's
cool.
I didn't
do that.
I didn't put that together without, without further ado. To our topic today is the top five JDM tuners of all time. So in all time and, and right, so we're basically starting in the early seventies, right? This is kind of the beginning of all of 'em.
I'm sure you'll fact check me. That's what you're here for today. Um, and to modern day. But I think that there is a golden era that we all are aware of, which is like mid nineties to mid two thousands that had the largest impact. Now, I'm not saying that the earlier stuff wasn't important. It all was. Um, and then there's obviously stuff still to this day that goes so we'll.
So it, it's all up for debate. It's top five. And I'm going to admit something. This is not my sandbox, right?
You know enough.
Which is why I brought both of you here because you guys like really live this. I know it as like, I know it like on an academic level because I read about it. Like you have met a lot of the people who are behind these brands, and I've met some too, but like I, this is more your space.
But what was so interesting to me about Japanese tuners versus let's say German tuners is the lore created around them. It, I, it doesn't exist in the same way. I think the closest thing you can get to is like 1950s and sixties hot rotting. Mickey Thompsons. Mm-hmm. Like that kind of stuff. Yep. Where you had this outlaw world met with motorsports, right.
Like, almost all of these brands have an illegal illicit side. The street racing, the toge, like, you know, the, you know, the Tomi Expressway, like all these things were part of their history, but so was JGTC. And for some of them, even F1 aspirations and like, that is such a unique storytelling and all of the characters feel like something out of a movie we're like that.
The same is not true for, for like opt or ottinger from the Volkswagen world. Like, there's cool stories, but it's not like there's something about it. And I don't know if it's because of the way the stories were told. I don't know if it's because a bit of the interesting, like cultural differences of Japan to where to, to us and how we perceived it.
But like, I can't help but find a romantic level connected to the Japanese tuners that I don't see as much elsewhere. Like BMW has a fuck ton of tuners that are attached to them. Mm-hmm. And I can't tell any of these amazing stories where someone went and got arrested in a foreign country that became their largest marketing element, but they also were involved in vehicles that, you know, raced in.
Yeah. Like in series. So I wanna set that groundwork because I, I think that's what makes the Japanese tuners so interesting. It's not, maybe they didn't have the greatest technology, maybe they didn't push things as far as other spaces. But if you take it from a story and lower side, nothing competes.
Except for maybe like the early hot rotting in America, which you could arguably say really kicked off why Japan started tuning cars. But we'll get into that.
It's a super unique, interesting perspective. And I to echo that, I never thought of it that way. Yeah. Now did that. Now I can't unthink it in that fashion.
And I think it has a lot to do with the Japanese society on a whole is so conservative. Yes. But bubbling under that surface is a level of perversion that nobody in the west really can get down with. I mean, maybe I can, but you know, I'm talking about everything
but the statement, the state can be said about Germany.
You go to Germany, there's, you're like, oh, there's Germany. Germany. Like, you're at like a,
it's buttoned up. It's very, but then like there's you,
you're like a beer garden with a family, and then they're like, Vin to go to brothel. You're like, what? Little shy. It's like,
but I mean, even the way that they do the, the, the way they register the vehicles.
Yeah. You know, I mean the, the registration process and the, the level of modifications that you cannot have that if you're gonna be an outlaw in Japan, you are the most outlandish outlaw ever.
Yeah. And that's frowned upon there to
stick out 100% the boku sort of street racer outlaw mentality. Yeah.
Well, and I will admit, when I first thought of this topic, I was like, this is so good for the two of you, but not for me.
It's, it is not my expertise. Like I know it, but I don't, I didn't live it. But I actually think where I'm gonna come in here is like. There was such a large impact that these brands created that even someone who wasn't living it felt the impact. Yeah,
for
sure. Right. So it's like, I, I, I'm, I'm a little bit of the outsider and I, I think that that is part of like, 'cause I think if it was just three people like you, you would get into a lot of nuance fight.
Mm-hmm. For me, there's brands that probably mean a ton to you, but that impact never made a wave big enough to leave the pool that was JDM or sport compact culture. Right. So, um, where I definitely saw things hit that were like everyone was talking about it. Right. And that's like real, real impact.
Yeah. I, I honestly think there's, there's a lot of tuning shops in Japan that could fit the bill for this topic, um, that unfortunately just fall by the wayside because of one where they're located, which is in the countryside.
Yeah. Maybe they didn't, uh, they weren't in the right areas or in the right racing series or whatever to make the impact that some of the others were able to do. Don't
worry, the comment section, we will list all of '
em
for you.
Yeah. And I, I want to go out on a limb here and say that I'm no expert, I just know what I know.
Same, same. And I'm probably gonna learn a lot today, just if you guys aren't
experts who are,
I mean, look, this is, this is what we understand of the Japanese tuning culture from America. So this is our perception, the stories that we've heard and the workshops that we've both visited in Japan. Exactly. And what we've taken away.
Let me also clarify. It is the top five most impactful brands. So this isn't, so, this isn't like the technology was better than someone's that's like, but you can argue that their tech had an impact. But these, these five tuners discuss need to have, have had an impact that matters. Okay. Go. Go nad go. Go.
You know, this is a podcast. You know the people who are listening on audio can't see you raising your, waving your hand.
That's f wait, we're not on camera right
now.
We're also also on camera. Put your put pants on, buddy. Okay. I'm just gonna sit on my hands now.
But I will say point of parliamentary procedure please.
You said great in the text message, which also, can I say that I'm so proud of you. When we used to work together, I would get a text from Scotto that would say, Jim Kana tomorrow airfield, uh, wrecking ball. And I'm like, am I gonna get hit by a wrecking ball? Am I building the wrecking ball? Am I driving the wrecking ball?
Am I riding the wrecking ball? What does, what does, what does that mean? And that was it. I'm like, what time? And never hear from him. I just get there in the morning and sit in your car and wait.
Two years of therapy has done wonders.
I know. And now Scott was like, he gave us a list, but the list that you gave us said greatest.
Wait. You need to, you do about this before yesterday? I know. I No, we got it yesterday. No, no. You
guys
all got, we got it yesterday, but it said greatest. And today you said impactful. And I will argue that there's nuance just between
I, I'm defining
between great and impactful.
I'm defining greatest there as the impact.
Okay. Okay. Greatest.
No. Yeah, greatest 'cause I think 'cause we, there's also, I'm gonna drop a couple stipulations, which I mentioned to you guys. No, OEM. Tuners
I, which is
hurting, killing Mickey because I know NMO is at the top of his list.
But actually, you know, I love n Smo and that's, that's no surprise, but I did not have them on my list.
Regardless.
Even regardless. Okay.
Um, because I, I just feel like it's not a fair fight. Um, I, I was looking
at, that's manufacturer resource. It's the Mopar, T-R-D-S-T-I, all of that.
And not just money, but having access to bodies RD and hundred percent r, all
that, having access to future design five years before anyone else gets it.
Correct. They're just not in the same playing field. Right. And then the other one was no American brands, because this is about the culture that creates Japanese tuning. I, if you look at Japanese culture outside of automotive, you look at it in like hip hop and clothing and fashion. What the Japanese are fantastic at doing is taking someone else's trend culture thing, aesthetic.
Making it better.
They sharpen the bleed. Yeah.
You look at like what they've done with, you know, salvage jeans, with sneaker culture, with hip hop, like fashion. It's ama I mean, anything they do, they just add this like other level, right? What's like the word like Ottawa taku, like, like they add this thing to it.
That is amazing. Right? And it's like, as a craftsman, you just have to appreciate that it's
a level
of detail. Motorcycle culture, hot roding culture. I mean, I know a bunch of traditional hot rod guys from Japan and what they do there. It's like you sit there and you're like, this is better than it was ever done originally.
Right? It's, and I think that's why we're talking and celebrating whether you like Japanese cars or not. You can't not celebrate the tuning and everything that went into them. 'cause it's kind of, kind of really interesting. So, without further ado, let's, let's just set the rules just for everyone who's listening.
So how we're gonna do this is you're gonna give us your five list. We're gonna take two from that five list. Move it forward.
Only two John.
Then we're gonna take your five lists. They're all my
children.
They're, they we're gonna do your five lists, which could sound a lot like NA's five list, that they're not gonna all be different.
Maybe we will then argue which two should move forward from yours. We will then do the same for mine. And then we will discuss the blind spots, which is a list that's been created by Patreon as well as other things ourselves where we're like, Hey, these people deserve an honorable mention. We'll decide, do should any of those get thrown into the greater mix.
And then we will argue the top five, realize we have moved six forward. One will have to die and we have to order the rest. Which I think on this conversation might be where most of the fight happens. 'cause I think there don't
order. Yeah,
I think we probably all have the same three on our list and then a variable two, but we'll get to it.
We'll see.
May, maybe, maybe not.
Um, and I have to say, 'cause I, I did a bit of research as we were setting up for this and there's so many topics I want to talk about here, but maybe we can talk about it in the after show or something because there's something that's really interesting to me and I just wanna list, this is Japanese tuning started.
At the beginning or the of the fuel crisis, which was the death of Muscle cars. Mm-hmm. So like the death of Muscle Cars in America spawned this thing in Japan that I don't think we were really 70. This is 79, 80. Oh really? Three early HKS 73. Um, like you look at, uh, R
wa Knobby Wheels came out in the late sixties.
Yeah. I mean, they were just, they were just reps. But still
I, yeah, I know. We're gonna get into that too. I can talk about that too.
They were mini lights. Mini lights. Mini lights. They were 1%
mini.
They did it. They did it better though. Everybody
rips on the co rewind, which is a rep of a rep. Reps.
Reps,
yeah.
Then there's like mini Western wheels, like so many people rep that wheel. But Mini Light was the first one, which is British. They did it first. I could see, I could see producer Nick just grinning ear to ear over there. Anyway, in the dark. Okay. So Ghost
made of Aluminum. Aluminum. Uh, here we
go. It was gonna happen.
It was gonna happen. Um, so I think the, and then there's this second flow of brands that came in like the mid eighties, which was sort of the introduction of electronics, right? So you have brands like Spoon and who enter the, you know, mime who like, you know, mines who enter the market because of that. And then next after that you have like the, the Golden era boom, right?
Which is like nineties and like everything, the introduction of the gtr and like, you know, the cars got Epic gtr Yeah. And everything got epic and real things could happen and you know, all this. So without further ado, Nads. Present your list.
I I'm on the clock here, right? Is that correct? Yeah. So I know, I'm like, I'm trying now.
Now I'm very, very nervous about this. My first one is Mtech. You might know it better as GaN No Unlimited. The name's unlimited. Come on. Uh, after that is the Tuner. Tuner. And I only need to say Hyper Lemon for you to know what it is. You know, June Auto Mechanic, um, I mean God Saama, the guy's name was God Hands, his nickname was God.
Hands the lead engineer, man. Okay, keep
going,
keep going. Okay, keep going from there. And then I gotta go with, uh, trust. You know, from there, trust is like still holding it down in the us Yeah. And then from there I will go with top secret. I mean, smoking a God you can't go wrong with top secret. And then this is such a gimme, but, uh, Hasegawa UA Sigma started in a container at the base of Mount Fuji to the biggest brand on Earth and arguably for, for tuners.
And for those of you who don't know what that is.
HKS? No.
Okay.
That's Hasa Gallo was one of the founders. Kit Gallo, the other founder, Sigma Automotive, was the bank that actually financed the, uh, the venture.
Now you
have it way back in 73. I hks. Yeah. It's just iconic. You know, anybody remember the Goods master?
Are they the, are they, would you consider HKS to be the first tuner?
100%. Yeah. Absolutely right. They were the first in the aftermarket first to do a turbo kit on a L 20 on a Kennedy in 1974. Geez. They were the first to do electronics. They built a car, it didn't work, but the Zero R, they built a complete car.
They built an F1 engine, didn't work, but I mean, they branched out into so many different facets, but the
fact that they were going out on those limbs back
then that they went for it back then, even if it failure, this is in the early nineties, you know, I mean with no support other than just the fact that they liked to go fast, you know, they were 100%
the zero.
The R program is arguably the infancy of what we're seeing today with the Built By Legends
100%.
And some of these other two shops that are doing Shout Boutique.
Yeah. Yeah. And shout out to our friend, our mutual friend, Andrew Evanson, who actually somehow has a NISMO 400 R and they only made 10 of them.
And this is a weird sidebar, but I was there of the zero R zero R, they only 10 of, I think
it was even less. Aren't those.
Uh, I heard 10, oh, maybe 10. I heard five. I saw, I saw at least, maybe more than that, parked in the field. Mm. In HKS Japan in the early nineties. And when I was late nineties, when I was first out there, and I'm like, what is that?
And they're like, well, we don't, it's nothing. I'm, yeah. So that program was as much as 32
appeared as a failure, right? It,
it, it, they couldn't, they couldn't get it to pass. But now, because the, the cars have aged for so long, now they're, they're managed to, the value has, they have four of them. For those who, so Andrew Evanson has one of the four, and he's a dude right here in Southern California.
For those who don't snort JDM every morning like you do, can one of you explain the zero R program to the audience?
The, the zero R program was essentially, uh, HK S'S attempt to build a complete homologated automobile. Right. And they started with a base R 32 with what is arguably one of the most gorgeous arrow kits on it.
Right. Very unique. They moved the fuel cell to the rear seat.
Yep. Yeah. So there was a couple there. They, you know, all the HK s Boltons, they had a full built package for the engine roll and they just couldn't get it to, they had a roll cage in it and they just couldn't get it to go.
This was something you could walk in and buy right
at.
And I wanna say this was in 91. Yeah.
Well and that was actually really popular with a lot of the, the JDM tuners was building like their own cars. Mm-hmm. Right. Which is like, you saw that in the BM BMW world as well, right? Like alpine, like you had like that mm-hmm Era of like, you can go buy this car at the dealership and it's like its own car.
It's not A BMW. You had a bit of that in that one era. In an era
it's, it's very rare for, uh, a tuner to sell time. I know GaN did it with the RR HKS tried it with the zero R, you know, but not many others have really done. People produce the tuners would produce what's called demo cars, right. Where they show off their wares.
Usually it's for a customer. Sometimes they don't have a customer. They do it on their own, which they didn't like to do, but, and they would bring it to the Tokyo Auto Salon and unveil their wares. It's always
easier when someone else is paying
for it. Yeah, exactly. Mickey knows about commission builds.
Okay. So I mean, your list unfortunately, I think is probably very mirrored on a lot of our
Yep.
June. Um, third one was, I'm forgetting.
I, by the way, I'm really surprised that there was one not on your list, but,
okay.
Me too.
Me too.
Me. I'm, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, but let,
let's, this, I'm gonna say this after.
So, so GaN June,
trust, top secret Hga. S
And so for people that aren't JDM heads, trust is also GRE Tru,
uh, trust is the Parent Corporation Trust is the parent company. Did you know that trust started because the owner, uh, had an affinity for Toyota Racing Development. So the tr is from TRD. Oh. So that's where trust came from.
And Gretty means great Eddie, which is like a thing for a turbocharger. It's the, well, it's a big
wind.
It's a big Eddie. And Eddie is a, is a, is a big, uh, maritime sort of thing.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
I people botch that name all the time. I hear people say greedy. Great.
Yeah. Yeah. Just
I think, I mean, we should just make this apology.
Now I'm going to botch names. Like I, I just, I botch. That's okay. I botch American pronunciations of words, let alone Japanese pronunciations of words. So, yeah. Uh, but that's going to happen
before we get into it. And I don't know if I wanna say the one that Scotto surprised that I didn't mention
Le leave it.
'cause it may end up on someone else's list. We can talk about it when we get
end if
you
don't. I have
reasons. I have reasons.
Well, you, those reasons can come out when, when Okay. So we'll leave
it
for
blind.
Save those for the
argument. I'll leave that. We'll, yeah, we'll leave my reasons for the, for the blind spot or in the argument.
Um, so I, I think the thing with your list is arguably any one of them deserves to move forward. So it's really not a question of like, which two move forward, because I guarantee you that some of those are repeated on some of our other lists.
There's gonna be overlap. I know,
but maybe this gets into the big early conversation of like, which ones are really the most important on your list.
On my
list?
I mean, what, you said you had already ranked them, so who were, what was your rank? I
just, like I said, the big four are, are, to me, I look at it as manufacturers, but HKS also holds a special place in my heart because of the demo car work that they did and the records that they set and every single facet of the industry.
So, so HKS would be number one, and then top secret would be number two. I put trust in number three in Griddy because they filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and they somehow all credit to Mike Chung and Kenji at Griddy Lake. They brought the ship back and they righted it in the United States where HKS isn't even in the United States anymore.
You know, there's a couple little distributors, but for the most part, they don't have an H-K-S-U-S-A anymore. They
they do in Arizona.
Is that official? Mm-hmm. I thought that was just a distributor. Is that the new H-K-S-U-S-A. Okay. I kind of heard about that. Mm-hmm. So apologies to H-K-S-U-S-A. Yes.
Well, I think one of the interesting things from my perspective is a lot of the tuners who are on your list are tuners that used other tuner stuff to get them started.
Right. So like that's 100%. Or even they
still still
do to some of them or work. I mean, I mean, famously top secret is called top secret for a reason.
Yes.
Right. And it's like, these are things, it's like there was more of a crossover. Maybe we should elaborate on that for audience
that may not know.
You, it's your list.
You can, you can get, and I know you love history, I
mean, yeah, smokey, you know, started at Toyota as an oil service tech and then he later moved to trust and while he was working at Trust, he wanted to build fast cars. And trust was like, no, we're building parts. We're building parts to allow other tuners to build fast cars.
So after hours he would start to tune other people's cars racing illegally. We'll just call it out. And Trust found out about it. And they said, you cannot be doing this, but God, you're doing such great things with our parts. We'll just let you do it. And then somehow the name became top secret because he was an
influencer
before he was an influencer.
For Influencer. It was like his side piece, top secret was his, he would work at Trusted during the day and then at night he would tune people's cars and then eventually branched off and start his own. But he uses HKS as as much as he uses trust these days, you know? But yeah, you're right, he did get his start that way working with, with other brands, you know, so that's why I look at like Trust and June Auto Mechanic and we, we can get into the blind spot list 'cause as I've got a bunch of them where they, they are both customers.
They're both, they buy from people and then they're distributors. They distribute those parts and then use them on their builds.
Yeah, yeah.
There's a lot of that.
Yeah. 100%.
The, um, I, yeah, I guess like, 'cause I, and I thought about this when we were doing the rules of like, do you include like what feels like the big boys?
But to me, I think the big boys started. In a, in like tuner style systems early on.
Oh yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Arguably. Yeah. Like if you think about the early days of trust of HKS, like they were similar in the way, it's just that they were the ones who were pioneering and then they got big, which is like how it works, right?
Like you eventually get bigger and it changes you.
It's like, like the music
industry, everything. You know, I may be speaking about something I was a part of, but, um, and some of all of us, we are here were, um, yeah, I, I don't know. It's an interesting one 'cause I feel like HKS is the, uh, you couldn't make, if you made this list and HKS wasn't on the list, you can't take the list seriously.
But it's also super easy to basically just name like the top four and add one to it and be like, yeah, okay. That's an acceptable list. And I don't think that's the list we wanna walk out of here with either. So I, I, I, looking at that, I don't know. We, I would like to your opinion on his list, what are your two that move, that move forward that like absolutely have to move forward?
I mean, it's, for me, it's super easy and it, it kills me to not include one of them because it is one of my favorite brands to this day, even though I don't really mess with Hondas anymore. But, um, I'm picking top secret and June Auto mechanic. Uh. Those were both on my list. Mm-hmm. And those are two tuners in Japan that deserve the notoriety because they don't just tinker with one platform.
You can take a skyline there, you can take a Honda there, you can take whatever there. Even Top secret did a rotary car this year for Tokyo, Tokyo Auto Salon. So Amia something that they weren't known for. And so for me that them being that well-rounded servicing customer vehicles, building, uh, boutique vehicles, making their own products, to me, that's the upper echelon.
So I'm definitely gonna agree with you on Top Secret. Um, I don't want to get, I don't want to get too far into the end conversation, but like, top secret is impactful brands in automotive, so
much lore,
even beyond,
beyond the business.
I mean, smokey is a character, like you could make a movie about Smokey, like he, everything, his look, his glasses, his cigarette.
Like, it, it, it feels like someone scripted him. Yeah. But also six cartoon character, but also the performance of the vehicles. The fact that the, like, you know, and we should just get into this for people who don't know, but I think the thing that set, uh, top secret ablaze was Max Power invited him out to bring his sra, which was RRB 26 powered, which seems so normal to say now.
But like putting an RB in a Supra was like just no one thought about doing that.
And that was also like the highest form of disrespect too because the Jay-Z was known as the more powerful that was the king, even though there was a lot of Nissan Tuners with rb. But those are Nissan tuners
too. You know what his reasoning was was that higher revs means higher speed.
Exactly.
So it's like when you get to the top VM Max, you will need to be able to rev out to be able to just run as far as you can. And that was what it was all about. And he could rev higher. Like that was the math for him. And it
sounds better too, just saying, oh, okay, we're
gonna, this is a whole other fight.
Yeah. This
is another
pod. You guys could come back. It's a whole other pod. You guys can come back for the greatest Japanese engine debate.
So, so game for that
and, and come in for that. So yeah. Um, okay. But I think like, so you have this situation, max Power invites 'em out to the Max Power Show, I forget what it was called, and Max
Power Live?
Max Power Live, they come out, so in the uk and while they're there, he basically does burnouts everywhere he goes, which everyone thought was super cool because
he brought along an option video crew. Right,
right.
And they're filming a BTS of it too. So he's,
so, so options there, they're filming it. Max Power's there fly and the whole crew are there.
And I forget which one, I don't know if it was fly or who, but they said, um, you know, we dare you to break 200 miles an hour on the A one. And he does I think three attempts. And on the third attempt he hits 194 miles an hour,
1 97.
I thought it was 1 94, but
I, I
mean, we can fact check it
also. It was in kilometers and like the conversion maybe
got lost.
Yeah. Yeah. But, and then ends up being pulled over and arrested. Speaks not a lick. So goes to jail and sits in jail because they have to like, get a lawyer to come get him out. And this was the absolute coolest thing to my, I guess, teenage mind when it happened, or maybe early twenties. I, for, I forget what year it was, but like, it, it was so cool.
I mean, it felt like it wasn't real. Like this tuner took a car, shipped it to a foreign country, set the fastest record for a car traveling on a, on a British road. Right. And then was arrested and banned from the country for a decade
and then rotted overnight in prison.
Yeah. So it's like, this was so crazy to me.
Imagine if that happened today with the social media outlets that we have.
No, it would be, it would, it would be crazy. I mean, I, it would also go as viral. I mean, I think it could be one of the most viral things ever. Yeah. But like, just think about how those worlds are not allowed to blend anymore. Like imagine back in the day, Ken Block got arrested for street drifting.
Oh my God. Like. Not a gym. I think that
adds
to his mystique, right? Like, like if you just found out now you're like, oh yeah, Ken used to like go run, like illegal to gaze and stuff like that is just, oh man. So it's just not like another level. Something happened in the last 10 or 15 years where a real hard line was drawn between illegal activity and illegal activity, and it's
called cancel culture.
Yeah, that's
sadly.
Okay. So I, I look, uh, top secret definitely moves forward. I would argue from his list that, and, and partially because I think it's a little bit from both sides. I also think HKS moves forward, um, only because like if without HKS, none of the other ones would exist. Like they, they, they walked so everyone else could run.
And then they also ran to, um, they built a Formula One engine. And you know, because I'm a rally guy, they were also like heavily involved in the Ion Rally project and they built like a custom engine that was built around a Mitsubishi block, but like a full cus like building full heads and everything and doing all the, that is like a whole other level of tuning that I think that you can't not celebrate them for.
And I'm not saying that. That like June doesn't belong on the list. 'cause I think the problem is, is they all belong on the list. But if I had to, if, if the conversation had to stop right now from his list, I would say it's HKS and top secret. Like if we were only gonna pick the top two, those would be the ones from your list.
For, for me, that's my vote.
Okay.
So what's yours on that?
I, I,
because, because between what we've said, top secret already moves forward 'cause the two of us have a vote.
Yeah. So I would say top
secret in June, if I had to pick only two.
So you would say top. Okay, so then you guys win 'cause that's the vote.
No.
Okay. No.
We literally just,
we literally just took HKS off the list.
Uh,
well, man, early on HKS is off the list. Sorry, boys.
Don't, don't worry. There's, there's still time. I still have a list to say yet. That's right. So does Brian.
So,
so, so we have two.
Okay.
And, and two of those, obviously those two actually topped my list.
So, um, there's,
there's so many things to talk about on the list that we didn't talk about of yours. Yeah. We barely touch trust. We didn't talk about Mogan, which is such an interesting story. 'cause like, literally his dad was at Honda, run a separate Honda. His dad was Honda. Was Honda. Yeah. Like, like literally was like, go run a separate business 'cause you can't run the same business and you're like, oh, I'm just gonna build a tuning company for your company.
So it's like, as close as possible as you get to being an in-house tuning company. Yeah. Without it being an in-house, it's almost an ismo. It's almost, it,
it almost, it is almost an nmo. In fact, when it got started, he was on the grounds of Honda. Yeah. Like he, they gave him like a little area. They're like a closet osh.
Yeah. Go, go work over here, you know? Yeah. And then in 91 when um, Honda famously pulled that F1, he is like, hold my beer again. I got this, I got, I got this, I got this. So then they stepped in and made engines, you know, and won four gps. Yeah. You know, Terrell Lotus, it's, I wanna say also
certainly an impressive, uh, time that they spent back in the nineties.
So we moved June forward, but we actually didn't talk about them at all. We just, we. Okay.
So I could
get
into June. I've been there. Make your argument to me. 'cause I, like I said, my list was HKS and Tops Secret. I wanna
start
the, the lemons alone are iconic for me. 'cause that was my era of Super Street.
Yeah, of
course. And,
and like the Subarus all, like, everything that they did was cool. And I agree to your point, they did everything.
That's, that's, they
even did nine elevens.
That's what I love about June. I mean, they just, they didn't, they weren't scared of anything. Right. They literally, if someone brought a car in, they would build it and they would make parts for it and Yeah.
They might not sell very many, but that didn't matter. They were doing it for the love of it. Yeah. And I think, you know, Mr. God Hands himself, I mean, he, he had his hands on some of the most iconic tuner vehicles that came outta Japan during that era. And even into, I'm pretty sure he was the main man behind, um, team Oranges rear wheel drive Evos.
And like it goes way beyond just June. Yeah. Hyper lemon stuff. Like there his, he had his hands in every type of racing.
They did the stream Z. Yeah. That, uh, Gogo, uh, famously crashed, uh, in OAN at the Silver State Classic, which also that deserves an entire plot. It does. Yep. That, that's smoking nega completely bat stuff crazy.
For Nads for you. Give me in four sentences why, if your list was on, if only two were to exist, and these are the top two, why we, we talked about why it's top secret. Why is it June?
June Auto Mechanic is, is it what, what Mickey said, they touched so many different cars. The Hyper Lemon Evo five was the first into the 50 fives.
It was a scuba record breaker. And that same car, they, they threw it into drift competitions in the same exact spec. Didn't even change it up. They did the Stream Z that was going 250 miles an hour when it crashed. They did, uh, the Akira Supra, which was, uh, that June auto mechanic built Supra that went, I wanna say 2 49 on the salt at Bonneville.
They did the first car that ran into the eights in the United States. Uh, that was a seven Horsepower Sylvia that ran top eight eights, I wanna say. And, uh, God, the list goes on, on, they did preludes. They did a hyper lemon prelude of all things back in the day. You know, they would touch anything from, is there anything from Subaru, Mitsubishi, Toyota Nissan?
I, I don't think, I don't think they so shot. They were scared of anything. Any like OG video option. Uh, you know, you'd see like koyama there, this fatherly figure with these Coke bottle lenses. Yep. Just standing there with his arms across and he's behind every Yeah. Like Monster record attempt. You know, he,
he was a G for sure and did not get the.
Accolades
that
I
think he, they, they did not get the accolades at the time. Like I call them Like the tuner. Tuner. Yeah. You know, like, you know,
you say that, but like there was a period in Super Street where they were on the cover of Super Street every other month,
because I knew that that,
and I don't know if it just 'cause yellow sold, it was so like, it's like a thumbnail it, but it's like every single was like yellow or yellow and green, yellow, yellow and green.
Well, that's tops secret gold. You know, that was and top secret gold. Yeah. Those were like poppy colors. And the fact that they had the creds to back it up, we went out of our way to like, that's where we knew that something would do very well. Mm-hmm. And Kuisan was so cool to us. Put the car up on a lift, like show us everything.
Like I have another story about 'em that I could get into about counter. So anyway,
the variety we run for hours here. Okay. So your list.
Okay.
Top five.
So obviously top secret June, we're on my list. Mm-hmm. Um, would you like me to replace those?
No, no, no, no, no. Gimme your list. I mean, I think we're
okay. So I also had, um, and I'm going to pay for this later, but, um, I put spoon sports on there.
Um, we'll get into that and I'll explain why. Uh, I had Aria amea and it's because I'm a rotary head at heart. Mm-hmm. Um, I love rotary engines. I'm currently building a 20 B right now. And, uh, I know it kind of goes against what my, my theories were on being able to. Be well-rounded and build everything, um, to a, a very professional level and they really just stay in their lane.
Yeah.
But they do it really well. And they make their own body kits. They make their own parts. Like they're doing all the other things. Right. They just like to only play with Rotaries. Yeah. So,
and they've been doing it since
Yeah.
1970s.
Yeah. And if you don't know that name, you're not in the tuning culture, I don't think.
'cause it's, it transcends just JDM. Uh, and I also had Trust gre, um, again, maybe against my initial thoughts, but GRE has started doing project builds here in America. Mm-hmm. So you can commission them to build a car here in the States. And they're also partnered with another powerhouse, which is Sakamoto from Garage Active.
Yep. Um, so I included them because I love what they're doing here in America. They've got a great name in Japan. They've been doing things since the seventies and they've also exploded things and brought it back from the dead in America. So I, I honor that and I, I respect that.
Okay. I'm gonna start with throwing this to Nads.
Why was Spoon not on your list?
This is crazy because,
can
we use this, correct me if I'm wrong, am I wearing a spoon shirt?
Yes. Can we use this for the, you Actually,
I drove a spoon Civic here. I'm S Wheels, I'm wearing no spoon shirt and this I am not even near worthy of this vehicle. Somehow all thanks to Aaron and ITish.
Maan, I, it's a spoon certified vehicle, which is super. What? Yeah, I didn't
know
that I got the cer 'cause I literally, it's a catalog build, you know, and I'm, it's so cool. I have one mu part on it. It's the license plate bolts and that's it. But to me, when I look at Spoon and I love the brand and I, I favor the brand over Muan because the parts that they make are much more down to earth.
Where Muan was like, oh, we're into full blown race engines and everything. And I'm like, spoon was like the little Lego Bolton, you know? And, and what was cool about Spoon is like their, their suspension is based on Honda Suspension. Show us their oil filters. It's, it's very OM plus, right? It's, it's super OEM plus.
And that's why I want, that's what I based my build on. That's why I chose them. So, and for me, and that's what I, that's what I love about them. But if I talk tuners and I go, you know, apples to apples. If we're putting mu against spoon, which is what you have to do, mu made an F1 engine. Yeah. You know, muan made a car.
The the car, the, that car sold out in 10 minutes. They only sold and it's sold out in 10 minutes, you know, and now it goes for like a hundred thousand. So this kind of spliting,
heres.
You know, a little bit, but I mean, because he is the son of Sui Chiro, and I will also say low key su chiro Honda is gangster af Like he's a low key degenerate.
Like if you read the book about him, which
is, which makes him Nads this kind of guy, which
makes him, I'm like, man, I love his cars. Anyone and I learning about him, you know, it's like he was existed way before. Cancel culture. I'm like, God, that's where I needed to be. I needed to be there. Just let me let my freak flag fly.
Like,
man, any guy that Nads could wake up in a room with and look at him and go, we never talked about last night is Nads this kind of guy.
So, and I love, you know, itchy seima. I, I like the way he took the fight to Muan, you know, he's like, I'm gonna do this with building my own cars. And if you look at it now today, Mtech is a giant faceless corporation.
Yeah. Type one. You could walk into type one and commission a build today and go in there. So, you know, that's why they made
my
list in, I'll count, I'll counter that. But at the same time, if, when you talk about greatest like Mu Again, and also Spoon did one set of wheels and they were, they were a, they were a private label of another wheel of Orga.
Yeah. And Muhan created like, boom, like Yeah. Unique styles. Unique styles over, I mean, just ridiculousness back in the day. Yeah. You know,
but the spoon wheel beats all of them.
That kind of, you know, it,
it's a classic. I mean, so from an outsider Spoon is like a really, really cool company to me because I was into Volkswagens, which was like less is more subtle vibes.
And at the time, in the late two thousands, like. I mean, late nineties, early two thousands, you have like the over the top look going on in the Honda scene, right? You've got these, the Arab Uni kits and the like underglow and like, like the crazy colors. And then all of a sudden super street and sport compact car start talking about spoon.
And I'm like, oh, this is a civic I would own like the wheels were sick. Like just simple. And you know, like the, the mirrors, like there was something about it that refined the Honda community. And I think like when we talked about this before we turn the cameras on, that there is this revisionist history that we all try to look back and remember JDM in the nineties and early two thousands as not being really gaudy and gross.
Yeah. But there was like, and it wasn't really JDM, it was just what people were doing with it. But like spoon was, for me, like a European style OEM plus aesthetic as well as tuning that just like fit the cars. Like it really just worked for me and, and I agree when you look at the greater list and you're like, but when you talk about an impact.
Uh, spoon was like the fucking backhanded slap the scene needed in 2000, whatever, two, whenever it was to go stop building ugly pieces of shit. Stop building fast and furious cars. Like let's build something that is mature. So like, yes, they never built an F1 engine. Like, at least not to my knowledge, they never did this, they never did that.
They never beca they, they never set the records that all these other brands did. But culturally, they shifted what was happening in the Japanese car culture in the United States. I, I can't speak for elsewhere, but for here it changed the sort of general sort of aesthetic and vibe into something that I actually think made the cars feel, um, eternal.
Where I think when you look back at some of what we. Looked at in the Super Street era, the NPI national era that like is kind of, it's
a moment in
time. It was a moment of time. It was like, it was like, you know, it was Pimp My Ride. It was a moment in time just as the show gun came. But there's a reason that's
all gone and Spoon still exists.
Exactly. That's my point. Yes, exactly. And that's where I think a brand like Spoon has a really interesting impact because, and, and I, I realize a lot of it was aesthetic, but like, they just did something very simple. They made the car simple. I, I don't,
I wouldn't say it was a thing. That's what I loved about Spoon was that like their carbon hoods, the, the wings were all real actual dry carbon products.
They also moved us away from 17 inch wheels because everyone forgets that everyone was stuffing like a, like a trophy or like a whatever under like, it all looked, the cars looked ridiculous and all of a sudden were like kind
of ified everything.
Yeah. It was, it was like this era where everyone was putting the biggest whatever it was, ts w's, aches.
I
think that was a, that was a, a nod to the super touring world, but no one knew how to lower them. Like, like super. No, you had to custom,
those were like radius fender cars that were like on fully different geometry. Like yeah, super touring was sick, but guess what? Your, uh, team dynamics don't look good on your, like lifted
if they're not, if you're not tucking lug nuts with team dynamics, they didn't look good.
And, and I think that that was so for me, I think that they had this massive impact on the culture side of it. Maybe didn't matter as much on the racing side as some of the other brands, but they could build something really cool and it shifted the, the space. So that, that's my feeling on Spoon as to like why I do think that they deserve to be mentioned.
I, I, I know that you could probably make a really good argument 10 times over why Muan is a, is more impactful, a better brand. But there was something special about when Spoon hit, when it hit.
Yeah. I mean, I got to visit Spoon a couple years ago and I learned, I mean, I'm sure you've been there, John, you know the engine room.
I got to go in there and see, uh, the, the guy's name is escaping me the moment I feel terrible, the engine builder there. But he has a climate controlled room that,
uh, a Jomo?
Yeah, yeah. No, no. Jomo was the GM at the time. Oh, okay. Okay. But he's moved on. But the, the engine builder that builds all the engines and they literally have every part cataloged in these little drawers.
And like he can throw a motor together. Lty split in this climate controlled room. That's the environment secure. It's, it's, we, we walked in and they literally lowered the temperature in the room because of our body heat. And then when we walked out, they put it back and made sure he didn't touch a bolt until the, the room stabilized.
So for me, that's, that gives me
anxiety.
Well, that's the level of what these guys are doing and that's why I put Spoon on my list and I didn't put Muan on my list. Um, I just feel like Spoon is more approachable. Uh, they are doing these builds for customers. Internally, you can bring your car there, uh, to type one, and you can also walk in and just buy products.
Um, I don't think you can do that with Mtech.
No, that's gd. You
know,
I mean,
yeah. So for me, that's where it made my list and the other didn't. So it's kind of opposite of Yeah, we sort of,
we sort of flipped the,
flipped
the script on that one.
Okay. There's one, obviously top secret in June is are, have already moved forward.
Uh, let's talk trust. Let's talk. Ready.
Okay. So for me, I, as I said previously, I have the utmost amount of respect for what has happened with that brand over the last 15 years. Um, to go through the trials and tribulations of almost going BK or filing for bankruptcy,
which was no fault of the US arms
Correct
thing.
That was, that
was in Japan
that outward separate businesses, right? Yep. So, um, you know, from the US side, I've become close with Ken G and a few of the, the Mike Chung and those guys there. What they've done to sort of resurrect that business and help prop up Japan has been integral. And to me that's super admirable.
Um, I love what they're doing. I love the fact that you can go there and have a car built. Like Kenji is a fantastic car builder, car restoration expert. And I could literally say, Hey Kenji, here's my R 34 GTR. Can you turn this into a Grady build for me? Sure. Consultation parts build, pick it up.
Mm-hmm.
That's sick. That's cool. And that's something that's not necessarily happening in Japan.
Right.
But to me it's still, it's still
important. So are you saying, are you saying that Greta USA right now is stronger than GRE or Japan?
I think they're both influencing one another. I, I feel like Ja Japan has in its own lane and us is in its own lane.
And this is just my perspective. Um, to be clear, uh,
everything here, just so everyone knows is the most important thing anyone has said that is completely subjective, only matters to us.
Okay, perfect. So
yeah, if that makes any sense whatsoever.
Japan obviously is still branding all of their products. Trust now.
GRE is branding all of their products. Gretty, USA. Now when you go to like an ours day or something in Japan or you go to sema,
but is that, is that because of like some weird separation internally or is it like, no, is it like, or is a subbrand of trust or is it like, why they're, like mayonnaise is like called Best Foods here.
Oh, on a different side of the, it's Mississippi, the East Coast. Like is it a, is it a trademark thing or is it have to do more with like, they're sort of separating their businesses? Maybe
you have more insight
on
that
than I do, but Yeah, I don't knows it's, uh, originally, uh, trust had three brands. Uh, GRE, grayer.
Andrex. Yeah. G Gdy is the engine manufacturer. Uh, Gracer is the, uh, a parts arrow. Parts Andrex is the suspension tuning
brakes
and brakes too. That's right. Oh, Greg's brake man. I remember. I forgot about those. Um. GRE and Gracer sort of fell by the wayside. And it's crazy now because the arrow component is Rocket Bunny now the US is mm-hmm.
Is taken for Rocket. And the US just what Mickey said has labeled themselves Greta, USA, I think to distance themselves from the, the bank, the, the bankruptcy filing that makes sense in Japan, because, I mean, I
don't know anything about being part of a company that went bankrupt and then renamed themselves to distance themselves from a bankruptcy, but whatever.
Me, me,
me either. I definitely don't, because I was thrown to the winds way, so shots fired everyone
anyway,
coming in hot here.
Anyway,
so I, I would say that, that Mike and the crew and, and Kenji were very adamant about being USA, so they've sort of taken it to, to have its own brand. I, I even wanna say those new, oh God, they're so cool.
Those quick release an fittings, the prospect mm-hmm. Fittings that they have, that's a US developed brand that only exists here. Yeah. You know? Yeah.
Yeah. So to just sort of elaborate on what I was saying, thank you for the explanation for the audience, but I like what they're doing here in the States.
They're creating their own products for the Reti brand. But what I'm seeing is that when I go to Auto Salon, these, uh, boutique events in Japan, is that the stuff that's labeled Reti is stuff that Trust has basically given their nod to and said, these are good enough products for trust. We're gonna remain labeled Griddy, and we're gonna offer them for sale in Japan.
Mm.
Um, and vice versa, there's some trust stuff available here in America that. Kenji and Mike over at Gretty deemed fit as something that's applicable to the US market. Exactly. So if that comes over and says trust on it, it's because they're working in collaboration on that product. That's really cool to me to have that.
It's a little confusing if you don't know the inner workings. Yeah. But trusting Gretty is essentially the same thing, just one is the Japanese facing and one is US facing.
And obviously, so I'll ask you the question 'cause you have them both on your list, HKS versus truss. 'cause he, he's obviously already made the decision.
'cause HKS is not on his
list. I, I will say HKS was on my list and I, I actually X made it because
who was already on his list. Okay. Yeah. You had the wild card. Got it.
Yeah. Uh, if I had to pick, I'd still go HKS.
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah. It's a, because again, we go back to the impact and I think right now we're talking about them as a current brand, like, but did they have as much of an impact as HKS did through the years?
They 100%. Yeah, absolutely. You through through periods. Yeah.
Yeah.
But they never had the lasting impact. Right. That HKS has had since literally 1974, the first Bolton Turbo, you know, it's like from there they were just off to the races, so to speak. Yeah. Record setting in every single facet. HKS is definitely the way.
HKS drag 180 SX Google, HKS drag Supra, Google Scuba record breaker oh 1 0 2 0 3, you know, they have the fastest car at scuba to date with an asterisk because it's on, uh, slick tires instead. This whole thing, no respect, no disrespect to fire Ando, but, um, and his, uh, 49 8, I wanna say insane. Insane. And HK HKS went 49 4 with knob behind the wheel of the, uh, eight six.
Yeah. Didn't HKS HKS broke the 300 kilometer for a Japanese car first too,
right? They did that too with
super,
with
300 M.
Yep.
Yeah.
No, they, they, the car that they built, uh, they did A-C-L-K-G-T-R for JGTC that didn't run that well, but they, they were one of the only tuners to do their own car. But I would, it could be argued that trust campaigned a Porsche 9 62 C.
Yeah. Yeah. The, the, which I saw at Goodwood Festival speed. Oh my God, I'm so jealous. I would, I would kill to see that car. I think they came in like 13th overall in 91. I mean, that's like bizarre to me that a Japanese tuner is gonna go there. Mazda keeps hanging their hat on their, their win, but that was a weird year.
It sure was. You know? Yeah.
Let's move to the last one on your list.
Yeah, that was, I can't remember. It's been a while. Um, was it Ari?
Yeah. Ari. Ari.
So Ari, I'm Amia and I, as I said, I, I chose Ari, I'm Amia. I don't think he's the Goliath that, that, um, you know, smokey is. Uh, but I also appreciate his longevity in the space and also just only delving into one specific, uh, type of vehicle and engine package.
Yep. So, uh, one might argue that it's easier to do that because you can be a, you know, a master at one thing versus what June had to do was figure out how to make everything great. Maybe a little easier.
I would counter that because, but you're also dealing with the
s with so
like deal, that's a whole black magic.
I don't
wanna get into that. It's literally gilding the tur, but whatever.
So like, wow. Also,
that being said, I love Rotaries, but I like things that bring struggle to my life. Right. I enjoy pain.
Yeah.
That's why I like a rotary. Oh, so
you'd be a great skyline owner. 'cause the RB is also right up
there. Yeah, yeah.
No, I, I, I would, I, I wanna build a rotary car, but my, you know, one of the things, 'cause people always ask me like, why don't I own more Japanese car? It's really 'cause I don't fit in them.
Sure. That makes sense. I know VIN struggles with that too.
Like IBII do, I love, I think the FDRX seven is one of the most beautiful cars ever.
Gorgeous, gorgeous. Hands down. It's, it's such a gorgeous car. It's like a combination of like an E type and a nine 11. Like, it just has such a great shape to it.
Have you driven
a stock
one?
I don't fit in one.
Oh, you can't even
drive? No, I, I physically can't drive. No, I physically can't get my head low enough in it and like, I don't know.
Somehow al fits in one. Yeah. I have no idea. But I've seen photos. He like fits. He sits like real gangster, lean. Does he have a
sunroof car?
Uh, maybe. I'm not sure. Yeah.
Sunroof offers just a little bit more.
Oh really? Yeah. Usually it's the other way around. Usually a sunroof car creates the, creates like a know.
Yeah, because of the, that's what I thought too.
Yeah,
because like all of my cars are tin tops, like my nine 11, my RS two because I don't, I don't fit in sunroof cars.
You, you headline deleted the nine 11. Do you
get that, that much extra room
outta it?
The headliner's like too much in there. Yeah. So, but, so that's one of the reason I went, that doesn't mean I don't love them.
Like I, that's why, you know, I owned an STI, 'cause I I fit in it. Yeah. Like I own it. I like, I'll probably own an EVO one day 'cause I fit in it. Yep. Um,
high roof lines.
Yeah. The R 33 is a car that I fit in.
Big
car like much bigger. Bigger. If you
fit in a 33, you'll fit in a 34. Just saying.
Yeah. Just a different price point.
So anyway, um, so. Yeah. I, I, I think like, like they have this really long history. I think they built some really cool stuff and they've also are one of the few brands to have gone and compete in like JG
TC,
GT 300 and yeah. Super gt, like all those classes. Yep. And, and done well. Um, yeah. Where's, where, where are you at with them?
They're on my blind spot list, to be honest. Because you're a Honda boy and I, yeah, but also because they only do one thing, you know, and I love ami. Same. That's my only critique. Huge fan of his, he does everything from, you know, GT super GT to building customer cars out of the same shop he's had for so many years.
This quiet, little quiet little spot in Japan and. T continues to do well and he's not afraid to mix things up. He'll change up headlights. He'll, you know the, the, oh yeah. Oh, I mean, going from the pop. Did you see the three
turbo
set up on the three rotor this year? Oh my god. Took us one. Oh, top secret one.
Yeah. God, that was so good. I love the collab. I love the color. I love that. Everything. No, no, I'm talking about the, his other car, that low key car that he dropped. The blue one. Yeah. See? Yeah. Super low key. But yeah, I know no one talked about that. Everybody was all I drooled over
for like an hour.
I saw, I lived through your, your posts.
I saw your Oh, good. Some of your stories. Well, no
one has said that.
I appreciate that. No, no. 100%. But yeah, no, he doesn't make my list because, you know, one car, one, you know, he does didn't really have the God hands is like into everything. HKS did everything from manufacturing to demo and
I really didn't think we were going to agree on this.
Wow.
Wait, you didn't think we were gonna agree on what,
John and I are kind of on the same
page here. I knew, I knew we'd have a lot of
alignment. Yeah. I mean, I, I think this is again, from, from the beginning, I said I think the big fight is ordering the list in the end.
Okay.
I think like the five or six all sort of make sense, but I think when we get into who's the top, but maybe not, maybe this will be the least combative firing order to date, which isn't that bad.
'cause we're only on the second one. So it's, it's okay. Boys, are
we
advancing
two, by the way, can, can I give you guys a really weird factoid that our, that RME have built, um, a lotus Aropa with a rotary engine back in the day?
It doesn't
surprise me. Yeah, it
doesn't surprise me a little bit, which is kind of cool
because it has a rotary engine.
Yeah,
he, I literally said that 'cause I just wanted to popup on screen to show this.
Oh, that's cool. But I mean, I wanna see it. So I'll be tuning in just to check out
the
popup. Yeah.
Anyway. Alright, so let's, let's, let's knock your list down. So
yeah, dude,
no, I, list, list. What are two top secret spoon? Ea, ari, Mia, and trust.
Correct.
And we could already take two off. So you wanna pick from the other three? Is, is that
what
we're
Yeah, so it's the three. So we just need to move forward. Spoon Ari, trust
you here. You decide. Oh, spoon for sure.
I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with spoon. I'm a spoon car owner. Now did would, I'm not, I'm not being converted or moved over.
It's definitely in my blind spot list. But if I had to pick between Honda tuners you again spoon. But if I'm picking between spoon, AMEA and trust, I'm putting spoon at the top of that list.
Yeah.
Okay.
And I'm putting trust as the other one because of the, the fact that Aria AMEA doesn't do a breadth of vehicles and trust produces products for many vehicles and also continue.
And when you compare the two of 'em, like they both have had an extremely long run. So it's not like you can sit, they're both from the seventies, so tons
of racing
history. Yeah. It's not like you could be like, oh well one's only new. They haven't gotten to their stride. Yep. It's kind of the same. I.
Yeah.
I don't know how you feel, but No, I would even Low key argue, and he's gonna hate me for saying this, but that Kenji Simino is the God hands of us tuning right now.
You know, the, the level of quality that he puts in the Coto, the Coto ek mm-hmm. That he just dropped. Yes. And the Garage Active work. The garage Active cars, no question are amazing when they come out of the factory, but when they get to the US and Kenji puts his little special touch on mm-hmm. Before just such a great collaboration, the details, he's
got a great eye for details.
And that's one of the things I really respect about Kenji.
And he's a Honda guy too. He's a low key Honda guy too. What is what the old
we all, we all started
somewhere. So Yeah. I'm the only one who's still sticking with it. I'm like, all right, I'm that guy wearing the old, all right, I'm wearing misfit shirt.
So the show like, shout out to Joey, used to be better. Joey. Oh yeah.
Alright, so here we are from Nads Moving forward, we have Top Secret in June, Mickey, we have Spoon and Trust. That's our four from you guys.
Four. Yes.
We're gonna take a quick little break and uh, come back with my list. It's the snack intermission brought to you by Vyper Industrial.
All right guys. It's snack time and I thought it would be too on the nose to get JDM snacks, but instead, since we were discussing sort of golden era JDM, good time. I figured I would get a little nostalgic and golden.
Oh my
God. With some Twinkies. Alright, let's, let's, I don't remember what you guys have the one that's not crushed.
Wait,
how old are these?
I don't know. I found 'em. Are they fresh? They were, they were, they were at the store for sale. It's not like I got them on eBay. They're not new old stock.
Do they have these in other countries? Illegal.
Illegal. I'm sure the chemicals that make this do what it does.
No. Oh, bro. You don't even want to know.
I
would say, yeah. What are the, what, what do you got on that? What the sell by
date or the ingredients?
What are the ingredients?
Just read the ingredients.
Well, first of all, that's the most alarming thing is there is no sell by date on this.
Of course not.
Um,
it is new old stock
best by May of 2030.
I'm just kidding.
My favorite part is that these are bite size
blur. That please. Wow.
That was very provocative.
Did you even taste it when it just hits the back of tonsils Like that? My, my god.
We had no gag reflex. I see.
See, I, it's weird. I didn't know if you were gonna be the kind of guy who was going to eat. The whole thing or if you just were gonna tongue the cream out.
Okay. Wow. I have to admit, when I bought these, I bought a Dingdong and ate the Dingdong car. Damn, you held out on
us. Wow. Wow.
See, I would've went straight for the ding dong.
Yeah.
This April 3rd is fourth three day. That's right. The official and actually national Ken Block day. And we are gonna be celebrating the man with a four hour and 30 minute live stream with a ton of people attending.
It'll be on blockhouse racing on YouTube. Check it out. We'll be raising money for the foundation. It's gonna be a great time. Set a reminder. Market calendars, do whatever you need to remember it. We'll see you there. Alright. I wish I could say that my list is so wildly different than your guys list, but first I don't think my depth of knowledge is as deep as you guys, so I, but I also think that this makes sense that maybe this is the right list.
But I will start off with, uh, first off, my list is like one of the most important tuners out of Japan, which is Cox Motor Sports. Volkswagen Audi tuner. No. Anyway, just
kidding,
kidding. I knew you would
come. Kidding, kidding, kidding. I knew you would come with
something
like that moving forward, moving forward.
They did make some really cool stuff though. Are they actually in Japan? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh wow. Never. I was
gonna say,
I actually was almost, I was like about to bid on a Cox car from Japan. Like they built, like, they actually built um, like Cox Kit race cars. So like they'd build like the full race car and you could buy that.
So like was a Are you use left
hand drive? Right hand drive?
Uh, they did right hand drive. And I think they also did some left hand drive cars. But they have like a, 'cause I've seen the left hand drive car as well. 'cause in rally you had to drive Lefthand drive for a lot of series. So they would build left hand drive cars, even in right hand drive space.
Sure. That makes sense. Uh, okay. Uh, top secret. We knew that was there. HKS, uh, you know, obviously another repeat. Um, spoon. Another repeat, uh, Ari, another repeat, but this one, which no one has mentioned at all. Tommy Ra. I don't know where you guys sit with that. You both, neither of you even made a look. Well, I'd love, I'd love to hear your guys' opinion on that.
I didn't choose Tommy Ra because it was a niche And it's also they work with Nissan.
They are, they are? Yeah.
Oh, are so, so did I void myself on my own rules?
Yeah.
Yes. By,
according to the rules. But wait, how do they work with Nissan if they also build Subarus? This is
such a Scotto move by the way. I know.
What that you to break my own rules. Yeah, you your own rules. Breaking rules are built to be broken.
I mean, maybe there's someone out there,
but how are, how did they build Subarus and Suzukis if they were a Nissan? Is it that later in life they became connected to Nissan? Maybe
I'm naive and just don't know the whole story, but
Well, so they started by building Mercedes-Benz.
Mm-hmm. Like that was their first thing. Mm-hmm. And then they got into Nissans. They built a bunch of really cool Subarus, but most of their stuff was sold as like full cars.
It was a full car. Yeah. Yeah.
And by the way, my reason for them on the list, and I'll make this argument because I think that because they are the only one to actually build up bespoke car, which was the zz, which was made famous by Grando.
And I will admit that part of my decision here is because Grant Tomo came at a very inspirational moment in my life.
Uh, probably all of our lives.
And so many of the cars from that game became cool to me. Like, let's be honest, three Mitsubishi, 3000 GT is really not that cool of a car, but fuck, it was really, really cool in Grand Ismo, like the stage three kick.
Got you. Like 900 horsepower, like pretty badass, right? GTO another good cl a good example. But for me, uh, I just think that it was cool that they built basically the Japanese xi, which fun fact released months before Lotus released the ex. Mm-hmm. So like, they built like a real, and you know, if you listened to the last episode Firing Order, I would argue that.
While the EVO one, I think the low 60 is probably the best driver's car. I think it beats the evo. But I got, you know, it was a vote. But I think that, and I've never driven a zz, I have no idea, but I've read a lot of reviews on it. To me that seemed like a really cool thing. Now is it as impactful as all the other brands?
No, but I kind of threw it on the list. 'cause I wanted something that was different from the rest of
us. They have done some cool stuff. I mean, I, maybe I'm a little naive to the brand. I know a lot of what you just said, but I don't know the relation to the oes. Right. And so that was where it kind of like was lost on me.
Did uh, or is it one of those brands that like after Grand Primo, they never did anything so it just like fell out of favor? I
mean, they
really, they're like, they're just not, they, they stopped. That was like their peak moment was the zz and then it ended from there.
They had that moment in time. Right. Is that, that's my, my impression of them that you'd see them in advent catalogs, which that was the premier.
Mm-hmm. Pinnacle of a tuner to get in an advent catalog back in the day, like the AAND catalogs were where they dropped. Mm-hmm. All the premier tuners and a Tommy Kyra car would get, would get in, would be positioned in that catalog. But I would also argue that, you know, the zzz, it's kind of a never meet your heroes Of course, sort of thing.
Sure. You know, I was like, it's, I'm sure one of those to,
it does, it is powered by God's motor though.
It yes, it
does have the SR 20.
It is. So I, I say, you know, they do have this like. Fervent, like underground following, but I'd regard Tommy Kyra as more of an outlier than Did
it really
in the Yeah. Was S 20.
Yeah, it SR 20. SR 20. They did a lot of stuff with Nissan. I didn't know that. Yeah,
yeah, yeah.
Crazy rear wheel drive.
Yeah, it was like an sie.
Yeah. Mid-engine rear wheel drive. Yeah, man. Really wild looking like a fish
outta water at the moment. I, I, I don't even recall that from Grants Ismo.
Honestly. It's, but it definitely an outlier, you know,
so it's not on the moving forward list.
We could, we could just, we could just push that right off right there.
Again. I'm gonna push that off
again. I
I
like that you brought it to the table.
Yeah,
I do too. I brought, I brought it to the table knowing that it was, it was, you know, it was table fodder, so, okay. HKS or so Top Secrets already moved forward.
Spoon has already moved forward. Um, so really this now becomes a conversation between HKS and re are the only two to move forward because there's no other options and, but I will, honestly,
that's not even a fair fight,
but I will create a new, a new, a new thing because as I said from the beginning, like, you guys are more the experts here.
Is there something from someone's previous list that maybe should get swapped out?
Uh, did June Auto Mechanic make it?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, so, so if, if we were to move forward with literally the only two options on my list that weren't already used, because we all were around the same thing would be where we would be sitting right now, is we would have top secret June.
Spoon Trust
N hks,
uh, H-K-S-N-R-E
or re ambi. That's
the
last,
yeah.
Yeah.
Which, like, that would be where, that would be our list moving into the final round that we then have to rank
right
now. And this is really our blind spot. 'cause we could bring up blind spots of things that were already there. Right.
So let, let, let, let's, let's lock that in as our top six.
Okay.
Right. So we'll lock that in as our top six and we'll move into blind spots. But I also think we should bring up some things that maybe were already said on nad s's first list and maybe your list that maybe maybe need a swap out. This is the swap out moment.
So here's some blind spots. This was said, but we never talked about it. Blitz. Yes. Factory. Jay's racing Mines. Actually, it's kind of crazy. No one said mines. Well, I'm curious to your guys reason is why it doesn't end up on the list. 'cause it definitely ends up on other people's list.
It's
on my honor.
Honorable mentions same
sex. Yeah. Honorable mention list
and, and I can explain why later.
Powerhouse Muse.
Yep.
Um, feed.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Fujita Engineering. Um, I don't know how, if I, if I'm pronouncing this correct, is it Espree or a spirit?
Esp,
esp, espree N
sx, tuner. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh, garage R. So those were ones that the Patreon said were things that were, these were things we didn't already mention.
List.
I have a few
that aren't, that
aren't on that
list
that I'm shocked that the Patreon
and then Yugen, I think still deserves a conversation because like we're about to say, like, we're about to make this list, we're about to say Spoon sits over mu again. I wanna make sure we're all comfortable with that.
I mean, it all
comes down crazy. I wanna hear you. So let me get your honorable mentions as well.
My honorable mentions would be, um, signal Auto.
Oh yeah.
No one's even said Signal Auto.
Yeah, totally.
Signal Auto had tremendous impact. It could be, it could run especially Golden
Era.
And then if we're saying Blitz, we might as well include Apex.
You know, apex AP integration was on. Yeah, I was on my list too,
by the way. Apex integration was. Their US building was based in Glendale, New York and Queens. Oh yeah.
Way back in the days.
Right. And I could go there. I would ride there on my bicycle. I did not know that. And go it, because for us we had so little like tuners in the area.
So we had Eastern Auto Sport, which was just like a shop, but Apex was like actually there when I was a kid. I thought it was Apex because like that's what
I did too.
Yeah. I didn't realize that the I, you didn't pronounce the I. So I'd be like, I'd go hang out at Aex and like literally hanging out with the guys at the shop and I brought my Volkswagen golf there when I first got it and asked them if they could do a turbo kit and they were like, yeah, we'll do it for you.
Like, we'll price it out and figure it out. Not realizing like how ridiculous that was at the time to go to that for That's
actually
so cool. By
today's
standards.
But they, and they were next to like a pet food store. Oh my God. It was like Apex integration, uh, you know, and then like next to it was like a pet food store.
And that's how I found it was when I went my mom to go get food for our dog. And I was like, wait, what's this? Yeah. So anyway, apex, that's a good one. Um, signal, who else?
Um, I would argue Ray's Engineering. Let's talk about make your own, make your own products. They make products. And they were literally on every single vehicle back in the day.
I just think all the way up to the Pinna motor. I
think the Wheels is a completely other conversation. Yeah, it is. Hundred. I didn't put that in the, 'cause it just doesn't fit under tuning, but like yeah, we we're gonna have a whole other one. About on wheels. I, we've actually talked about this and we can take a real quick tangent on this.
We talked about doing the greatest wheels and I realized it, the list would be so long and then you have to break it into groups. So I think first you have to do like greatest luxury wheel, Japanese style wheel, greatest Japanese performance wheel, greatest Euro style wheel is can of worms. And then you have to do all of these.
And then in the end, once all those lists are formed battle, you then have to battle all of the lists. 'cause it's just too much. This is too, is too much. This part, like this already feels like there was a lot here, but we all still end up in the same place.
This is, this is also the part where I do my shameless self-promotion.
That something that I've been working on for probably close to a decade is, uh, I'm doing a project on a love letter to Golden Era Wheels.
Oh yeah.
Golden Era. JDM Wheels and going all the way back to the sixties all the way to like the 2010s. Yeah, I'm,
that's awesome.
Curious to see, is a book gonna be a book?
Book gonna be in it? Yep. Uh, it's a multimedia sort of thing, but yeah. Book is one of the components. Temporary. Yeah. Hey man, I love it. YouTube is oversaturated. I agree. I'm think about going to a substack now. Tangible
instead of a tangible.
Tangible is where it's at. Yeah. Long form. Tangible coffee table book tangibles, where it's at.
But I will also add, uh, VE side. You know,
where do you feel like they fall? Okay. 'cause like Bo side bomac, this is a tough one. Like Bomac, like
where do these brands, okay, Bax makes kits do luck makes Kits LL side. Is it tuning house? Yoan is a tuning house. Yeah, he made, oh God, just terrible, horrible. I'm just gonna say it, the Fortune, fortune FD and Fortune Supra kits just made those cars look worse, even back in the day.
I felt that way. But he also, the, the legendary Fortune supra legendary car on the Andrew V Wheels and ran nines, you know, it was like a proper drag car. You know, he was in the RH nine club before there was an RH nine club following June. Auto mechanic of all things were the first to do night, second car in Japan.
Yeah, I mean, honestly that's probably the one that kind of got left off that probably should have had more consideration.
I would put VE side in there and then I would also include top fuel. No one's even really mentioned Top Fuel. Wow.
Forgot about them. I, I think one of the issues, but can I tell you a marketing problem?
I think with Top Fuel,
they're in Mi
No. Was at the same time that they came out. Top Secret was the number one type of They were,
yeah.
But like, but I'm just saying like, I think to a young kid, it kind of lost in translation. It kind of got lost in translation because it was like same era too similar of like big conversation around
that for the Honda Heads Spoon and Muhan were doing high revving, naturally aspirated Motors, sports cars.
Mm-hmm.
Where Big Head just said, he's like, no, I wanna boost this thing to the moon. Remember the, remember the rear Engine Del Soul? The rear Engine Del Soul was sick that was on display. The United United States, you know, and it's like, so cool. It ran. I saw that thing run battle the imports. And I'm like, what is this?
Oh, you got to
see it
run. I was a battle for all the great, uh, all the, I was there when Tarzan ran the Integra, I was there when Steph ran his, uh, civic First in the night. I didn't know I was so early to the game. Yeah. I was shooting for, for max speed then this print magazine. That was Max B. Wow. That was a knockoff of Max Powell.
It was
Max Power
us.
Really?
Yeah. Was, yeah. And then we,
they gave us the Max Power name,
except with it was basic.
No, none of the fun. None of
the fun of the spirit. Yeah. It was basically like watching like porn censored by the
Catholic church. You 100%. I, and for me, of all people, I'm like, this is my lane.
Please let me thrive. Yeah. And they were like, yeah, outta
that you were you, you could have pulled off Max Power us.
Us. I
know.
I really wanted, you could've been the one to do it. Because like, I look back at it now, like, man, they were. You remember, I don't even know if we could say on the podcast without remember like pink or brown.
Oh, hundred
percent.
I forgot about that.
Yo, I have a, I have a bracelet that's a max power bracelet where half of it's pink and the other half is brown. It's like these dude, and
you have to put a picture
of that. They would rate events. They would rate events on how hot the girls were, whether how many cops showed up and how many burnouts there were.
Yeah. Like they would, I mean, it was such a different time. Where were we? Why were I, uh, we were on
the VE side.
Veil side. Yeah.
Yeah. Yoko macOS on And Top Fuel. I would also add Top Fuel, but what I would also add as an outlier is, uh, which thanks to Mickey, introduced me to this brand is Trato 6 6 6, 6 Customs.
Oh yeah. Because when you talked about, uh, how did you put it, you know, HKS walks. Yeah. So, you know, top secret could run. Um, it's the same thing, you know, and, and you, well
do brands like 3, 2, 6 Power and stuff like that get it mentioned too. They're, they're, they're the new guys in this.
There are the new guys, but we're talking about the most impactful,
right?
Yeah. You know, the new guys, I think it's tough to like, but if you look at like Rocket Bunny. We'll just say, you know, that's what the, the brand Muir's brand morphed into. Right. That company gave birth to, you know, Kasan at Liberty Walk. Right. And, and, uh, you know, RWB and all of it, you know. Yeah. He paved the way, he paved the way for those over Fender brands.
Yeah. And for what you say. But now he's coming back around, he's building mini trucks. Yeah. And he's building twin engine like, you know, Monaco mm-hmm. Type things, you know, so
the pocket bunny,
the pocket bunny and chef's kiss, you know, it's like, and you know, again, when you always say something disrespectful right after, you say, with all due respect, but with all due respect, like Kasan and everything, doing really wild liberty walk F forties, you know?
Yeah. Say what you will about it. Those are making impact. Yeah. But not quite the same as like the full builds that Murson is doing, you know, and like going after the, you know, it's like K the world is like Rocket Bunny of the world. It's like kind of gotten outta hand and some, arguably the,
and we can have a whole, we, we have a whole conversation,
but, but
we also a whole in the conversation of the impact of, of Rock r
wb.
Yeah,
exactly. I, rw I know
you, you, you have the first car Know
Mean. I I did it. Yeah. Literally it's sitting outside 'cause you guys are here. Um, but it is, I I I made this argument a previous podcast.
It, it or vin's episode I think
did
very well.
Yeah. I think it's like the RWB brought the nine 11 to an audience that never would've considered a Porsche.
Right. And it's like, say what you want about it. Uh, say whatever anyone wants to say about Nakai, like that's a whole other argument, but you cannot argue the cultural impact of that. But to me. Body kits don't fit under, don't fit into the world of tuna.
No,
that's me. But I agree. But, but Rocket Bunny,
but VE
side does for you and ve 100% because Veil side,
because he builds tur
full cars.
He had, he had turbo kits. There's got the VE side intake plenum on the two J is the stuff of Legend. I have a
veil side exhaust for my fd.
See, so he built full, a full suite of products, you know. Um,
anything else on the blind sides?
I'll be honest, I feel real dumb right now for leaving Vail side out.
I, no Vail side was on my list, but that was, was, I mentioned
Vail side to you
yesterday.
Call Val is my blindside list
call. We talked about it, but once I went back and sat down, which was hours later, um, it just completely blanked.
Yeah.
I, I, you know, and I, I, I spent time with Yoko Maan, it's like
mm-hmm.
I have deep respect for what he did back in the day. Absolutely. You know, and now he continues to, what is it, 51 50 is his new brand.
Just doing like, he's still going there. Bentleys and Ferrari and it Yeah. Like LL side, like they got just ruined by the rep brands. Yeah. Which is another podcast. Yeah. But, um, RJ DeVera gave me a great story 'cause he was really tight with Yoman Kassan. He said, yeah. I go, is he okay? Is everything because he, they just, he fell off the face of the earth for a while.
Yeah. Because there was so many knock off Vel side, Val V Style or VS style kit that came out around that time. If you're gonna knock off a body kid at least knock off an attractive one
vs. Type
vs. But anyways. He, um, he, he came back and then started making, you know, modern era cars, and then he got into the Ferrari tuning and everything else, and he said to rj, RJ said, well, are you okay?
Is everything okay? He goes, my flame almost extinguished.
And he said, that was like, to me, I thought that was so telling. I'm like, wow.
Then this is why Japanese culture is so great. I know, because you literally have like one line, you're like, fuck, I know. You're like, fuck. That's how the movie ends. I love
it.
Exactly. Right. You know,
cinema
and then as he's coming back and riding high again, you know? Yeah. So for him, you know, I'll say, you know, it could also be argued, I will also say Sea West could be an outline too, you know, because I love that brand. They, they made a few other parts too, as well, in addition to the body kits, but they, and they built entire tuning cars out of, out of the Sea West garage, you know, but
at the end of the day,
at the end of the day,
sea West, can you drive your EK Civic to Sea West and have them build it for you?
No. No. You know,
so that's where most of these fell off for me. But
back in the day, you could to Val side,
because Tex,
you know, let's
talk about that. Powerhouse am Muse. There's plenty that we left
off. Powerhouse Muse. Powerhouse Muse. What? But it no longer is exist 'cause Tenon passed away. Right. You know, so, but the Carbon R God and you don't Oh, that doesn't
mean they don't deserve on the list.
Can we give a shout out to Colton, JDM Supreme, who, yeah. Remember
again, this is most impactful
right
now. I don't think it ma I don't think it's present day. It's like this is just one of the most impactful brands. I don't think, if they don't exist anymore, it doesn't live.
Powerhouse Amm did a GTR that set the world on fire.
It was all car, mostly carbon. They had the white roof and mostly carbon. But then they also had the toge, they have a model of that car. They had the toge monster, that s 2000 that just wrecked all, you know. So 10 Abe song goes from like, I'll do this Honda and then I'll do this Nissan. You know, I mean
he was, they were very high up on my list and they were my, one of my honorable mentions.
But to, yeah. To me he doesn't have the impact that a top secret that a June auto mechanic would,
and that's what I was saying about this tuner is out maybe in the middle of nowhere. Didn't get the notoriety that they deserved at the time to bring that brand to the next level.
You probably know him. This is another one of my huge, uh, huge faves, but I wouldn't list him in that.
But I put 'em in the blind side as Aki from garage bomber. Mm. The garage bomber like 32. It's like
insane.
That car And that car did everything too. He's like, I was time attacking with it, but then I wanted to drag race with it. We drifted with it for a little while, but now I'm, I want to, you know, go wheel to wheel with it.
So I'm redoing the cage. Same R 32.
Yeah.
Oh,
for me it was SRUs, but
garage SRUs. Oh my God. The orange R 32 drag. Ah, the sru rear trunk lift
til I think we need to do, I think we're gonna end up having to do. The
obscure
tuners. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, like the JDM tuners that you deserve. Notoriety deserve notoriety.
Oh my
God. Our
magic. Did we even mention our magic?
It's funny because when we did the, uh, the last episode, which was the top five driver's cars, we were like the top five driver's cars that aren't a Porsche. Because we all knew 100 that would be came in, or the nine 11 would be the fight for position one.
We, we should have said no. We should have said none except for HKS Trust. Yes. No. Hs. No. Yeah. Yeah. That would've probably none of the manufacturers would've cut those, those ones out. But here we are.
I, yeah, because that's, that's what I, I categorize. I think there's like those three tiers. Mm-hmm. The TRDs, the knees most the rally arts, the STIs, which STIs is a technically an aftermarket 200 brand.
And then you, you go down to the HKS splits, apex Trust, and then you go to Griddy. I mean, uh, June top secret and then all the rest. That's, to me, the way you said it, Mickey, I mean it does put, uh, mtech into that more of a manufacturer. Yeah. And it brings spoon into the conversation of being second tier a tuner.
Yeah. But, but unfortunately,
that's not where we live. We live here, and let me give you the list again. Alright. Let top seeker. June spoon. Ari, HKS. Wait, why am I missing something here? I said that twice. Um, oh. Trust, trust, trust, trust slash security. Okay. So the question is, do any of these get swap out for the blind spot?
Which is we, we, we didn't even talk Jay's racing.
I will, I will. I will 100% fight to the death to put signal on there before Amia. As much as I love him. Okay, let's
have, that's
why, let's have that conversation.
Why?
Why? Because Signal Auto did so much. They had something called show up. If you remember, show Up Signal show up.
That was where they did Dark Care Project wasn't. No, it wasn't. They did paint. They did Majura. Oh, Mara. They did the Mara Colors.
Everyth Mara.
So they did body work
and
everything, which I believe, and the audience can correct me if I'm wrong, I believe Mara produced the midnight purple paint that Nissan used on the skylines.
Maybe a
super deep cut.
I need to find out if it's
accurate. That would be
amazing. I've been told that, but I've never been able to confirm it.
But, uh, cost. Kta Kitan did everything from Hondas and the cars that he brought. Just the selection of cars that he brought to the us. Yeah. Chop top. The chop top.
Chop top Civic. I
fanboyed over that car.
So the R 34 again, that was one of those cars that was in the Rh nine club.
Yep.
Then he built it for time attacks sub one minute back in the day. And then he brought it to the US to Drift, you know, which is nuts And also Lowkey. I was involved in a high speed hit and run with, uh, Kitan and RJ DeVera on the Osaka loop.
That's probably sports guys. The story. Wait, you guys did the hitting or did you guys do running? Did we did the hitting. We did the hitting and the running. Yeah.
Is the statue of limitation passed
down? I think it has. I've pretty much said it. I said it on, uh, Cole.
RJ DEA is losing his job
right now. I know 100% is, sorry.
SEMA people. Um,
we, we Super Street flew and he wasn't driving right?
No. Kits San was driving. He had the car. We threw all our bags into the trunk. They had a van Yumi Mano, which is, I love her to death. She was his, his number one. She said, we could put your bags in. He goes, no, put the bags in the trunk. So we threw all our luggage in the trunk.
It was que driving me riding shotgun RJ and a guy named Rakesh Patel from Super Street.
I realize trying to keep Nas
Nas, okay, hold
on, we'll get to it must be like my own like medicine. Like this is what it's like dealing with me. This deal. Like this is what life dealing with Scotto must be like. 'cause I'm just like, where are we even
going with this?
Hold? I'm trying. Well, because we threw all our bags in the back American, the plane. So he's bombing
through M or Signal?
Signal Auto
because of this reason.
Where do
you feel, where do you sit here on
this? Um, I'm gonna go signal to and dont fold just 'cause this is what's telling. No, I feel silly that I didn't have them on my list.
This is what the blind spot's about. There's a breath, there's a breath of products that they made
and this is where we keep going with 'em.
They could have a car built by them,
right?
Uh, they were a tuning house. They, they were integral in us drifting 100% in the, in the infancy, which is cool. Which again, chunky
buy man.
Chunky buy was
drivers
come on. So I'm going to replace Aria Amia with Signal Auto as well. And those are the reasons, but I feel dumb for not thinking of that. I'm the first, yesterday
they were on, they're on my blind spot list.
They were not on mine. I completely blanked on that one.
Alright, so that's a blind spot.
Swap out. Yeah, we're making firing order history on episode two. First time for a swap out. Okay. Look at that. And it, it's off of my list, but I'm not going to fight it because I completely forgot about single Auto until you said it. And I was like, oh yeah,
that hurts me as the person who was like, you know, I really pushed to you.
Champion. Yeah. Because brand were, they were just good friends of, I think a lot people have forgotten about them crazy
because I, I did, I did
a bit. They, they've fallen off.
They've disappeared.
They've disappeared. And that's
okay. That's okay for this list because it's, it's, it's a lot.
I know, but I guess I'm just trying to
keep it current.
No, I'm just trying to rationalize why I forgot, forgot about it. This
is, yeah, I, I have nothing to prove here. I'm amazed. I remember all half of these brands. Okay. Alright. So new list, top secret. June spoon, HKS, signal Trust.
And we have to get it down to, is there
top six?
Six? We have to get down to five.
We have to get down to five.
I
Alright, so hold on.
I just added them.
Yep. Yeah, that's fine. But here we go. Alright, we're gonna take another quick break. We're gonna come back and we're gonna finalize this and we're gonna try to limit the additional stories to like 17 ish,
seven hours later.
Start in this story time interruption.
Brought to you by my good friends at FCP Euro. I mentioned this in past episodes. I bought a vanana gun and it is quickly becoming my new daily driver. It's replacing both the Audi RS two and my Rabbit. I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm having like a midlife crisis. I'm not sure if that's the direction it goes, but I really love this thing.
It's not fast, but it's kind of just cool. It's quirky. It's a bit of a rolling office, which I just love. But the other day I got caught in a gale force windstorm. It. It was pretty serious. And look, I have driven in some really, really sketchy situations. But this one was, was up there. I was doing 70 miles an hour with a 70 mile an hour crosswind, and let's just say it exposed some weaknesses in the suspension area.
The next day, I threw the jack underneath 'cause I had to see what all of the wobbling was about. It wasn't what was wrong, it was what is not wrong. Every bushing seemed just beat to hell. The wheel bearings were slightly out of compliance, meaning they shook a little bit. I figured, all right, it's time to fix it.
I headed over to fcp euro.com, opened up the cart and just started filling it. And like pulling a thread on a sweater. You know how it is began with bushings and then bearings. And then while you're in there, I added brakes. Continue to fill up the cart. We all know what's next. We know 'cause I ruin everything I own.
I'm gonna slam the thing on wheels and then I'll probably never delete it again. If you two have a foreign car that you're trying to keep on the road, head on over to fcp euro.com. They will be your best friend supporting your very, very bad decisions. Alright boys, it is the time We have all been waiting for now, which is to actually list the list to rank the list.
I think this may be the hardest part.
I have a 15 more blind spot cars. I'd like
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stop. Stop. Let's hear it. Stop. I, I went, yeah. When before the show started, I said I thought that Nads was here to actually audition to just take the show over. And then I realized that he needs to run the 24 hour live stream version of the show.
Yep. Where it just starts and like maybe at some point it gets to the end. I have met my match when it comes to tangents. Distractions, sidebars. Yeah. Blind spots. I love it. I'm here
for it. John.
Oh, it's been great. Thank you. Thank you. It's been great. Okay boys, so the first thing we do is we kill something.
There's the top five. What is falling off the list? Is it Signal Auto? Did we just fight so hard to get signal on the list to then immediately lose
it? I mean, this blows my mind that like I'm gonna rip him off right now. Top Fuel, LL side amea and I'm calling Signal Auto or not making the list. That's how, that's how like hard it is to mm-hmm.
To be a top five. Like, you know, there's a golden era and all these brands were like killing it. Yeah. You know, and to me that, that's craziness know And that Muan isn't even in the discussion.
No,
they're not even on the table. Yeah, exactly. Crazy. Which is like another one too. Crazy.
We, we, we bounced through pretty quickly on the blind side, but why is mines not on the list for you guys?
Uh, I could, you know, I've
been Is it because the cars were just so like blah looking or stock looking? That's like they, they just didn't stand out.
That's
like they built cool cars, but
Yeah. Dasan famously brought his car to one of my first time attack. I brought time attack to the United States. Right.
Which I'm very proud of. And one of my very first ones, he brought the, the 34 out. He used to be an engineer at Brid Stone. He's all about noise, vibration, and harshness. And he's all about ride quality and the completeness of a car. So his car never looked that wild, you know? Yeah. They have full interior ac everything that, which
I kind of like, they almost made my list.
Like they were
right there. 'cause of that reason. They're the, they're the, the, you know, to, to coin Mickey's, you know, title. They were sort of the violent gentleman's car. Mm-hmm. You know, to me it was like, it was like that sort of like ripped individual in a three piece suit. Yeah. You know, in a, in a Sav row suit, which is a
Volkswagen, Audi Euro guy,
100%
they would, it's a dream.
Hundred percent. 100%. Again
was my argument for spoon.
It's the same thing, but at the same time. You know, uh, Nico Assan is just known for doing like these subtle GTRs. Yeah. He just continues to like, not really evolve, not really get out of his lane. It's a little bit different than am Mesan. 'cause like when you look at Aria amia, he's done so many like the three rotor FC that I didn't even remember that just dropped this year.
Yeah. All the way down to like the Porsche front ends and the, the collab with top secret and a a foray into GT 300 JGT Ctt 300 car is just ridiculous. Which
I've driven, by the way,
have you driven that car?
Yeah. I'll send you the photo to pop up on the screen.
Oh my God. I
got to drive that car in New Zealand.
It was a hero moment and I'm glad I met that hero. Oh my God.
Yeah. See, like, so that's why, that's why Nico, that's why mines doesn't quite make my life, you know,
it's almost too safe. And it's not to say he doesn't do great things.
He doesn't have that outlaw safe is not impactful. He doesn't have the outlaw spirit that Matt Kay or, or, or Smokey or AAN has, you know?
Right. Well, maybe he does. And he never got caught.
You know, he's a super, he's a super chill dude. I've
spent a bunch time with him. There are 35 builds are insane too.
I had lunch with him and, uh, my photographer famously did not eat Japanese food and they had to go to another restaurant and get him a special steak at his place, you know, so Wes Allison?
No way.
Oh really? That's funny. He was like, heh, carried power bars around. I could see that from Wes and he'd be looking for a, a, a Japanese McDonald's. And I'm like, you're killing me. This is some of the greatest food we've ever had. Um,
what? Yeah, that sounds very wet.
Awesome. I visited Mines and I took a photo on my way away from there.
Um, such a beautiful, there, beautiful was a place up the street called Hot Wind was the name of the restaurant, and I was like, Hmm, that didn't translate well.
Alright. So,
so I would, I would say, you know, like we literally bounced AMIA for signal and now we'll bounce signal
because Am we all knew that AMIA was gonna get bounced too?
I think so. Just because of the niche of it, of it all.
To
me. Literally, they're both getting bounced at the same time here. They're spiritually now connected in this conversation. And they're both getting 86.
Yes.
Yep. Yes. We're gonna have to. Sad but true. Yes, exactly.
Okay.
That's it.
So the best way to do this is not to go to the top.
What would be the, you always get, you always gotta finish in the top. You can't, you can't hit the top. I think the question now would be is what else would you have to bounce? Like if, if it wasn't signal,
what are we saying? We're making a top three.
No, no, no. I just, I, I think we should work our way. I think we should work our way.
Like bottom up, 5, 4, 3, 2,
1.
Yeah. Okay. What's number five? What's the
most, what's number five? Like, like if, if Signal was to compete with anything, I would say spoon.
I, I would agree.
Which, which then
I hate to say, 'cause it's, I'm driving my dream car right now.
Yeah.
And
I,
I think it's really like, it was
my list.
Spoon stays in their lane. They, they don't reach outside the Honda Mark. Right. So S 2000 Civic NSX.
Yep. OEM plus.
Om plus. You know, so they, that goes to the bottom of the list for me as well. Just because they're not well-rounded in inversed in other
Exactly, exactly.
We're agreeing
to, even though, even though I know right,
you guys letting some dirty Euro kid help guide your direction here.
I was like, I don't know. Think, oh, trust me, I'm not listening to your opinion whatsoever. I think signal's out. I think spoons number five, you guys are like, yeah, sure. I'm actually just proud that I'm like, even in the same line with you guys in my thinking. Okay, so who's for,
for me, that's trust.
Same. I'd agree with that. I would 100%. I
don't really disagree.
Yeah, I would,
the the reason is is they just didn't have the impact that the others have had.
Yeah.
To me it would've been, who would it be if it wasn't trust? Who would be the, who would also, like if, if it wasn't trust
in what way
of what?
Like if,
and spoons already out
and spoons already out. Like, like who's there
top secret.
Oh, I stro. Okay. We now strongly disagree.
Wait, you're saying top secret in the fourth position.
You, we strongly
disagree. Yeah. I'm like, not, not about that at all. I'm ready for a
fight. I'm ready for a fight at all. So, but that's okay.
So you're
top only top secrets better than HK in June?
Yes.
I'm saying top secret is not better than HK are, you're talking about number one slot or the number four slot?
No, we, we were talking about the fourth line, but he said number four. We started getting to the top secret fight. Yeah. Okay. Let's shovel the top secret fight.
I want to get into
it. I
do too.
So I'm saying I, I would say June falls in could be four or three.
Why? Because the founder didn't go to jail.
We can get to that.
I know. That's literally, that's your justification. And I'm on board with it. I'm not, and I'm
not denying, I, I, I also agree the bad boy thing is cool, but it's not his fault he didn't get caught.
But I think that there is an impact level there that like June, let's be honest, let's be honest, impact also has longevity. June is something that lived in a, in a window. They lived very well in their window. Like still, people still talk about top secret smoke. I hate that. I agree with you on that.
But you're right.
Like, like, like, like there's there, June
does not have a Tokyo Auto Salon booth.
June also, doesn't they do June? If you, did they have
one this year?
Oh, I don't know about this year. You not anymore
If you didn't grow up. That's what I'm saying. If you didn't
knock on past Saam,
if you don't either love the history of JDM or you grew up in that particular era where June cars were all over the cover of Super Street.
I, I don't know if they had the same lasting power as top secret. Does
permission to tangent would that we will take 15 seconds or less. If I could knock this out that quickly and go Okay.
Permission to, hold on. Hold on. Give us space for a clean cut so I can remove it. Go. Uh, now go.
My justification for June alone is Kuan took me in the back room.
This sounds worse than it is. Wow. And showed us the, some of the, some of the inventory and inside the inventory were camshafts. All those Camshafts were labeled with the top four brands. HKS splits, apex and Trust. June Auto Mechanic made all of those grinds for the different specifications for all those different plants.
Wait, so you're
telling me that June is your wrapper's favorite wrapper?
100%. Okay. That's it. That's,
I like, I like that argument. Hundred percent. I like the, it's your wrap. Your favorite wrapper's favorite wrapper.
And the kicker is, this was way back in the day, like early two thousands. He said, we don't even manufacture these in Japan.
They're manufactured at our plant in China, you know, and I'm like, what? And, and these are some, and all the big tuners and all the big tuners were using, using that supplier, you know, and they all went through June Auto mechanic. So yes. The rapper's favorite wrap.
Fucking great tangent, by the way. No.
Okay.
I, I love that type of stuff right there.
Alright, so I, I think we all, so trust definitely lives in four. It doesn't seem like anyone wants to swap out for that. So now it's the top three fight. So like, top three, just as a reminder, so we have June top secret, NHKS.
I can't, this is, this is a, this, no, this is the fight.
The, but I'm gonna just go out and the show and Mickey changed my viewpoint. Can you bring your car in? Can it be worked on? So by that metric, I would put HKS in third.
Same,
you know, same because hks, same when we're talking about the Tier T ismo, HS blitz and then June and top Secret June and Top Secret, when you ask to identify a tuner, those are tuners.
HKS is a parts manufacturer
that dabbles in
tuning, but they've had some massive, massive racing, massive swings. But their
impact in tuning overall is so massive. Like even if you can't bring your vehicle to them to build. Right.
They've touched every facet of the industry, aside from customer
first, first streetcar in the sub eights.
Yeah. 100%.
Right? Yeah, they built,
man, that's not even debatable.
Like, like, I mean like just, just starting to like list some of the things that they, again, we repeated it before, but like these guys went and built a formula engine. Granted it never got raced, but like they were really, even though we see them as the big ones in the group, they were fighting outside their weight class.
They took big swings, they took huge swings as a brand. Yeah. And made, I mean, you go back, like, to me the, um, the HKS, uh, alza,
oh, the trb, one of the track attack alza
fucking coolest cars ever. It made me want that like, like, like they was so, like they, they built really cool badass stuff and I don't know if, for me.
You have to be able to have access to them to build your car for you, like a tuning shop because they built product that you could put on your car.
That HKS Ezzo on the super streete cover was like life changing
scene. Yeah.
For me, you wanna know how life, it's what inspired me to, uh, bring time attack to the United States.
Really? Yeah. 100%. That's what shot
it, I think. I think it was my introduction to what time attack was.
100%. I I'm like, what? Yeah. What is, what is time attack? What is a track attack? What is a, you know, I'm like, I love everything about like, no holds barred, no rules. Oh, gotta have like kind of street tires.
Arrows unlimited. Everything's unlimited. And I, and that car, uh, coincidentally just like their TRB three, it, nobody recognized it as a record holder. When it, when it ran the time it ran a 55 6, which at the time people were barely dipping into the 50 nines. Mm-hmm. And it just obliterated everything. It was a GT 300 shell cantilever suspension.
It ran on slicks. It was unlike anything else. The way they set the three SGTE way back in the car like that, it was stuff that no other tuner was even looking at. And everybody kind of like, all the weird thing about Japan, we're all outlaws, we're all, you know, running on the fringe, but. There's a line that we don't cross.
You've crossed it, hks, you've crossed it. And they did it again with the TRB three, the eight, six. That car knob ran that car to a 49 4 4, and they were like asterisk. No, we give it to Fire Ando, which they escort. Mm-hmm. Is Evo nine is still super impressive. Yeah. 49. Uh, eight, eight. Insane. Correct me if I'm wrong, but,
and, and again, rewinding like without the Zero R program, do we think we would've seen the same sort of like other, obviously it may not have been successful, but it paved the way for a lot of other lookalike type concepts to take a car and basically do what Roof was doing to nine 11.
Mm-hmm. To
Jeff. They were, they were one of the first, I wanna say like we talked about 91, like it was in 91, but
as we also mentioned that it was a failure though at the time.
Yeah, it was, but it
took,
but there's four that survive, that are running around right now that belong to, oh, nevermind. Can you buy a customer car from HKS?
Andrew Evanson will argue otherwise. He somehow has that car. And did he buy
it from HK
SI don't know if it was bought from hk.
SII just don I think he did buy it from, I think that it weighs in, I think what you're saying is definitely has weight.
Maybe we're splitting hairs too.
No, no. I think, I think it, I think it has weight, but I don't think it should have enough weight that it prevents them from being in a top position
to me.
I mean, look, they're already in the top three. They, they're,
they're a giant in the industry. Any way you look at it.
And, and is that part of the reason why you guys look at them as like, you don't want to give it to them? Because look, I, I get that. Well, because
we said tuner
and, yeah. And also let's, let's go back.
Let's just talk about the definition of what a tuner is.
Okay.
A tuner is someone not an entity, right? It's someone who works on your car, be it someone who alters.
So the each in the K
Hasegawa kit or suits. At this point, you know, they're not even, but you're, they're, they're not built like you're looking.
But if you're looking at present day,
I'm looking at all the way through history. If you look at like, the cars, like Kan stood on the sidelines, s smokey's there driving. Like, here's, here's a, another
another's knob has the personality.
100%
that you got out of, you know, like that you got out of a small game
from brain.
That's, that's, but Knob isn't. HKS Knob is just hk. S he's a hired driver, hired works driver. He's gun gun. He's not even, he's a gun, you know? Yeah. So, but to me, like, I'll, I'll, this is, I'll spell. It was very nice to us, but like, every time, and not to toot my horn, I, I hate flexing. I don't like saying this, but Super Streett was a big deal back in the day.
It was, it was massive.
Yeah. So it was massive. So when we'd come into town and we'd pick the cars that we wanna shoot, tuners would fall over for us to come. We're taking you to dinner, you're gonna come over, we're putting you up at this hotel, you stay here, you come Smokey. No, I'd come see Smokey. All of his people would be like, I have all these crazy top secret merch and everything.
Here's a present. Here's a gift. Thank you. Thank you. They'd be so excited. Smokey would be there on the dyno building a car, something, smoking a cigarette, look, and just kind of. Nod and that was, it wouldn't even come over. Wouldn't even shake my hand. Not that I'm asking him to bow to me, but I would like wanna get an interview with him.
They go ask you questions and then Smokey will answer later. And that's how we did the interviews with him. It was so weird to me because he was so, just like American journalists, whatever. And there was, after we started doing it, there was a line out the door when we get there, we we'd get, I'm not sure
if that's endearing or not.
'cause it's actually kind of gangster. It's, but at the same time like,
but
it's kind of disrespectful too. It
is super disrespectful. The trip over. But the same time it's like he was so about the, he's in the zone, bro. He's in this thing and he's not that character that like even when they, there's like, even though
you want him to
be, who's it?
I don't wanna call out, but there's a influencer now that does the engine sounds and all that stuff. And she was over there with him and she put him on the spot and he's just there. Okay, hi, I'll do the cat whiskers and everything. But you could tell he was uncomfortable. He's like, he puts it on when he needs to put it on.
But my whole story is Smokey is your tuner. Kon is your tuner. HKS is a giant faceless corporation that makes amazing parts and they throw money at things and they come in like a Goliath in a field of David's, you know? Mm-hmm. So as much as I love HKS, you know?
Absolutely.
And but
so you by that saying, do both of you feel like HKS does not deserve the number one or the number two slot because of that?
That's, that's my argument. Yeah.
Because I, I have a, I'm, this is slowing my
mind.
HII have a hard time agreeing with that because I think of all of the things that, like, I think we're getting stuck on this one point, which is like, is a tuner a single person or is it a brand or a company of people who do things?
Like I I I think while there is the romanticized version of the single person tuner, there's great race shops that are multiple people who do things right. They're being penalized
for being
equivalent. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, I think we're penalizing them on that side. But there's something like you, if you go through the history of what HKS has accomplished, what they have done, what they have built, pretty epic.
Epic. Like Mitsubishi reached out to them and was like, can you do our engine program for the hundred percent for group B to race against the greatest in the world? Again, I'm seeing a trend here. That project never went anywhere. 'cause group B was over. There is a, there is, there is a weird collection of failures or, or a failure to start, I should say.
This is, that's part of taking big swings. Maybe if we know the whole
story. That's the thing. Yeah. We don't know all
the story. Look. Okay. Also, I would argue, on the other hand, HKS succeeded in every facet of Japanese motorsport. They won the D one championship with a car. This is also a quick tangent. I put that car on the cover of Super Street, the S 15 Super Advent SA three R wheels.
Oh God. That car is just,
I have, I have a set of those wheels.
Right. I know, I know. I saw that. That to me is like, that's the end all, be all. Put it on the cover. It failed miserably. Really? My bosses called me in and screamed at me. What is this? It was an onic, gci a D one, winning S 15. You know, HK s built the car.
It's got Tubbed front end and everything. They go, don't ever put it on the cover again. It, it failed miserably. What are all these, uh, yellow EK hatches? More yellow hatchbacks, more yellow, Honda hatchbacks? More of those. More of those. More of those. And they were just like, stay in your lane. And I'm like, dude, I'm taking now.
Everybody's like, oh my God, I love that car. I'm like, where were you, where were you when I put
that magazine
out? Why didn't you buy that? Why didn't you buy that issue?
Nobody thought like, ES chassis were cool in the, in like the late 2000. I mean, or sorry, late, late nineties. Nineties, early two thousands.
Like maybe there were definitely people who did, but it definitely didn't seem like cool Hondas were everything. Mm-hmm. Like, Hondas were like 90% of the marketplace. I think the, I, it was like Honda and Alza were like the two cars that stood out in the early two thousands, at least for me. And again, I was a little bit more on the outside looking in, but those seemed to be the cars that like really gravitated to people.
But now again, this is the revisionist history. You look back at it and people are like, waxing poetic about 15. I know about that. You know about all the s chassis cars. And it's like, they may have been more important in, in Japan for sure, because drifting was already there. But like pre drifting in the US was not, I was not aware of it.
I, I will say there's a guy, you mentioned him earlier, but there's a guy who doesn't really ever get his flowers and that's Ricky Chu. He did an an S 14, A two 40 SX USDM car. Mm-hmm. And did what was called the strawberry face, where he did the S 15 front end. Also very first crew to swap an SR 20 into, into an sche.
And they made it work. And they made it run. You know, I
happen to know the girl that was in the cover of that issue of, oh wait, oh no, no, I don't actually ico. I'm thinking of something else. Yeah,
ICO was I, yeah. Yeah.
But
Aiko was there.
Yeah. Aiko. Yeah. So there's that one. And those were the
days.
I mean, like when you go back and now, we'll also when we talk about, uh, flowers, I'll give Chris Forsberg his flowers.
First one to swap an SR into a Z 33. That's Signal Auto. Love him to death, but they claimed it and brushed poor Chris off to the side. And they said,
who was the first guy to put a VQ in an S chassis?
Uh, signal Auto. I wanna say that was Signal Auto. I think
the ones who've already been knocked off the list.
Yeah, I know, I know.
All right, so let's get back to the top three voice. Let's get back
to the top. I could be wrong in the Signal Auto thing. I think it might top secret was also playing around with, with VQs. And You're
wrong. You're wrong. And I'll tell you who it was
later. Okay. Okay.
How about this? How about this?
I'll give you guys the way I see the, the list. Okay. And you guys can argue it.
That's adorable. That's adorable. Brian.
It's adorable. When you want to, when you want
to set up a battle,
no, no, no, because I I, I, because I have a hard time arguing with you guys on this, you have way more knowledge. But I will just tell you from the outside, okay.
The way I would do it, this is, this is how I would do the list is, uh, in number three, position June. Number two, position. HKS number one position, top secret.
Explain.
Um, again, I keep going back to the impact side of things. I think that you cannot argue. HK S's value in the space. And I think where I think HKS and trust are very similar, but HKS just like, just a slight nudge over in terms of building iconic cars.
That really just resonated for
me. Well, I think their breadth of product was a lot larger as well. Like they got into electronics el Yeah. Like I don't think GRE really got into too much of the electronic side of things, unless I'm wrong. They were late
to the game.
Maybe they did some gauges and stuff by
the time they did all the perfect B stuff and everything.
And that was, you know, HKS was already off and running in that
space.
Yeah. I mean, everybody wanted a turbo time back.
Oh my god. Wasn't that so cool?
So cool.
Think about
that. My car's still running in the mall parking lot. Gotta keep the oil temps right.
My R 33 still has one of those on it.
Sick. Oh my God.
It's the only car I haven't removed it from.
Um, the, I wanna add it to a car that doesn't need it. Like, it's not even a turbo car. I'm just like, yeah, yeah. I got the turbo timer on li the oil, like go itvs on there. Like Yeah. You know, I
mean, they have this thing called remote start these days.
Um, and then, um, I, I, so I just think like, I think HKS almost deserves to be in one.
Right? But I just think that when you look at all the parts that make the Japanese tuner to me. Impactful. It's like lore is a big piece of it. Like the story of what they did and, and the the like sort of character piece of it I think is important. I think accomplishments are huge. This is actually might be making argument why maybe HKS should be back up there, but like I think in what they've done, HKS obviously a bigger company, so they had more accomplishments first at 300, all these different things, right?
But I think that you have in just sort of going out there and building something that was very different at the time, motor swaps outside of automakers was like not commonplace, which is like now the, like if you build a car and you put an engine in from the same automaker, no one's watching you on YouTube.
Like, like we have moved to this kink where like that is normal.
Mm-hmm.
Definitely Sort of like one of the early, the early positions there. And to me they were able to transcend the Japanese auto market to where everyone became aware of them. And, and again, this goes back to the impact HKS offered way more parts than top secret ever did.
Top secret used HKS parts, right? Like, like there, there's so much cross back and forth, but I think just as a brand that like made this mark and then created like a hero character out of it, which, you know, which is Smokey is like, to me they, it just super cool. Um, and then for me, and then June I think just doesn't beat HKS.
Like, like I think you could make the, I think you could make the punk rock argument of like June was the every man's HKS and that's why they're better. But I think pound for pound, the HKS is just responsible for so much. They were the first, they were, it just feel like it's apples, oranges, it's so hard.
I get it hard. I get it, I get it. And that's the thing so hard. But I also completely understand if you guys came back and said, no, the right art order is June, HKS and top secret because like maybe I'm buying too much into the cool branding and marketing, but I'm a branding and marketing guy and like that Me too.
It's one of the things that sucked me in. Like I remember getting those issues of whether it was Max Power or Super Street about like some new thing that Smokey was doing, whether it was like running the Nardo ring or whatever it was and, and it's like, you know, he was going there to do two 50. He did like two 20, but it was still fucking cool.
Right. And it's like there was something that that brand oozed coolness about a car, about cars that I didn't like until they did stuff with them. And like that is impact for me. Like I didn't really pay attention to supers until like seeing top secret supers and things like that. It's crazy because
side of
you
can argue that HKS did all those same things.
I
know
they
just didn't have a face.
But that's marketing's a big piece of the impact side of it. Yeah.
But also when you talk about like the rapper's wrapper. Yeah. And like for cool points, what would you rather see on a car? A top secret sticker or an HKS sticker?
Top secret
100%. Top secret is that deep cut.
You know, I mean, I dunno how
deep it's, I disagree.
Oh, really?
Really?
What? Come on here.
Let, okay, so, so here's my, here's my thought process on that. So, HKS, if I see an HKS sticker, I immediately feel like, uh, that person has good taste in parts. They have money to spend on parts. They're building their car properly.
Uh, if you've got a top secret sticker around in your car, you're probably a fanboy.
Okay.
Unless you're driving around in a gold S 15 or super or something, and it's all top secreted out, that's different. That's a flex.
It could still be argued. That could still be argued for HKS. It,
it could
be also,
it could
top secret.
Are you saying top secret is the equivalent of being like, uh, it's a band you probably never heard of? 'cause I know on the radio
probably.
All right.
Yeah.
I'm here for that
likely. And that's okay. Like, I don't think that's probably why
I like it.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
To me, that's what I, I say top secret is the mark of a connoisseur.
Mm-hmm. Uh, sure. H is the mark of a, of a bandwagon bitch. Right. You know, it's like, to me it's like,
yeah, it could be anything.
It's like, it was like that the, the, the whole thing about the grocery list of the roll call. That analogy just
perfect. Your Analogy's Perfect.
Is the, it's the band. You
never heard the band, you never, yeah.
Like,
like, you like it because, you know, it's the cool thing to like, because you do like HKS and you actually re respect what HKS has done, but because too many people know of h many people like hks, you're like, oh, you are trying to stand out by saying top secret, which is what I just did. And
at the end of the day, top secret uses HKS products.
They do, they do 100%.
So it's just, it's just what side of the fence you sit
on, but also the band you've never heard of is trying to be just like the band you've heard of, you know? Mm-hmm. They're trying to get to that trajectory. Yeah. Yeah. You know, not many, not many musical acts are like, oh, I don't wanna be Taylor Swift, you know?
Right. They're just like, they're striving to get that, but if they can't get there, they're like, oh, she sold out. Yeah. But as soon you could say the same thing about aka, about R Review, for sure. If I was in his position, I'd be cranking those kits out, smoking cigarettes, fly me in, film, the video doing Oh, sure.
Built an
amazing life for himself.
Built an empire. Exactly. You know, so it's like, you know, you do, you know, look at, like, it could also, you know, Larry Chen, like, cranking out his work, you know, it's like, you know, other photographers are like, oh, you know, they get, they get bitter because they've reached that pinnacle, you know?
I think that's, uh,
all right. What's your list? Because if I, you keep talking, we're gonna keep
going. Okay. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. I already, I get, I, my list is, my list is, so my list is top secret, June, HKS in that order.
Okay. Yours
a hundred percent in line with that?
With his, yeah. Okay. So then the only, so the, so top secret.
June. So really the question is June or HKS right now then, because we have everything else is in position, we all agree. Top secret sits at the top.
It's so hard
because, and so it's, it's, it's, and now you guys are both in there, but like, I mean, I guess I'm the only one, so technically the vote's there, but I just want to, I just wanna push that point.
Like June over HKS, are we all hearing what we're saying?
HKS has done some great things with builds, but June, again, on that other level,
yeah.
Drifting time attack, drag racing, top speed, um, Bonneville salt flat. And they were able to put a, a
face to the brand where HKS again falls by the wayside because of the ambiguity of the, of the people involved.
Unfortunately, even it's
terrible. Face Kan could care less. He just happened.
He could care less, but, but
he was there
gangster to be there. He was, was because of that.
Yeah. He's just like, I'm just here to build a fast car. I, I put me on camera already.
I don't necessarily think this is right, but it's definitely makes sense when you theorize it.
Okay. So look, I I just wanna run through the list real quickly. Um, so at the bottom of the list we have spoon and I think we all agree, like they did a great thing, but they did it in like a single space and that's why they live there. Mm-hmm. Um, I think everyone's look at trust is that they, while similar to HKS or not on the same level as HKS, right?
Not quite, which puts HKS the notch up, which could be third place. Right. Would you say that June is like the scrappier. Version of HKS in that they do a lot.
No, they're not even on the same level as hks. No, they aren't. And HKS is one of the world's largest parts manufacturers production.
Yeah.
That's what I mean by when I say the scrappy version though, in that like, they have a large breadth.
They've done a lot of different things. They, they have been very successful in doing all these things because like they have a larger, I mean, June has a larger breadth than, than Top Secret does.
100%.
Right? Like they, they have that breath. I mean they, every, it's everything. We talked about it before.
So LO's side
and so does H-K-S-H-K-S also has that level breath
lo LO's side.
If you take away the getting arrested, if you
remove the lore,
I go, I go HKS Ready, top secret June. That's that for me.
Oh, wow. So you're still putting top secret
above you if you take away the street cred of going and getting arrested, doing 200 miles an hour.
Right.
And you put all that shit aside and you just say, okay.
Yeah.
Who has made the biggest impact in the tuner scene? That doesn't necessarily say social media didn't exist, or media didn't exist. HKS has made the biggest impact from the products that they develop. And I would say trust is a close second,
but now we're changing the list from greatest to greatest impact.
Right.
You know, so that to me is,
it's tough, man. It's like to put a tuner. Smokey at the top of the list, only because there was some black magic or lore behind him getting arrested and bringing global. I think it's, but I think it's hard.
I think it's more than I, I, I chose the getting arrested story.
'cause it's definitely the peak one.
No, it
is a hundred percent. But everything he did had this impact. Like him going to Nardo had this impact. Like they, I think he was very good at creating this mystique mm-hmm. That people wanted to know about. Right. But
you could say the same thing about June.
And I also would say that's not Smokey.
Creating the mystique. That's who he is. Yeah. It's just know, he's like, he's gangster, which is unique, which is great. He wants to go out and like, he still tests his cars and runs on the, you know, the gon and mm-hmm. The loop expressway goes for it.
Okay. So if we end today with top secret at the top, then June, then HKS, then it just feels wrong.
Then spoon what feels wrong. Do you feel like HK s should be at the top?
I feel like these are two different lists. Again,
I do too. And I think we're the, the more we talk about it, the more we're rationalizing things that maybe shouldn't be part of the rationale.
Again, the word impact has to be in there.
I think so too,
because if you just talk greatest tuner, HKS makes the most parts. They're super high quality. They service a ton. There's, they have a really long history. They don't build
customer cars.
They should be number one.
They're
not
technically a tuner.
Yeah. You keep getting that, that's a big one for you.
It, it's a hangup for me. They can build a great race car. There's,
yeah,
no doubt about it. I've been in their museum, they've got 10 cars on display there, record breaking cars.
But I would argue that their impact. Still ends up in cars that get built for regular people because they create so many of the parts that other people use.
And like, that's still like, yeah, like
it's the go-to. I mean, especially in the skyline world. I mean, everybody's running.
Yeah. It's
v cam and all this stuff. I mean, it, it's, it is hard for me to not Tommy Apprais
at the altar of HKS stuff. Yeah, I get it.
It's hard, hard for me, you to follow the conversation.
It's hard for me not to put them on the top of the list because of the impact that they've had in the community. But I feel like these tuners because of the lore and the things that they've accomplished as actual one person
tuning shot. It's David, it's David versus Goliath conversation. Exactly.
So it's
really hard
to
compare, but it's okay to say that in a David and Goliath situation, top secret beats out HKS because when you street cred, when you, when No.
'cause when you look at the full package of what they were given and what they, what they had and the, the resources they had, what was their impact? I mean, look in the last list when we did the top five, we concluded the BRZ is one of the top, um, driver's cars of the last, you know, of the last two years.
Can I agree with that? But like, there's other cars that are faster and better. Mm-hmm. But when you look at it from a package, you can't help but argue for its price. The fact that you can still buy it in a dealership, it deserves a place on the list.
In that case, I'm putting HKS at the top of my list, if that's the criteria.
So you now see them on the top of the list in terms of impact. I was making the argument the other direction. I disagree.
I'm, I'm still sticking with top secret at the top of my
life. So your top secret, June, HKS Hs. Your
HKS
top secret. June top secret. June I am top secret. HKS June. Fuck. There's gotta be a man.
And that concludes another episode of Fire We Guys Next Time.
Well, I think by,
how do we like,
because you, because I mean, and it really seems that HKS is the major floater for us.
Yes.
Because I feel like they don't belong in third place, but
we've, we've all put hk s in different positions. I put H in
third.
That's the really one that seems to majorly shift
first. Second,
right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know. It's your show, man. Scott will tell us. Hold, is this like circle jerks again? Are we gonna rank, is it
gonna It's 1,000,006 points. It's,
it's like
ranking it's million six points. Well, we have, we have to just let's, we have to vote through the positions.
This is, there's three of us. We have to get through the vote. Can I
say I've
never, so let's just, let's just, let's go right now. Third position.
I've never gone 180 miles an hour on the won gone Expressway with anyone from HKS. And I'll leave it at that.
Okay.
Did that car have HKS parts on it?
It did.
I'll leave it at that.
Okay. Okay. Let, let, we're gonna just vote this. We're gonna go good old fashioned. Voting.
Oh, wait. So we have to give in?
No, we have to just vote it. It's gonna Okay. Yeah. You, you have already said what your list is. Yeah. The people in the comments will know where Mickey stands. They're
gonna,
we now have, we have to finalize the list.
All right.
Okay. In third position, HKSA show of hands for HKS in third position. Okay. A show of hands for June in third. In, in third place. Okay. June is in third place. A show of hands for HKS in second position, HKS is in second position. Top secret wins. Yep. Isn't voting amazing?
We should do that as a
country.
Wait, wait, wait. Can I redistrict the, uh,
this actually, it's actually a ranked choice vote like Australia does and New York. Alaska and New York. Yeah. Okay. That's it. We have our list. We have our list.
I'm sorry. Internet. I'm not happy with this list.
In fifth place. In fifth place, we have spoon in fourth place.
We have trust, as you may know, is reti in third place. We have June in second place, HKS, and in first place we have. Top secret,
dun,
dun, dun. And
none of
us are happy
with this list. What's, that's what,
that's a good list. You,
what's the definition of compromise?
What's, what, what's the old saying? Like a good deal is when everyone leaves unhappy.
What? Yeah. The definition of compromise. Yeah. No one,
no parties happy is maybe this is a good list. This isn't gonna wreck my whole ride home.
I wanna throw my cans across the room right now.
Which part upsets you most? Is that June is
second. That June. The June, yeah. Then June and
you're
No June's. And third,
I know. So
that they're not in second. They're not in second.
And you're most unhappy that I
think HKS should have been top. Um, they're
in
second, but yeah, it's fine.
I'm happy.
So your flip of the list would be HKS one, top secret two. Mm-hmm. I'm actually not mad at that either. I, I, I, I think it could go either way, but
I mean, you can argue either way. And we have,
but I, I will also always argue for more of the underdog. And that's where top secret, and I think that's why June ends up on the list above trust.
I mean, talking about June over griddy is like already a, is already an underdog beating out a major hundred percent. And that's actually the story of this list is. We have two majors, trust and H Ks one. We're not
even talking
about Apex and Blitz
too. Yeah,
those
were
two other options. Some we're not even on the list.
That didn't even make the
list. Yeah. Anyway, we're gonna get absolutely ripped apart in the comments. Thank you guys for coming on the show. I appreciate it. That's the beauty of it. It
everyone has an opinion.
This is another episode for honor. I hope to have you both on. We're gonna muzzle Nads on the next one.
Thank you guys.
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