Tokyo Auto Salon Singapore 2013

I'm sure that most car enthusiast like myself would give anything to visit the recent car show in town.

For the first time in its 27-year history, the Tokyo Auto Salon had finally made it to Singapore.



Held from the 12 to 14th of April, around 150 cars varying from imported tuners hail from the Land of the rising sun, to the local flavor of Singapore and Malaysia’s tuners, were brought in and showcased at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre.  


The original Tokyo Auto Salon is an annual auto show held in January at the Makuhari Messe, Chiba City, Japan for Performance and custom dress-up parts and technology display. Known as one of the top motor shows globally for modified and tuned cars, the 2013 Tokyo Auto Salon featured 802 vehicles, 452 exhibitors, and 3,608 booths.



While the show in Singapore was not as big as the original back at Chiba City, it was without any doubt a crowd puller with 19 cars from Japan hailing from famous tuners such as Top Secret, Veilside, RE Amemiya, Mugen and Spoon Sports.


Since I was free only on the 12th April, I excitedly planned for a trip to TAS 2013.




The first few booths at the entrance of the show were rather simple with non-exotic cars and classy dressed models. Not quite what I expected from the show, given the media attention it received.

I quickly glanced through each and made my way to the imported tuners from Japan.

Being a Honda boy who loves carbon fibre (in case you didn't know, I'm quite a "carbon-whore" with many parts of my R being replaced with carbon fibre), I fell deeply in love when I set my eyes on this beauty whenever I see it in photos. Now, to see it for real, is pure organismic!



You see, the Honda Civic Mugen RR Advanced Concept takes things even further by replacing almost all body panels with carbon fibre, thus reducing the weight. For further weight reduction, the windscreen and windows were replaced with acrylic thus also optimizing performance.

And in case you didn't know, you’re looking at the ONE and ONLY Mugen RR Advanced in the entire universe.


But the Mugen RR is not the car that left me swooning. Just look at the photo below and you'd know why.




Like a typical fan-boy, I was drooling all over the floor in front of my dream car.

The Spoon Sports NSX-R GT Racing with 400hp decked out in all the Spoon Sports tuning parts I could only dream of, is a perfect marriage of looks and performance. And every little flaw, such as that crack at the fender, only makes me love it more.

I could go on forever about the NSX-R, but let's move on to yet another car that I love at TAS 2013.





The Nissan GTR is the next car that I want to own after my R.

Let's not talk about the specifications of this vehicle since it's of little wonder why would I want to own this supercar. But just look at it's curves, and ALL THAT CARBON FIBRE on this car. I can't help wondering how much weight is reduced from all the carbon fibre parts and how much faster the car could go now.

Did I mention that I see this car along West Coast Road at least once a week? Yet seeing it on display at the TAS 2013 just makes me love it even more!


Anyway, apart from the cars mentioned above, I had no other photos to share as I personally thought that TAS Singapore 2013 greeted the crowd with promises of exotic cars over the media. However, a tour around the 2 halls quickly left me disappointed and bored.

Perhaps I'm just one who loves cars modified for performance and not the custom dress-up parts.