In today’s blog post, I would like to share my experiences from the Tokyo Mobility Show 2023. However, it may be different to what you may expect: if you are looking for impressions of brand-new concept cars, new BEV-powered vehicles or flying cars, you won’t find it here, and I may recommend pressing the back button on your browser. In fact, I intend to write about not about the cars shown on the venue, but the ones outside of it. The cars I photographed on the parking lot, because somehow, these are the ones that stuck in my mind.
Don’t get me wrong, the Tokyo Mobility Show 2023 was quite interesting! Therefore, before showing pictures of the incredible Tekkamen DR30 Skyline and AE86 Levin parked on the venue parking area, let me show you this cool driving simular car.
What you are looking at is an extremely detailed, scaled-down model of an ND Mazda MX-5 roadster. This car was placed as a driving simulator for kids, and gave the parents to take a few cute pictures. What struck me was the degree of perfection this model was built in. It has working lights, a working instrument cluster, cozy-looking seats, and basically looked like a real MX-5 that has been hit by Doraemons Small Light beam. The effort that must have gone into building this model must have been incredible.
In any case, if you are still around, you are probably waiting for pictures from the cars parked on the venue. Next slide, please.
I saw this late-model AE86 Levin GT-V with a tasteful “Enhanced OEM” look on the parking lot of the Mobility show. At first glance, it seems like nothing was changed except the wheels and the suspension. Post-facelift Levins came with the whiteline tail lights, and the slightly aged GTV trunk sticker indicates that this Levin has been well-kept over the years.
The front end happily mixes facelift and pre-facelift components: the owner modified the facelift bumper with a pre-facelift lip, and installed a zenki grill.
This combination of white, black and yellow as the main exterior colors makes this build incredibly smooth and pleasant to look at.
If that Levin was repainted at some point, they did a great job on reproducing the factory two-tone color scheme.
A few lots further down, I noticed this beautiful Skyline DR30 RS-X Turbo. This generation of Skylines is nicknamed 鉄仮面 (“Tekkamen”, iron face), because of the lack of grill and the two thin air slot underneath the extended bonnet.
For some reason, the R30 generation of Skylines is not well known in the western hemisphere, but for me, this is the most beautiful Skyline generation ever built. Matching the taste of the 80ies, the only round things on this car are the tail lights, wheels and steering wheel. I love the angular styling and the wedge-shape.
The factory DR30 looks a bit innocent, but the black overfenders, front lip and what seems to a custom-made rear diffuser turns this Nissan into a quite aggressive looking street fighter.
A few months ago, I visited a Tekkamen Skyline with the intention of buying it as my first car here in Japan. The overall bad condition made me change my mind, but owning an R30 is a high-priority item on my bucket list! In any case, thanks for reading!
