Fukui Classic Car Meeting 2019 in Fukui City, Fukui

Two friends and I headed up on a nice, clear spring day last year to check out cars near Fukui City. Matsuda-san drove his awesome Chevrolet. So cool and so classic.

We arrived in the late morning to see quite a crowd. I was pretty surprised that there were these many car enthusiasts in Fukui Prefecture. Honestly, day-to-day, I rarely see any decently modified cars. Usually, they have some slightly nice wheels, but that’s about the extent I see typically.

There are lots of JDM older cars like Skylines.

Unfortunately for Matsuda-san hoping to represent other US classic import cars, there were not many other American or European import cars. Personally I was impressed with the range. I have never seen these many cool cars in one spot in Fukui.

Better to just enjoy the pictures…

It might have been called a Mazda Cosmo Show, with about a half-dozen pristine examples…

…along with a dozen Corolla variants.

Are MR2s old enough to be considered a “classic” already? Man, I ‘m getting old…

Okay, this is just ridiculous. NSXs are not classics. But they sure are still gorgeous.

This was perhaps my favorite car of the show… a Daihatsu Mira. While most may think it’s pretty pedestrian, given that it used to be an extremely common car (well, the newer ones still are a dime-a-dozen), this one was bought new by one owner ever since 1986. The car remains in superb condition and he has quite a few photos to prove his travels around the country… He even still has the original window sticker! One has to appreciate the love he has for his car.

The remainder of the parking lot was no less exciting…

There’s an NA Miata under this… cowl.

A few exotics made a showing, like this 458.

As you can tell, I have a bit of an affinity for an old Fairlady Z.

There were plenty of other cars in attendance, but I couldn’t possibly upload them all! Let me know if a car catches your eye, I’ll upload more if anyone requests.

Now that it’s spring soon, I’m looking forward to this years’ event! I hope to see you there!

Nasu Classic Car Museum in Nasu, Tochigi

I took a summer road trip to Hokkaido last year and I passed through the Tohoku (North Eastern) Area of Japan on my way back to Fukui. As you probably already know, Japan really loves cars, given especially many cars around the world are designed and/or manufactured here in this rather tiny country. So it’s no surprise that there are also quite a few cool car museums all over.

Here is the one I went to most recently, the Nasu Classic Car Museum located in Nasu District, Tochigi Prefecture.

At 1000¥, the entry ticket price is a bit expensive, but for the beautiful quality collection of classic foreign cars, it was well worth the price of entry for me.

Many of these cars are exceedingly rare anywhere in the world and even more so in Japan, as most of these were not imported in any large quantity.

I’ll admit I don’t know much about classic cars, so please enjoy my pictures.

There were also a few cars you could sit in.

They even have a genuine Mach Five from the 2008 Speed Racer movie.

While this small collection may not be worth a separate, long trip to see, I highly recommend stopping by the museum if you happen to be remotely nearby.

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

[ Alto Works ] Front Chin Lip Spoiler, Part 2 (Front Bumper Modification, Part 3B)

After one coat of black paint to at least hide the white FRP backing, I set out to refinish the lip. Unfortunately, FRP is a material that requires a bit of care if you want good results and, most importantly, to be safe.

(This is one of the few times I have ever worked on FRP, so I don’t know much about what I’m doing. Please forgive my process if it is not up to par and feel free to comment below.)

Fiber-Reinforced Plastic, especially found on aftermarket automobile parts, is a plastic compound mixed with glass fibers to increase rigidity and durability. It is arguably lighter and stiffer structurally than than ABS parts, but the stiffness of FRP often results in cracks when a strong impact to the plastic is applied. The finished results are also very rough, requiring a lot of labor-intensive work for the end user or installer since the finish is so crude. But since these parts are so much cheaper and easier to make, most aftermarket parts are made of this material.

Worse yet, the biggest issue working with fiberglass is safety. Since glass fibers are so light, thin, and nearly microscopic, they often can be breathed in and cause irritation of the lungs. Even the slightest bit of loose fiberglass on the skin can cause irritation that lasts for days. Working with FRP necessitates proper breathing apparatus, eye protection, and skin protection.

A few years ago, I installed a carbon fiber Ralliart lip onto my Evo which required some drilling and modification to fit properly. Thankfully, I was used to working with the minimum protection of eyewear and some light gloves, but at that time I was woefully unaware of the caution necessary with working on fibrous materials. This resulted in my arms having a nice itchy, stinging feeling for a few days afterwards. Hopefully I didn’t breathe in too much of the crap.

For this spoiler, I will not need to do significant work or modifications other than some light sanding and hole drilling for mounting, but I do have all the necessary protection. I picked up this 3M P100 Particulate Mask, fully-sealed AOSafety goggles, and 3M full suit awhile ago for use on exactly these type of projects. I first used the mask and goggles on my hood vent cuts, though I have yet to use the full suit.

For surface finishing, I was recommended this Soft99 Fine Filler off Amazon for 1432￥ ($13 USD). It comes with epoxy hardener to cure the putty to touch in about half an hour when mixed properly. It mixes easily and went on pretty smooth, like a creamy peanut butter spread. This made working with it much easier than I had expected.

Once the lip had plenty of time to cure (and the fact I didn’t have time til a week later to continue), I could start to sand down the whole lip.

Even though I don’t need it absolutely perfect, I did my best to make sure it would look good if anyone were to inspect it fairly closely. The putty was extremely easy to sand down and even the yellow color made it easy to see where I needed to continue to refinish.

Once it came time to get to mounting, I had a few decisions to make regarding where exactly to mount the lip. While I would like the flat backing to be flush up against the lower front bumper, there was a few issues. First of all, it would actually end up raising the forward angle of the lip a bit based on the taper. In addition, while you can’t actually see it, the rear backside of the bumper only has some areas where a bolt could potentially mount. Lastly, I wanted the lip to be as low as possible, since the oil cooler I installed a while back is actually lower by a few centimeters than the bumper. This means if I were to hit a concrete block, for example, it would scrape the lip first rather than the cooler.

I decided to use 7 M6 button head screws, spaced evenly along the backing of the lip. I think this actually looks pretty good. Note one screw has not been installed because drilling it could potentially damage one of the air conditioner hoses so it will wait until the bumper comes off during final install

I am seriously getting annoyed at all these rainy weekends. Weekend after weekend have almost all been rainy, leading up to Hagibis, Typhoon Number 19, hitting Japan on a three-day weekend in mid-October. Can I even get the lip painted before the winter sets in?

Finally, the drier fall has set in Japan and I found some good timing to put on the lip, along with a set of LED H4 bulbs to replace the older HIDs I had in it.

I wish I had more time to perfect the finish of the paint, but with the poor, colder weather of late, I thought this would be good enough for this season. Nonetheless, it still looks great from a few feet away!

The lip is small and subtle, but definitely adds a lot of character to the front of the car, making it look a bit more aggressive and somehow wider. I am actually quite happy with the placement of the lip and how it looks on the car.

I will admit that if I were to do it all over again, however, I would definitely put on a lip that is much wider and longer. Maybe that could be another project for the future!

[ Alto Works ] Front Chin Lip Spoiler, Part 1 (Front Bumper Modification, Part 3A)

There is no shortage of aftermarket add-ons that supposedly enhance the visual appeal of a car. Body kits, stickers, covers, and accessories can transform a daily driver to a race car… or a ricer. My Alto Works came from an era when boxy, over-the-top aftermarket body kits were the norm so there are still plenty of weird, flamboyant aero parts available for the car. Most of it, unfortunately, doesn’t fit with the theme of the whole car… to me, at least.

Front lip spoilers are one of those small little bits that can make a difference in the overall look. A simple lip can transform a boring car to something sporty by reducing ground clearance and adding a hint of aggressiveness. It’s like wearing a little extra accessory, be it a tie, a wristwatch, a necklace; subtle, but really adds to the atmosphere.

Of course, there are pragmatic reasons for adding a front lip spoiler, too. As the name implies, it can also act as an air spoiler, increasing downforce and minimizing underbody air pressure. Larger front lips look very similar to wedges, forcing air over it, pushing the front of the car down for maximum grip.

In addition to front lip spoilers, proper racing aero often employs other tricks to improve lap times. Those long flat boards that poke far past the bumper, often secured by additional tie rods, are called air splitters. They are designed to literally “split” the air above and below, cutting the lower air pressure, but the most effective ones are long and extremely low to the ground. While a simple front lip spoiler alone may not be effective as a true splitter, it can certainly help without making a car impractical as a daily driver. 

Rather than go full-bore into a splitter and huge front lip, I’m sticking with something simpler and better looking for now. I always liked the classic look of a flat, broad lip, as found on retro-fantastic muscle cars and Datsuns of old. Essentially a thin wedge angled downwards and attached to the stock bumper, they were popular additions in a bygone era. Also referred to chin spoilers, in Japanese they often seem to be commonly differentiated from other lip spoilers.

Ever since I bought my Miata years ago, I always wanted to get one of these chin spoilers for it, but they were a bit pricey with shipping from Japan. The only ones I’ve seen that are available now are from TRAP and they are gorgeous on a Roadster with other retro modifications.

Unfortunately, there is only one company that seems to make a model-specific chin spoiler for the Alto Works, from Hello Special. It does seem to be bespoke, but it could also be a universal fit one that just happens to work well. Without closer inspection, I had to pass on the price, a cool 15400￥ ($140 USD) for a sliver of Fiber-Reinforced Plastic (FRP).

With a bit of searching, I eventually came across a chin spoiler online from Yahoo! Auctions for quite a reasonable price. They offered two models, one longer and wider than the other. The price the company offered for their “short” spoiler was significantly cheaper, so I couldn’t pass it up. I actually won their Yahoo! auction for at only 5000￥ ($45 USD) when they normally sell it for around 8000￥.

Given the low price and that the chin spoiler was made of FRP with a simple, black gel coat, I expected a very rough finish. It actually didn’t look too bad out of the box from a few feet away, but of course, there was a lot of pits, air pockets, and rough brush strokes on the outer surface when viewed up close. It might’ve been more or less fine with a simple coat of paint, but I wanted the car to look good.