The second week of January marks the “holy pilgrimage” of every JDM fan boy: Japan’s famous Tokyo Auto Salon. Spanning twelve halls full of every tuning car and genre you can think of, TAS is effectively a 3-day ultimate sensory trip for its attendees. Show grounds aside, countless events are always held around Tokyo during the weekend – completely bringing japanese street car culture to life. We’ve been covering the show for a few years (once during 2019 for S63), however due to the Coronavirus, the show was cancelled for the first time in 37 years.

To somehow celebrate the bond and fond memories formed through attending various meets and trips to the show, we held a small gathering of friends at the Crossroads parking lot last January 13, 2021. Following local COVID-19 guidelines, friends from Stance Pilipinas / Manila Fitted, Legends of the 90s and Buzzhype gathered at the “home turf”.

While it’s a far cry from the automotive mecca that is Daikoku PA, the BGC Crossroads Carpark, also known as ‘The Turf’, is as much the equivalent of a local automotive melting pot – meaning this would be the best place to stage a small gathering of folks that share the likeminded ideal of being inspired by the Tokyo Auto Salon.

Most of the cars present during the evening are inspired from our trips to the Land of the Rising Sun. As parts are individually flown in by its owners straight from Japan, the vehicles here are a healthy sampling of what could possibly be encountered out on the infamous highways of Tokyo.

Quality over quantity. A proper representation of the culture that set our imagination on fire. Here’s to hoping the Tokyo Auto Salon will be back on its feet for next year.

Slowly but surely, life is somewhat returning to what we once knew as ‘normal’ even amidst the pandemic. Last year it made perfect sense not to take any chances with going out for meets, but as human beings going on long stints without interaction with others isn’t too healthy as well. In the context of cars, this becomes a bit more difficult for the owner of a rotary vehicle. We may be able to chat with others at meets and spread the word of the magic triangle, but still there is a part of us that isn’t well understood by other folks – and that is why we must gather this year to celebrate 7’s Day in some capacity.

This small 7’s Day gathering was held at one of Makati’s more welcoming areas for sunday activities – Rada St. We’ve been seeing some folks hang out here, and considering the downtown district is somewhat of a middle ground between north and south it made a perfect spot to gather rotaries from around town. With shops opening for breakfast with outdoor seating, this made for a perfect spot to admire any cars that arrive.

7’s Day festivities around the world would see dozens of rotary cars in attendance, but here in Manila it’s already quite rare to see two rotary-powered vehicles in one event. For this gathering, we had a healthy sampling of 6 cars, with an FC, 4 FDs, and an RX-8 in attendance. Despite the relatively small number of attendance, there’s still something to appreciate in each vehicle’s build.

Andy’s red US version RX-8 is actually his second car, the first being a bagged gray example that’s under the knife again for more cosmetic upgrades. He instead brought his full Mazdaspeed-spec RX-8 – a rather rare kit even by global standards. To be able to build this, a full Mazdaspeed non-runner donor was sourced (found lying around somewhere in Quezon City) and the whole kit transferred to a perfectly running US model car. Perhaps the only missing piece to this is a prohibitively expensive set of Mazdaspeed MS-01s. Can’t put it past Andy to pull the trigger on one of those, being a diehard Mazda fan and all.

This black FC3S was originally from Cebu, and it has since been brought to Manila last year by its new owner, Ej. Being an NA S4 unit, the route that this example will take is that of an all-motor screamer. Now sporting a bridge-ported motor, it made quite a racket for early morning breakfast. Nothing like a loud bridge port to sing the song of our people, right? This build ought to see more wrench time as it is still an incomplete project. We’re definitely looking forward to its progress.

That wingless red FD actually changed hands a couple times and is now owned by Nelanne, a guy who willingly traded a properly built S14 to take a crack at building his dream car. Compared to that Silvia he’s pretty much starting from scratch, but we’re sure he’ll slowly build it up to spec over time.

Goldwyn’s RE Amemiya FD has made its rounds here before, yet it’s still a sight to behold every time it makes an appearance. Sporting the iconic Amemiya light blue as well as the full AD GT kit with an N1 ‘02 bumper, it always gets everyone in a Hot Version/Gran Turismo mood whenever it turns up.

Y’all know too much about this green FD already. Let’s just glaze over this one and move onto the other cars that dropped by to celebrate Dorito Day with us.

Our builder Lito just recently sold his black FD, and he brought the reason why he sold it. 620+ RWHP on pump gas with methanol on a custom Garrett G-Series turbo kit by Profab PH. (730WHP with E85 and flex fuel as of publishing – Ed.) The car only recently had a new Pure Drivetrain Solutions transmission fitted so they could go big with torque, so once the car’s tuned for that we ought to see some crazier numbers. Still, he’s the only guy in Manila i’d trust with building a rotary, so he’s very much welcome to this gathering.

There would have been another silver FEED FD in attendance, but Stephen forgot to hook up the trickle charger after his last outing and the battery on his FD died. Ah well, C63 it is.

Some friends from Mazdatech also joined us with a solid trio of NA Miatas that sported a host of obscure JDM pieces that only Miata diehards would know of. It’s great to see that rotaries gather folks that share the same passion for building cars, and perhaps that is why these cars tend to make for a great centerpiece of car culture around the world.

The local guys brought their fair share of fine machinery as well, perhaps the E39 M5 being the most heavy-hitting among the set. We’d like to extend our thanks for letting us celebrate at your local spot!

It was quite refreshing to celebrate 7’s Day again this year. Hopefully with more projects coming out of the woodwork we’ll see more rotary-powered vehicles in the future. Trust that we’ll do our best to keep these things running in good order here in Manila.

We all can’t say it enough when we say that 2020 has been a very different year for all of us. Most of our big plans for life, family, friends, and cars have been derailed, but such is life – we have to work with what we’ve got. With the whole world reeling from the pandemic, we would like to think that we’re very fortunate to be able to continue serving up a curated slice of Filipino car culture for everyone while staying safe and secure. And with that we’ll go over some of the highlights from Street63.com’s first year:

As is the case with every new year, we’ve had big things planned for Street63 – and it all started with finally transitioning to the home page we have here. With Street63’s stories having previously been based off Facebook Notes, we felt that our future stories would be done further justice by having our own space on the web. A few sleepless nights during the earlier part of 2020 were spent formatting all previous stories into the layout we have here – and now you can view all stories past and present in a few clicks from our home page.

We managed to squeeze in our sort-of-annual trip to Japan to see more of their rich automotive culture – and bring home some inspiration for y’all and your builds. While we attended Tokyo Auto Salon back in 2018, this time we wanted to see what Kansai had to offer by way of the 2020 Osaka Automesse. Suffice to say it’s really true that Kansai is the heart of Japanese car culture, and the Automesse was a good concentrated sample of what the Japanese can do to their cars when given all the freedom to build.

While some of the guys went home, I managed to stay for a week longer and managed to catch the Nostalgic 2 Days. It was pretty laid back as far as shows in Japan go, and there was plenty of rare retro goodness abound. This was definitely worth the day trip detour.

Foreign influence is well and good, but this is Street63 – a site dedicated to the Filipino’s automotive craftsmanship and taste. That said, we reckon we’d define the few things that make builds here in the Philippines a bit different from everything else we’ve seen in other countries. Despite seeing all the wild builds in Japan, there’s definitely no place like home – even with the way we build our cars.

In order to boost our effort to bring you the best cars and builds that the Philippines has to offer, Motul Philippines has climbed onboard as our partner for 2020. We have since worked with them to help bring you basic information about maintenance as well as the fluids you will need to keep your vehicle in tip top shape.

While he was busy shooting a certain green RX-7 for his youtube channel, we took the opportunity to grab photos of Ramon Bautista’s Mitsubishi Lancer. Don’t dismiss the guy as just another celebrity, his Lancer to Evo III conversion is the real deal, and he’s as true a gearhead as they come. Definitely an ideal example of the Filipino Car Enthusiast.

One of the best features we’ve written this year was about a rather unconventional FJ Cruiser. Ton Llave’s slammed FJ may have lost all off-road capability, but it definitely had a unique build direction and was geared towards highway use. Different as far as all other FJs go for sure, but we welcome variety so long as it is done in good taste.

2020 has been a challenging year with features and opportunities to cover more cars and stories being halted mid-way. With the new normal somewhat in place, we’ve managed to keep at making proper content that will further highlight the excellence and taste of Filipinos when it comes to building cars. To further build on that, we’ll be doing more video content as we move towards 2021. Gracing our Curated series as the first feature, we have Carlos Gono and his infamous Ford GT to set the bar for future feature videos next year.

We hope you’ve found your regular dose of tasteful Filipino automotive car content with us this year, trust that we will share more of the same moving forward. Happy new year from our crew at Street63!