Super Autobacs, ever heard of it? The blue-on-orange logo is stamped on a few cars in Super GT (JGTC), on the Garaiya from ASL, in our coverage, and you may have even stopped by the North American store located in California. The Autobacs Group began with one store in Kansai way back in 1974-about the time Nads was in his seventh year of college. Since its inception the company has become the equivalent of Japan's Pep Boys, only not as crappy. With over 500 stores, there's practically a few in every Japanese city; many of these stores take it upon themselves to build demo cars to entice chumps like us to spend money on parts that make us look good, go fast and get laid. Take note: Most if not all the work done on these demo cars is kept in-house to only further tempt would-be customers to drop coin.
Enter the Super Autobacs Chiba-Naganuma '98 Mazda RX-7 demo car.
If you were in Tokyo earlier this year for Auto Salon you may have seen it there; if you weren't in Tokyo earlier this year then it sucks to be you. This car is so insane it depresses me to own an FD. Maybe I should use it as inspiration, but frankly I'd rather just whine like the little bitch I am. The branch responsible for this orange and carbon fiber monster is Chiba's "wOOw Factory." The one goal for this project was to take an FD that's over ten years old and make it fresh, like what you'd expect in an '06 Mazda. All the work was done in-house at the wOOw branch and the build was somewhat difficult-the whole project took about a year to complete. One of the biggest challenges was the FD's very tight interior, but that's no shocker.
Before you even get to the interior, you have to get past the widebody exterior. It's quite a humbling experience. Simply put, it looks like RE Amemiya shot his wad all over the car. It all starts with RE Amemiya's hot N-1 front bumper, but the same bumper also got some carbon love in the form of canard pros and the almost-obligatory carbon undersweep. Amemiya's sleek headlight conversion and AD carbon hood complete the brand-specific front. This alone gives the car a street fighter-ish look, but the rolling catalogue doesn't stop there.
From profile the car is still an FD, but we'd class this one as a SuperFD with carbon fiber front fender diffusers, GT-AD front widebody fenders, side skirts and molded rear overfenders-all from Amemiya. Oh wait, there's just a little bit more. The arse-end gets some Amemiya lovin', too (um, that came out wrong) in the form of a Pro rear carbon fiber diffuser with the optional Bowtech generators, taillight covers and an outrageous GT-R wing. If it weren't for the biggie Grex four-pot brakes up front and 57Pros we'd swear this particular 7 was a shop car built by the rotary master himself, and not Super Autobacs.
All doubts about who put this FD together will quickly dissipate after sneaking a peek at the interior. The Chiba team has done up a fully-custom interior in beige front to back. I don't believe it (and hate to admit it), but beige never looked so damn good. There's a reason why it looks better than perky breasts. It's not the nasty-ass vinyl that plagued the US models, it's fresh leather and suede.