Our Tokyo Auto Salon 2026 Spotlights

With the mayhem surrounding Tokyo Auto Salon and the newly coined “Tokyo Car Week” name for the automotive craziness that happens around the show now relaxing, let’s take a look at some of the cars that stood out to the Turnpike team on the ground. 

Picking builds that really resonated with us wasn’t an easy task, as TAS truly upped its game for 2026. The crowds were record breaking, as a total of 272,383 visitors dropped into Makuhari Messe. That might be a hint that it’s time to change venue to the Tokyo Big Site, the capital’s biggest exhibition center, for 2027! 

Part of the unprecedented turnout was there for the first public reveal of Toyota’s much anticipated supercar, the GR GT, which was shown in both its GT3 race version as well as the road car. 

For Toyota and Japan in general, the GT is a very important car. It’s a showcase of the know-how and ability for Japanese manufacturers to produce a performance machine, capable of going head to head with the world’s best.

Powered by a 641 HP & 627lb/ft, twin-turbo, 4.0-litre hybrid V8, the GR GT is a sight to behold. It’s a huge coupe with a strikingly long wheelbase and an enormous bonnet that helps the engine sit in its front-midship position. A carbon fiber torque tube sends drive to the eight-speed automatic transaxle gearbox, sitting between the double wishbone suspension at the rear. I love the compact integration of the hybrid system in front of the gearbox, and the highly-angled output shaft that relays drive to the differential within the compact transaxle assembly. Needless to say, we can’t wait to get behind the wheel of this technically impressive, $300k+ LFA spiritual successor. 

Staying in the Toyota camp, it was a short walk from the overcrowded Toyota booth over to TOM’s, which had a very special AE86 on display. 

As part of its Heritage Restore program, the AE86 started with a ground-up rebuild, first stiffening up the shell with spot and MIG welding to achieve torsional rigidity, equivalent to a modern car. The chassis has been massaged with a few underbody aero touches, or ‘ground effect’ as they describe it, to improve high-speed stability without spoilers that would upset the classic lines.

The center piece has to be the engine, a totally reworked motor closely linked to NA1600 race engines while keeping the stock 1.6-litre displacement. It revs out to 8,500rpm and churns out 165 HP. In development guise, however, it was pushed to 10,000 rpm and 200 HP – just to make sure that in its ‘de-tuned’ state it would stand up to the test of time; bulletproof for years to come. 

TAS has always been the place where RE-Amemiya showcases its craziest projects, and for 2026 Ama-san went wile, coming up with a triple-turbo, 20B triple rotor-powered, modernized FC RX-7. Commissioned by the president of Matsumoto Kiyoshi, a large drug store chain in Japan that for many years has sponsored RE-Amemiya in its motorsports activities, the car truly shows off the forward-thinking abilities of Japan’s most notorious rotary specialist. 

We will have to feature the car to get the full lowdown on how the engine actually works, but it seems that each rotor spins each of the turbos non-sequentially. Since the car hasn’t been set up yet, it isn’t clear how much power this unique set up is able to create, nor what type of character it will have.

The exterior has been massaged with grafted on position lights from the FD, and it’s also been gently widened to add a touch of aggression to its stance. The interior has been reupholstered in red suede and brought up to date with modern seats and even paddle shifters. Even after it’s TAS reveal, there’s still much we need to learn about this crazy build. 

A couple of meters away from the FC was this this FDRX-7. I remember last year when Khyzyl Saleem (also known as The Kyza) was over at TAS, discussing with the guys from Racing Paddock Miyoshi about doing a collaboration for next year. Well what do you know, they made it happen! I was able to see the car arrive on setup day and, I had the chance to see it on the first day of TAS. It’s unmistakably a Kyza creation.

It’s not so easy to take an FD, possibly the most modified and re-designed JDM car to ever come out, and make it look fresh and contemporary, but that’s exactly what struck me as I got to look at it in detail. The wide body conversion and well-executed massaging of the underlying FD shape, courtesy of pumped-up front and rear fenders, added just the right amount of aggression. It’s cool to see a collaboration of this nature materialize so beautifully.

Here we have what I like to refer to as the ‘full-sized’ ChoroQ R32 GT-R project, a collaboration between Pandem and Hardcore, put together and built by J-Beat. Based on a Suzuki Twin kei car from the early nineties – one of the most compact city cars every sold in Japan – it’s been transformed to look like a pocket version of a BNR32 sporting pumped fenders, GT-R lights at both ends and a GT-R style trunk spoiler. 

It’s the rear of the car that is where most of the work went into, because if you look at a picture of the base car you’ll notice that it’s pretty much a little bubble on wheels. J-Beat even had to fabricate a small rear frame to support the grafted-on trunk and spoiler. This thing was all over social media, so once again, Miura-san truly killed it!

Over to something a little more classic, taking it right back to 1982 with the Izanami MZ11 Toyota Soarer. The Kyusha specialist truly outdid itself with this build, staying true to what makes these slammed ’80s JDM classics so impossibly special. 

Sitting low on a custom set of Izanami’s wheels, the Soarer had its floor raised by an inch and all protruding underside metal has been recessed, to allow it to sit – but more importantly ride – this low.

Others solutions to nail the look included a custom front subframe on which the 5M motor is perched, and a relocated fuel tank in the trunk. It’s the shaved and wire-tucked engine bay that truly completes this car, making it seem like the old-school, naturally-aspirated straight-six is floating in the bare bay. 

The base car was a pristine, low-mileage example that still has – 44 years on – the plastic wrapping on the door cards. The plush, nostalgic, lounge-like interior is nothing short of spectacular and highlights just how cool these over-engineered cars used to be. 

Now for something non-Japanese but at the same time, completely and totally Japanese! This wild Porsche 911 from Bodyworks DB was a customer build that features the shop’s signature ‘Mary Stuart’ integrated rear ducktail that blends into the rear fenders, a hat-tip of the hat to RSR race car of the 1970s which first sported this look. 

This is exactly what Daibutsu Johnny at BodyworkDB specializes in, but to be see it done to a slantnose 911 makes it one of the wildest, most original builds I’ve ever seen.  By the way, the term “Mary Stuart” refers to the collar worn by Mary, Queen of Scots. 

The car sits on mis-matched and staggered Work Meisters shod in Yokohama Advan rubber, just to add to the JDM feel. 

Let’s end it all with this curious mishmash, a ZN6 Toyota 86 wide body with an AE86 Trueno pop-up light conversion. 

Called the Neo 86, this is the modern day 86 that has torn the internet to shreds! We’ll leave it up to you if you think the front swap works, but the car sure did attract a ton of attention at the show – and even more on social media!

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