Hosting A Car Meet Under Tokyo’s Most Iconic Tower

First held in 2023, the Underground Tokyo Meet was started as a way for the local car community to welcome international visitors during the Tokyo Auto Salon weekend.

Dino Dalle Carbonare: Think of it as a cultural exchange, with the main point being to curate a nice selection of cars to highlight authentic Tokyo car culture – something that’s hard to see at a big show like TAS.

The man behind it all is Takashi-san, a veteran of the local Tokyo scene. He’s been pushing the envelope ever since, quickly following up his January 2023 event with another in May of the same year.

It was at that particular meet that everything escalated, simply due to the fact that we – as members of the local car community – had never seen a location as well selected and curated as the warehouse that Takashi had chosen. From then on we all expected him to outdo himself again and again, which he did, with the next two events in 2024 and 2025 as collaborations with Peaches Japan. 

But for 2026, the show we all went to the other night, he was back at it alone – and blew it out of the water with what can only be described as the craziest possible location in the city…the Tokyo Tower itself!

Larry Chen: Just like the first ever Tokyo Underground meet, we thought we’d arrived late as all the cars were already loaded in, and there was quite the crowd. 

We were stuck in the worst possible traffic leaving the Tokyo Auto Salon convention center, so it’s quite the understatement when I say that I rushed, pushing myself to get as many photos as I could in the short amount of time we had. It turned out I didn’t show up late, but right on time as I was able to shoot almost five thousand photos.

This was one of the most beautiful and authentic car culture moments that I’ve had a chance to witness in person in a long time. I was almost brought to tears seeing what was possible with the culture that we love so much.

Imagine a car meet at the most famous landmark in your country or your city. Think of a low rider meet at the Washington monument, a bunch of Porsches at the Taj Mahal, or – even better – drift cars at the Louvre in Paris. I may be exaggerating a little bit, but I feel like this was such a significant event in Japanese tuning history.

It’s interesting to think about, but I feel like this can only exist because of how many foreigners come to Tokyo car week. It was a half-half mix of locals and people that came just for Auto Salon and the surrounding events.

The Underground Meet has become its own reason to travel to Japan. It’s not a side show or an additional event, but it’s become one of the main attractions.

I’ve tried my absolute best to show you folks what it looked like through my lens on that night. In fact, it ended up raining during the roll out which really added to the texture and the atmosphere of the photos. Enjoy!