When you sit and think of the ever-growing industry of Honda tuners there is Mugen and then there is everyone else. In respect to Honda vehicles, there is the legendary flagship NSX and then there is every other car Honda has built. This begs a question: what happens when Mugen, for the first time in nearly two decades, creates a concept vehicle based on Honda's pinnacle of performance? For Honda enthusiasts everywhere it can be summed up in three words - it's a miracle!
As you may have read in our April issue, I visited the Tokyo Auto Salon for the very first time in 2009. While nearly the whole show was a shock-and-awe ordeal for me, when I first set my eyes on this NSX - while it was atop its rotating podium - I had a near heart attack/jizz in my pants experience. When I finally came to, I remember snapping pics like crazy along with the frenzy of other photogs trying to get their fill. After roughly two minutes and fifty frames, my boss, JDM Wong, came up to me and said "so... you like this car huh?" A sarcastic "uhh... yeah!" was all I could mutter. Grinning, Jon replied "good, you'll be shooting it on Tuesday!"
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That night when I returned to my hotel room, all I could think about was making sure this car looked the best it could. Granted there were plenty of amazing cars I would end up shooting while in Japan, but to a die-hard Mugen fanatic this was possibly the coolest car I had ever seen in my existence. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen that wasn't equipped with female reproductive organs and I still couldn't wait to get my hands on it.
The day of the shoot I woke up late, as usual, to Tetsu and Jon getting ready to go and load up our JDM rental car with gear for the day's shoot. After what seemed like an eternity, we finally arrived in Saitama, Japan at Mugen's headquarters. While I admit the first thing on my mind was to get a picture of me with my newly acquired Mugen gloves doing a bird-man hand gesture in front of the Mugen sign (which Jonny sadly declined), I quickly gained interest in the shoot at hand once we rounded the street into the parking lot behind the structure.
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