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Originally posted by Strawhat
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This part of the story is really not the same without photos, but my friend is taking his time with the photos
R31 House was simply amazing, as we parked up there was a lot of about 20 cars just parked next to the building and as you walked onto the property right across from the workshop was another lot, tightly packed with another 50 R31s. We approached a man who was working inside the workshop and asked if we could have a look around as we came all the way from Australia.
Of course this conversation was not as easy but with some hand gestures and a few tries he understood what we meant as he spoke very little english. He started showing us the cars inside the workshop which were all highly tuned making from 500hp to 800hp. He said he particularly enjoyed the sound of one of the cars that was making 600hp, so he proceeded to start the car and revv it hard.
Besides the cars inside the workshop, the parts storage area and the hoist/work area, there was an RC drift car track right inside. We then went outside and were shown the car lot across from the workshop. He described the special stand out cars, some which had RB26 swaps and one that had a rare NA RB26DE from a limited edition Autech 4 door R32. There were rare genuine Nismo edition R31 GTS-Rs, and even a Tommy Kaira Edition R31 GTS-R. The whole 50+ car lot was owned by R31 house and the 20 cars that were parked outside were their customer's cars.
Beyond the building was a fenced of grave yard/wrecking yard with 500+ cars(as the mechanic described). There was another 100car wrecking yard on the other side behind the building and as we were told another 200 car yard not too far away. We were told we could walk around on our own and explore the rest of the property, so we took a walk through one of the grave yards that was unlocked.
The cars there were amazing, old crashed demo widebody R34 with dished wheels, the donor Autech R32 4door that served as the heart transplant for the R31 mentioned earlier, a few AE86s, many GTS-R R31 skylines, a couple crashed highly modified S13s and loads of other car, just sitting there gathering dust and turning back to iron oxide. Most cars had aftermarket wheels we would all love to get, but there they just sat with no use..
After we explored we had a look at another building next to the workshop, which was like an old service station. it had a canopy out the front, but instead of fuel browsers you got another RC drift car track and inside the R31 House RC shop was full of shells and accessories. Behind the shop though, there was another workshop belonging to R31 House that had 4 hoists and mechanics working away on customer's cars.
We came back and asked the man that was so helpful to us earlier where we could find Shibata-san, the owner of R31 House.
We were directed to the 3rd building on the property, where we went up the stairs and knocked on the door. What happened next was an attempt to make some sort of communication. after we were invited inside, we tried to explain that we were from Australia and that one of my friends wanted buy some merchandise and parts from them.
They were still not having much luck and they tried to call someone who spoke english. Coincidentally enough the man he called was actually the man that my friend was talking to over email when planning our trip there. So after a quick conversation over the phone he spoke to Shibata-san and explained what we were after.
Shibata-san's wife spoke a little bit of english, so we were finally getting somewhere. As we got talking more her english practice got better and we were now communicating pretty well without any major stumbles. We were given 2 shirts each as a present from R31 house, some key rings and R31 House bags. We also purchased R31 House sticker packs and a friend bought a whole load of parts for his R31 back home, most of which were sold to us for huge discounts over the retail price. Some parts were sold to him for as low as 70% off discount.
After getting the parts and discussing his plans to come to Aus in the future we asked for 1 more favor... Since we had nowhere to sleep the night before, we still had no where to sleep for the next 2 nights either. So we asked if he could call us a hotel in Tokyo and book us some rooms. He was an absolute legend and booked us a hotel not far from Akihabara where we were planning to go the next day.
We thanked them so much, got a couple more photos and went back to our car to get on our way back home.
Thats it in this installment
Until next time
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