Japan's wildest RX-7 bodykit uses German influence
Few things in life find universal agreement, but one thing every living being can agree on is that Mazda's FD3S RX-7 is one of the best-looking cars of all-time. So it has always caused controversy when tuning companies come out with radical bodykits that drastically alter the third-generation RX-7's svelte lines.
Many got a taste of the wilder side of FD3S life when Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift featured the VeilSide Fortune RX-7. Driven by beloved character Han, it featured many of the era's tuning tropes like a super-fat widebody stance, large GT racing-inspired aero kit, and striking colour scheme.
Amazingly, this crazy-looking FD wasn't considered OTT by VeilSide's wild standards. We'll have to take a look at Japan's most-outlandish tuning companies another time, but it is safe to say that "JDM" tuning hasn't always been about OEM+ style and tastefully restrained mods.
However, one of the oddest kits to ever grace the FD's beautiful lines comes from the Tomisato-based workshop of RE Amemiya. Since 1974 Isami Amemiya has been building Dorito-powered street and race cars, including some spicy top-shelf JGTC/Super GT GT300-class-winners, but their craziest offering has to be their AC037 kit.
The AC037 front-end uses 997-series Porsche 911 headlights in a front-end that the rotary tuning royalty slicked for aero efficiency. The use of headlights from a marque traditionally positioned as the biggest rival to Japanese performance cars was seen as a highly controversial choice at the time, but pop-up headlights in that day were considered as fashionable as smoking in a pre-school's playground at lunchtime.
This era of tuning focused heavily on inspiration from GT racing, with large widebody kits and towering aero the norm for big builds, as tuners looked to Super GT race cars for inspiration.
To really click the FD fans' gears, RE Amemiya also offered a rear-end conversion called the AC987. Replacing the wide-set slimline FD lights with oval-shaped units that look like they're off an early 90s Corvette, it was intended to give an extra visual punch to these wild tuner RX-7s, and bring that aero-slicked inspiration.
RE Amemiya built a few crazy demo cars themselves to promote their kits. Their partnership with Japanese parts-supplier GReddy saw RE Amemiya Super GReddy packages create a lot of noise around the annual Tokyo Auto Salon tuning show, and their Super GReddy 8 is possibly the wildest iteration. You can read more HERE about this insane creation.
Their Super GReddy 7 is noteworthy for being Isami Amemiya's vision for a 300km/h-capable tuner car that could also be a comfortable street car. Built in 2006 it featured a turbocharged, ported 20B triple-rotor engine and would have been an absolute hoot to drive. You can read more HERE
\So, do you prefer your RX-7s on the milder or wilder side of the tuning scene?
