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The Import Scene or Import Racing Scene or Tuner Scene refers to the subculture that revolves around modifying imported brand cars (commonly referred to as imports), especially those of Japanese brands, for street racing.

History[link]

Car modifying has been very popular among youth in the United States, especially in Southern California, since the days of hot rods in the 1950s and 1960s. There is significant evidence indicating that import drag racing first started in Southern California in the mid-1960s, with Volkswagen Beetles, Sit-up-and-beg Ford Populars and Austin A40 Devons including documentation of quarter-mile passes published in Hot Rod Magazine as early as August 1965. Puerto Rico also has a long history of pioneering import drag racing in the mid 1970s and 1980s, and it is still a huge hobby on the island. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, front wheel drive vehicles, mostly Hondas, gained popularity in Southern California. Young Asian American street racers played a particularly important role in the development of the early street racing scene. Many enthusiasts in southern California also began to modify their compact Japanese cars, following similar trends that originated in Japan. Arising from the street culture, import racing venues eventually arose and huge drag racing events at Palmdale, California often packed in over 10,000 spectators per day. Racers like Stephen Papadakis, Ed Bergenholtz, Myles Bautista and Eric Sebastian in the east coast, dominated the first import drag racing circuit IDRC (Battle of the Imports) in the mid 1990s. Show car clubs became a huge factor within the import scene: Southern California had Team Macross 7, Team Kosoku, Northern California had Z.Team Yossi., Team Flipspeed in the East Coast (New Jersey, Toronto). Hawaii had the likes of Midnight Racing and Alpha Project, while the east coast had the Jade Crew (still active to this day). This Japanese racing scene can be seen in the anime series Initial D, which focuses mainly on mountain pass racing and Wangan Midnight which deals with high-speed expressway racing.

Japanese products[link]

Another aspect of the Import scene is Japanese products that either explores or details such racing, which often introduces new fans to the scene. These are usually found through DVDs and books.

The Japanese Domestic Market (or JDM), supplies high quality parts and brands for tuning Japanese cars. It is made up of various associations working together to supply products to street racers and tuners.

DVDs[link]

Some of the more well known DVDs about the import scene, apart from the movies listed above, include:

• Best Motoring
• Hot Version
• Street Fury
• Torque Video Magazine
• Video Option (alternatively known as JDM Option)
• Drift Tengoku
• Fast and the Furious

Anime and manga[link]

Two Japanese Anime and manga have been attributed to the growing Import scene in some form or another. A common theme is that both characters are seen as complete underdogs with hidden and untapped talent, and drive what amounts to antiquated cars that many would deem either ready for the scrapheap or severely underpowered compared to much better tuned and modified cars.

The anime and manga Initial D stars Takumi Fujiwara as he is introduced to touge racing after it is found that he has a natural ability to race his father's nearly bone stock Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno. With his amazing skill he is able to defeat Mazda RX-7s, Nissan Skyline GT-Rs and Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions. With this spawned several arcade games, which utilizes cars from both the manga, plus other cars associated with touge racing. The cars are set up more to take the tight mountain passes and emphasis is placed more on driver ability rather than speed and power. The series at first gained popularity via fansubs and bootlegs, until TOKYOPOP translated both the anime and manga. However, some have criticized TOKYOPOP's translation of the property, with major changes to both the story and the content.

On the opposite spectrum, Wangan Midnight focuses on the relatively wide Shuto Expressway of Tokyo. Akio Asakura is a high school student who likes to race on the Wangan highway, and whom after being defeated by a doctor(and a racer as well), Tatsuya Shima's Blackbird (a Porsche 911), accidentally acquires a monstrously powerful Datsun 240Z known as The Devil Z. All but one of its previous owners got killed mysteriously in traffic accidents involving the Z, and quickly makes a name for himself on the Wangan. The cars are designed for speed and power, and are based on the exploits of street racers who used the Wangan as their own personal racetrack. The cars often were modified to attain high power (this is reflected in the arcade game: it allows cars to attain horsepower to the 820 hp (610 kW) mark, at the cost of virtually no grip) with bodykits and other modifications to make the cars go fast. While not as well known as Initial D, the series gained a cult following after the arcade game Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune was ported to the US by Namco.

Magazine publications[link]

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There are many magazines published following this scene. They often include tutorials for car modification and feature sexy models, with the exception of some of these listed.

A list of such magazines can be seen on List of car magazines

See also[link]

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• Grey import vehicles
• VIP style
• Art car
• Boy racer
• Cruising (driving around)
• Drag racing
• Drifting (motorsport)
• Engine tuning
• Hot hatch
• Hot rod
• Kustom Kulture
• Import model
• Lowrider
• Sport compact
• Rice burner
• Rice rocket
• Sleeper (car)
• Street racing
• Japanese domestic market
• Japanese used vehicle exporting

External links[link]

• Import/Sport Event Listings in the U.S.
• Asian-Nation Import/Sport Compact Racing Among Asian Americans
• Import Tuner Magazine
• Jadecrew.com - Home of Jade Motorsports and it's import car blog
• ProImportTuners.com - Import Parts and News
• Japanese Tuning Culture in the UK
• Import Regulations For Used Vehicles From Japan