When Hironao Yokomaku started working at a French restaurant aged 16, little did he understand how a lot he’d affect Japan’s automobile tradition within the many years that adopted.
Now aged 63, the Tsukuba-based tuner reveals no indicators of slowing down having simply unveiled a brand new undertaking alongside Quick & Livid actor Sung Kang. As a result of for practically 4 many years, Yokomaku-san has led the enduring Japanese tuning model VeilSide.
Most readers will likely be aware of VeilSide’s work in The Quick and the Livid: Tokyo Drift. Nearly 20 years on, Han’s orange and black Mazda RX-7 stays a poster automobile for your complete movie franchise. However lengthy earlier than Hollywood thrust VeilSide into the highlight, it had established itself as one among Japan’s most superior tuners, constructing the nation’s quickest automobiles with exteriors nearly as loud as their exhausts.
VeilSide’s distinctive look was initially impressed by the George Barris-designed Nineteen Sixties Batmobile of all issues. Now it’s synonymous with Nineteen Nineties and ’00s Japanese automobile tradition – assume big, sculpted rear wings and curved, ankle-breaking splitters.
Throughout this time, Yokomaku-san needed to create automobiles that he felt have been ‘full’ packages, versus focussing on a single aspect, as most Japanese tuners have been doing. However a VeilSide automobile wanted blistering efficiency, sharpened dealing with, and bespoke aero earlier than it may ever put on the hallowed ‘Fortune’ or ‘Fight’ identify, relying on the extent of labor concerned.
The look didn’t simply encourage different Japanese tuners; it even crossed continents, with VeilSide-style physique kits being tailored on European automobiles in the course of the Max Energy period. Everybody needed a chunk of the VeilSide pie. And whereas the great instances felt like a perpetual get together, the tough instances that adopted introduced the corporate to the brink of collapse.
Now, with VeilSide having fun with a resurgence in 2025, Yokomaku-san is eager to remind the world of VeilSide’s 35-year-long historical past.
“At first, I began driving round on customised motorbikes, and naturally, I believed mine was the quickest,” Yokomaku-san explains. “That was till at some point I raced a Nissan Bluebird with a tuned engine. I misplaced simply. And that’s after I knew my tuning life had began. Once I started driving at 18, I instantly obtained a job at a automobile store to feed my obsession with velocity.”
Automobile tuning within the Eighties wasn’t precisely the behemoth it’s in the present day. Because the proprietor of an S30 Nissan Fairlady Z arrange for drag racing, Yokomaku-san tuned its engine by trial and error, resulting in many rebuilds. By the age of twenty-two, he’d honed his craft sufficient to ascertain his personal enterprise – Yokomaku Racing Service – working tirelessly to construct the quickest S30 in Japan. His pièce de resistance was to turbocharge Nissan’s L-series engine, which instantly led to extra victories whereas competing in zeroyon (0-400m) competitions. Then, a 12 months later, he turned his consideration in the direction of the brand new Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R.
On the age of 28, Yokomaku-san was beating established tuners in nearly each self-discipline. Eager to showcase his abilities past merely going quick, Yokomaku Racing Service turned VeilSide – a reputation based mostly on an English translation of his household identify – ‘Yoko’ which means aspect and ‘maku’ which means veil.
“Between 1990 and 1990, I set many Japanese information together with prime velocity, drag racing and the quickest 0-300km/h time of 13.72 seconds in our R-1 Road Drag R32 Skyline GT-R,” Yokomaku-san provides. “Our automobiles have been very distinctive, but additionally the quickest, so many requests for engine tuning got here from homeowners throughout Japan. However earlier than lengthy, I used to be reminded of the risks of tuning after frequent accidents in tuned automobiles occurred throughout Japan. I didn’t need this to occur, so I made a decision to create a automobile that would appeal to folks’s consideration with out working at loopy speeds. After successful awards at Tokyo Auto Salon for a few years, the VeilSide automobiles and look turned very talked-about.”
Whereas the Tokyo Drift RX-7 could be VeilSide’s most recognised Quick & Livid automobile, the corporate’s aero kits have been current in each one of many franchise’s movies since day one. Keep in mind Dominic Toretto’s crimson Mazda RX-7 within the authentic film? That’s Veilside. Oh, and Suki’s pink Honda S2000 from 2 Quick 2 Livid? Sure, that’s one too.
Sadly for Yokomaku-san, this reputation led to an awesome demand, which left VeilSide unable to keep up provide. Earlier than lengthy, low cost duplicate kits flooded the worldwide market, and because the tuning business slumped within the mid-2000s, VeilSide discovered itself in a foul monetary manner.
“Throughout this time, VeilSide moved away from the highlight with a deal with survival,” Yokomaku-san explains. “It wasn’t till Tokyo Drift made a big effect everywhere in the world that individuals started to recollect VeilSide and expose a brand new technology to our designs. That was a superb feeling.”
“I began VeilSide after many unhealthy experiences with different tuners, so to nonetheless be creating thrilling automobiles for fans all around the globe could be very shifting. I’m not getting any youthful, however for the long run, all I hope is VeilSide can proceed to encourage the subsequent technology of tuning followers, similar to myself all these many years in the past.”
Mark Riccioni
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mark@speedhunters.com