D.zine_ by D.*MIRACLE

Most of you known me for my vast amount of 240’s and rear-wheel drive cars but my very first love of cars began a long time ago with a Porsche 911. I was five and my dad had an old G-body 911. He would tinker on it and my fondest memory was riding with him during a test drive which we had stopped somewhere up a hill because it had died (I still don’t know why but we managed to limp it home). I don’t remember how long we had that car for but my mom told me we had sold it because the carburetors were too expensive to fix it. Could you imagine if we had kept it until now? Since that time Porsche’s have always been my poster car. My dad would make remarks of how it was the best handling car he had ever driven and how precise the steering was. I know that one day I’ll own one and finally get to see what the lore is about these cars. For now I’ll just observe them from a-far.

A couple months back I found out that they were going to have a Luft event in Tokyo. I knew I had to attend this event but little did I know how great it was actually going to be. I had seen videos on the previous events in California and it looked spectacular. So me and a friend decided to purchase tickets without airfares and committed to going to the event and I have to say it has been probably one of the best experiences this year.

I had originally planned to come to Tokyo a few days earlier but as a storm was rolling through it made travel plans tricky. I had missed two flights (I am traveling standby, yes I know pretty risky) and had to change my travel plans to go through Guam to route up to Narita instead of a direct flight from Honolulu to Haneda. Eventually after spending a night in Guam I made it to Tokyo the same morning as the Luft event. After quick check into my Air-bnb we were headed off to Luft.

Luckily I was staying pretty close to venue as we were only about 15 mins away. Little did I realize that the event would be on top of the actual expressway called the KK line in Ginza. I had read that next year they plan to convert it fully to shops and a green space and that this may be one of the only times it is seen as a street.

Upon walking up to the venue we had entered through one of the on ramps. We checked in our tickets at the gate and were greeted by a vast amount of Porsche race cars right as we entered. It was a sensory overload. If you have ever been to a Don Quixote in Japan it felt exactly like that but with all sorts of Porsche’s.

There were an estimated 200 cars there so there was plenty to see and just about something for everyone to enjoy. We decided that we would walk towards the left side first and see what was around.

Two race Porsches both plated in the ticket booth for the tolls. The city back drop made for some amazing pictures. Also the fact that when are you ever able to freely stroll on an expressway other than when you are broken down somewhere. A truly fantastic experience.

This was my favorite 911 of the show. I believe it is a 993 RS-R replica. If I were to own one I would most likely build it exactly this way. From the TE37’s to the flares and canards made it feel like it would fit in well at a track or for some exciting street driving.

I never thought I would like 993 this much but this just seemed to check off all the boxes for me personally. The owner said that this cluster was a Porsche racing cluster and was very proud to show it off and let me take a closer look.

Under the toll booth seemed to house all of the Mid Night and Bayside Knights cars looking like they were ready to attack the expressway. I seen somewhere that the blue Garage TBK car was just finished in time for the event. What an impressive build and it gives you a feel of what those glory days were when they used to race on the wangan.

As I grow older my appreciation for functional cars seems to have increased but part of me still doesn’t want to grow up and I still enjoy the look of an absolutely slammed car haha. Seeing all these aired out 911s at an air cooled event was quite a treat. Air on air? Ah I crack myself up.

Moontech seemed to have that same idea and had some really clean examples of aired out 911s. Both these cars were executed perfectly.

356 looking great with this color combo. Is it a Chromaflair? I’m not entirely sure but this color looked great at all angles.

Local painter getting in some quick work done on the highlight cars.

This concludes this post for now. As you can imagine there is so much more to cover on this event that if I made it a full post it would end up being a novel. Check back in for more coverage on the Luft Tokyo event!

-D.*