I’ve had the chance to meet Kimura-san a couple of times and he really believes in CarGuy. The idea behind the group is to bring fans of cars together; be it supercars, racing cars, or off-roaders. It’s about having a community based on the shared experience of loving cars.
He also addresses the fact most owner’s clubs are exclusive and off limits to the public. The CarGuy group host several events which encourage members of the public to attend and participate. Their events are family friendly too in order to promote the idea cars are more than tools to
get you from A to B to children.
Japan’s youth are increasingly becoming disinterested in cars with rising ownership costs and an efficient public transportation system. Getting a license in the first place is an expensive and time consuming matter in Japan meaning most of the young here stick to public transportation.
By holding several events and producing car-related media, the CarGuy group are doing their bit to make cars relevant. Certainly it helps most of their members own several supercars so when they do these events and meets it’s Ferraris and Lamborghinis on display, not Priuses and minivans.
Kimura-san has quite a collection of supercars himself ranging from the Ferrari F40 and F50, to a Lamborghini Aventador SV and a Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG 6×6. He used to have a McLaren P1 but has since sold it on to a friend. No worries though because he’s got a Huracan Performante on order.
With a collection like that there’s no surprise to find out he’s also got a proper need for speed. When he’s not buying up the latest supercars he races in Lamborghini’s Blancpain Super Trofeo series.
Mix these together and you get why the CarGuy SCR makes sense. According to Takeuchi, the collaboration between SCR and CarGuy was an obvious one because their “ideas and direction” matched.
It also helps having a group such as CarGuy with a growing number of followers and fans in social media. Tapping into CarGuy’s large pool of followers, both domestic and international, will surely help gain exposure for the SCR series.
The cars and drivers are divided up into different categories from road cars to GT3 cars. But at the top of the crown you also get track-focused cars that never got their own racing series. For example, cars like the Pagani Zonda Revolucion (conveniently the Bingo Sports showroom in Tokyo have one of these), the Ferrari FXX K, and the Aston Martin Vulcan aren’t road legal but because of the way they’re designed they can’t compete in any official motorsports race.
Which is why SCR have allowed them to enter, to encourage owners of these cars to take their cars out on to the track. By doing so, CarGuy hopes the public may get a chance to see and experience these cars in action on their natural habitats.
By Ken Saito