TOKYO AUTO SALON with NAPAC 2011 (a.k.a. Tokyo Auto Salon), the tuning- and customized car festival kicked off at Makuhari Messe (Chiba City) on January 14th.

With a noticeable increase in marketplace vigor over last year, specially dedicated booths from automakers like Nissan, Toyota, Honda, and Subaru featured at the exhibition, while this year Mazda held off on a full-blown presence. Exhibitors on hand this year exceeded 360, while the number of exhibition vehicles topped 600.

Aptly showing Mazda's prowess, the vehicles on display from RE Amemiya, well known as one of the veteran businesses of the tuning industry included a Time Attack-spec. FD3S RX-7, loaded with a three-rotor turbo generating some 600 horsepower, alongside a drift-spec RX-8, creating serious attention from those in attendance. "RE Amemiya would like to continue our strong challenge in Time Attack at places such as Fuji Speedway and the like." With the 'anime' (animation) character "Pain" drawn across its body, the RX-8 was the target of a lot of photographers, including amateurs.

Unfortunately, the Knight Sports RX-8 that ran at the Macau GP and the Revolution RX-7 that took record-holder honours at the end-of-year Tsukuba Circuit Time Attack were not on display, while on the other hand, Auto Exe had the full their body kits for the new Premacy and Axela demo cars exhibited.

Looking around the general visitors' parking lot revealed that the marketing expectations for the Mazda brand were not lost with the many owners' RX-7, RX-8, Demio, Axela and Roadster models that filled the area.