The orange and black RX-7 came up the ramp on a cushion of blue underglow, and the whole car park reached for its phones at once. If you have seen Tokyo Drift, you know the car. If you haven't, the crowd's reaction told you everything. This was Underground Tokyo Meet 2024, a Tokyo car meet that happens where the city keeps its cars at night: on the open roof and the concrete decks of multi-storey car parks.
The Fortune RX-7: Tokyo Drift in real life
The car is a Mazda RX-7 of the FD3S generation wearing the VeilSide Fortune wide body, in the orange and black colours that Han drove in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006). VeilSide is a Japanese body kit maker, and the Fortune kit changes almost every panel of the FD: new nose, new headlight openings, a much wider waist. We can't tell from our photos whether this is a genuine VeilSide kit or a copy, so we'll just say it looked the part. Its plates are from Tokorozawa, in Saitama, so it came a fair way to be here.
Two kinds of R34 Skyline
The films kept coming. A silver R34 Skyline coupe in the blue graphics of Brian's car from 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) rolled through with a cage in the back, a tall wing and Toyo Tires lettering on the bootlid, and our short clip of it entering the deck is mostly people cheering. The film car was a GT-R; we can't confirm this one is, so it stays "an R34 Skyline" here.
Downstairs, the opposite approach: a white and a silver R34 GT-R, GT-R badges on both grilles, parked nose-out under fluorescent tubes, standard-looking and perfect. Both wear Noda (Chiba) plates. For every generation of the Skyline we have spotted around the city, see Nissan Skylines in Tokyo.
RWB, Subaru, Honda and an NSX
A white RWB Porsche 911 called "Natty Dread Jr", number 319, swung out of its space and drove off under the strip lights. Every RAUH-Welt car is cut and fitted by Akira Nakai himself and gets its own name; this one is an air-cooled 911 on Kawaguchi plates. We have been to where those cars are born: an RWB 997 at RAUH-Welt HQ in Chiba.
Behind it, a third-generation Subaru Impreza hatchback with its front bumper cut away to show a front-mounted intercooler, wrapped in a riot of stickers and a big "Cyberpunk" logo across the rear bumper, on Chiba plates. Next in line, a purple Honda S2000 with wide arches, a hardtop, a deep carbon front lip and polished wheels.
Then a first-generation NSX with US-style Acura badging on its tail and four exhaust tips, leaving a little haze of tyre smoke as it pulled away behind a black R35 GT-R. In another clip, a black Aston Martin V8 Vantage rolled out of the lower deck, and a third R35 GT-R, on Yokohama plates, parked by the wall with the skyline behind it.
A long way from Osaka
Our favourite detail was on a BMW 3 Series of the E36 generation, with a dark bonnet and a lighter lower body. Its plates say Osaka: roughly 500 km from Tokyo by road, for one night in a car park. That's the spirit of a meet like this. Nobody is selling anything, there are no trophies, and parking attendants with light sticks wave the cars through.
The verdict
Tokyo car culture is often sold as quiet and secret. Underground Tokyo Meet was neither: it was loud, packed and very happy, with film cars, factory-fresh GT-Rs and RWB wide bodies sharing the same yellow arrows. If you want more night spotting from the city, start with our Tokyo night walk.
Photos and video: One Breath Pictures.
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