Tokyo and Osaka are the two biggest cities of Japan, a natural reason for a bit of rivalry. Pretty much the Los Angeles of Japan, Tokyo even has all the Hollywood glitz down to a T. In contrast, Osaka is the city of business, where everything only takes half the time of the big Mikan – including the love hotels. This need for speed has given Osaka just a bit more rep for speed and looks, with more serious racing action than Tokyo. And once down there, it’s hard not to believe so given the incredible number of speed shops dotting the landscape. One of those shops is KAN Project, located near the beaches of Hyogo city, just a bit south of Osaka. This area of fishing boats and beaches looks the perfect hangout for surf shops, and KAN Project looks the part, with general manager Fujitani ‘GML’ Tsutomu and boss Kanji Ozaki looking like nothing more than a pair of well-seasoned surf bums. Once out of the sun, though, it is obvious this is a very serious operation, the shop specializing in gull wing conversions, custom paint jobs, low ride air suspension systems and many other types of custom car projects.
Tsutomu and Ozaki have been in the business a long time, and there is nothing they are unwilling to tackle. With a full paint booth to service the most discerning customer and a history of hot custom car projects, they are well respected in the Japanese tuning industry.
A lot of their hard work and respect went into this 5th generation Honda Prelude, making it into one of their more interesting street/show car projects. While it was designed more to be a street and show car, enough effort went into the actual performance bits as well to endow this Honda with a good amount of race DNA. Looking at some of the car’s war wounds, it looks like it has waged a few battles on the mean streets of Osaka. The KAN crew refuses to admit to it, or more accurately, simply pleads the 5th. “No commento” managed to enter the Japanese dictionary many years ago.
The exterior overhaul began with a full Bomex body kit from front to rear. But KAN wanted to do much more with it, so they created their own original-design over fenders and carbon fiber hood. Somewhere along the line they inhaled a bit too much CF resin, and went a step further – they redid the entire engine bay enclosure in carbon fiber as well. Crazy as it sounds, it did have some actual purpose, as it helps to strengthen the entire front of the chassis, both for handling precision and to deal with the additional power of the massaged 2.2-liter motor. All of the work is absolutely top-notch, without the ripples you see in some of the cheaper carbon fibre work, and finished off with a good clear coat.
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