210 BUS
What is this little blue thing? Well... Please welcome our new demo car, the 210 BUS! For months, we've been looking for something unique to help us promote our brand, fun to modify and something we could drive around anytime we wanted. For all of that, Kei cars seemed to be the best option. Kei cars, also known as "yellow plates" cars are compact vehicles running engines up to 660cc. The taxation and inspection system is different then regular sized cars. You also don't need to justify of a parking space to be able to purchase one. Everything is easier! Because they're relatively cheap and easy to own, a lot of shops and tuners offer parts to modify them! Kei cars are super popular in Japan, not only for dress-up, but also for motorsports, off-road, etc.!
Photo by @papanphotography for Custom Car Magazine
Early 2020, Garage ill, a Osaka based shop well-known for its amazing body work and cool body kits, released a facelift for Hijet Truck under their brand JET GOGO. The design was a direct hit! Last year (2021) Garage ill started to develop another version for the Hijet Cargo (van type) as well and K Magazine, a magazine specialized in, you guess it, Kei cars, made a long article on the first van demo car. When we saw this article, it was love at the first sight! We knew at the moment that the direction we wanted to take with our demo car! we reached out to Matsuura-san, Garage ill boss, and asked him if he'd be interested in working on this project together. Right away, he loved the concept and we started to look for our future official demo car!
Photo by @papanphotography for Custom Car Magazine
The base of our 210 Bus is a 2007 S320V Daihatsu Hijet Cargo short roof with a JET GOGO facelift body kit. The front end is inspired by the older Daihatsu Atrai from the early 80s, a.k.a. Mayuge. In Japanese, Mayuge means "eyebrows". This nickname was given to the little car after the shape of its front winkers, shaped like eyebrows over the headlights.
By the way... WHY "210" ?
210 (pronounced two - ten) is the contraction for TSUrikawa TENgoku. In Japanese, "tengoku" means paradise. So basically 210 means Tsurikawa paradise! (^o^)/
Can't get enough of this cute face! The custom paint is inspired from a the original color offered by Daihatsu on its older Hijet. The matte finish gives a vintage / used vibe to the car.
Inside, we wanted to keep a 80-90s vide with personal stuff and accessories we used in previous cars. The steering wheel is a old Renoma still in pretty good shape!
We sourced a local fabric with Showa period inspired candies brand designs to make the seat covers (front and rear), door panels and shifter boot.
Playboy magazine from 87, very casually left on the passenger seat...
The original audio system is broken but we decided to keep it. The car is super slow and very noisy though... So we decided to install a newer unit (under) to help during long road trips.
We use to offer this long Suichuuka shiftknob. Luckily we kept a few just in cases like this!
The rear part of the van is still under construction. But you can see we're it's going. We wanted it to look like the inside of a train, made special rails and hanged a bunch of original tsurikawa with various ring types and colors. The advertisement in the center is real one from train (from 2001)! You probably recognize Ryoko Hirosue on the Goo advert and...
...also Ayumi Hamasaki (OvO) on the Non-No advert!
The "tecchin" wheels are modified / widen version of the original steel wheels. We also went for a set of low profil Dunlop SP Sport R7 in 165/55R12. Kawaiiiiiii! Of course there's one of our vintage tsutsu hanging in the back! (*^_^*)
We already took the 210 BUS to a few local events and icing on the cake, the car was even featured in Custom Car Magazine!
We would like to say a huge THANK YOU to Garage ill and Matsuura-san for the help with the project! And also big thanks to Custom Car Magazine and Papan Photography for the amazing feature! The 210 BUS will keep evolving in the future so please stay tuned!
You can visit Garage ill website here: www.garage-ill.co.jp
Direct access to Jet GOGO products here: www.garage-ill.co.jp/jetgogo
Garage ill Instagram: @akira.matsuura
Please don't hesitate if you have any questions about the car or the body kit! We'd be happy to give you more information!