One night in Manila

I frequently visit the Philippines with my partner Steph to see family, but we usually stay down south in an area called Mindanao. Truthfully, I haven’t spent much time in Manila and have never done anything car-related there. That changed when my friend Justin reached out and offered to show me the car scene in Manila.

Justin picked us up in a super cool Toyota Hilux that he borrowed from a friend and told us we were heading to Pampanga for a drift event! We made the two-hour trek to the track, chatting about Filipino car culture along the way. Did you know the S14 was actually released in the Philippines as a left-hand-drive 200SX with an SR20DET engine and only came in automatic? Only around 70 units were produced!

Here’s a photo of one we spotted at the drift event.

The track was really cool, and there were a bunch of international drivers present, including FD driver Rome Charpentier and Korean female driver Sara Choi, as well as many talented local drivers.

How cool is this Toyota Echo?

After a few hours at the track, Justin told me he had organized a car meet with some of his friends for me and Roy from the States. He also mentioned that some people were excited to meet me because of the Instagram page and the SK15SPL Silvia. I was speechless—it made me realize that people genuinely appreciate the work I put into archiving and preserving the tuning culture we all love.

By the way, this is the Hilux that Justin picked us up in, so cool.

I love that people drive race cars on the street here.

The 240SX on the right belongs to a follower, while the one on the left is his father’s. They both drove a few hours just to come down and meet me. I was beyond appreciative that someone would go out of their way to do that—it truly means so much to me. Did I mention both of them are SR-powered?

While at the car meet, I met Luis from Auto Plus, who kindly invited us to walk down the road to his workshop for a tour.

This GR Yaris that Luis is building is still a work in progress, with plans to take on Tsukuba and aim for the title of the fastest GR Yaris around the circuit.

This is Luis’s father’s Ford GT, sitting on Volk RE30 wheels. It holds the record for the fastest speed on any road in the Philippines, clocking an impressive 354 km/h.

Before we even realized it, it was already 1 a.m., and we had an early flight to catch the next morning to head to Japan for the next part of our trip. Stay tuned for more content coming from there!