The Car Modify Wonder A31 is still alive

Before I arrived in Japan, my good friend @sotobo_oldschool messaged me to say he had something from the early D1 days that he knew I’d love to see when I came to Japan. He dropped a few hints, but I wanted to keep it semi-mysterious so I could be surprised. We met up at a local conbini and drove deep into the neighborhoods of Chiba. You might remember Fumiya’s white JZX100 Cresta I posted about not long ago—well, this is his other car.

As we pulled up to a house, Fumiya slowly opened the garage door to reveal the original Car Modify Wonder A31 Cefiro, which competed in D1GP for many years. Seeing this car in person, tucked away in a tiny garage in Chiba, was surreal. Fumiya has owned the car for seven years now and has done a lot of work to restore it to its former glory. It still runs an RB26 and retains so many of the original stickers that have been fused to the body over the past 20 odd years.

For those who don’t know, this car was owned and driven by Haruyama-san of the Saitama-based aero parts manufacturer Car Modify Wonder. After retiring the A31, he moved on to the C35 Laurel. Fumiya even showed me a photo of the two cars together at Nikko Circuit, which was incredible to see.

I was lucky enough to have Fumiya put a Garage Sokudo Blurry Nights sticker on the A31’s rear door glass—it was such an amazing moment.

A huge thank you to Fumiya and @sotobo_oldschool for looking out for me. Maybe next time I’m in Japan, we’ll get to see it out on the circuit!