Inside Autobacs, Japan’s Mind-Blowing Chain Of Car Parts Stores

If you live in Britain, and you need to buy, say, some engine oil for your car, there’s a good chance your first port of call will be your local branch of Halfords. If you’re in the US, you might head to an AutoZone, and Australians might pop into Repco. And if you’re in Japan, you go to Autobacs.

Except in the average branch of Halfords, AutoZone, or Repco, you probably can’t buy every single volume of Initial D. Or a pair of HKS-branded trainers. Or an entire FA20 engine from a Toyota GT86, with a bolt-on turbo kit to boot.

But, as it could only be in a country that approaches everything car-related with such open, boundless enthusiasm, things are a bit different in Japan. While we were out there with Hyundai for the season-closing round of the World Rally Championship, we had a day spare in Tokyo, and, like any normal person would when visiting one of the most culturally vibrant cities in the world for the first time, we spent some of it in a branch of the country’s leading car parts retailer.

Only it’s so much more than that. Enter A-Pit Autobacs – the company’s flagship outlet in the Shinonome district, on an artificial island in Tokyo Bay – and your first thought might be that you’ve accidentally walked into a department store. There’s a huge section selling outdoorsy clothing, a branch of Starbucks, and shelves and shelves of books and magazines.

Of course, on closer inspection, these books and magazines are nearly all about cars. All cars. There are dedicated European and American sections and of course absolute swathes of literature on Japanese cars. History books, remarkably niche model-specific magazines, and endless copies of Hyper Rev, a magazine that devotes its issues to cataloguing the myriad obscure customisation options available for various cars.

The huge section selling outdoor clothing, seemingly pitched as the ideal gear for road tripping, is unexpected, but rest assured you’re very well-covered if you like your fashion choices to broadcast to the world that you are in fact a car enthusiast. There are branded T-shirts for days, but it goes further – we found a whole shelf of Nissan Fairlady Z-branded driving shoes.

Models? Yep, it’s got those, and I had to resist the urge to burn through all my Yen and bring home a couple of new decorations for my shelves at home. This is all just an appetiser, though. Get yourself a grande venti skinny cinnamon latte macchiato, and head upstairs to where the real treats begin.

This is where Japan’s enthusiasm for fettling, modifying and personalising shines through. In the latter days of Max Power magazine, your local Halfords might have stocked some off-brand aftermarket alloys. Here, though, you can pick up rims from BBS and Rays, steering wheels from Momo and Nardi, and seats from Recaro and Bride. Jazzy pattern enthusiast HKS has its own dedicated area stocking its range of intercoolers, exhaust systems and dampers.

Naturally, there are unexpected things up here too – a selection of shark fin aerials for the Suzuki Swift, for instance, or an entire room full of official Abarth accessories; not to mention that FA20 mill – yours for ¥2.31 million, or around £12,000 (without the turbo, mind – that’ll be another £2800).

All of this is before you have a glimpse into the vast workshop underneath, a live feed of which is beamed onto massive TV screens in the shop. This is not the sort of place where people get headlight bulbs fitted to Vauxhall Astras – when I went, there was a glistening pearl white Ferrari 550 sitting in one of its bays.

And a reminder to always check the car park – you might find automotive rocking horse poo in the form of a Tommykaira m13, an astoundingly scarce tuned version of the K11 Nissan Micra. That was one of several painfully cool cars we found there, including an original BMW 8-series, a gleaming black Aston Martin DBS and a very racy-looking Hawkeye Subaru Impreza.

There are branches of Autobacs right across Japan, although the Shinonome store is one of the biggest. Even if you can’t get to this one, though, an Autobacs is a must-visit if you want to get face-to-face with the country’s huge, diverse car culture. Granted, if you’re not travelling solo or with fellow nerds, you’ll have to spend some time justifying to your friends/family/significant other why you want to spend a chunk of your trip to the other side of the globe in a car parts shop. They might not understand, but it’s okay – we do.