Dino DC: Tokyo’s Hidden Old School AMG Heaven

Dino DC Video Transcript

Thank you Hey welcome to the channel today we are down in the south side of Tokyo close to where I live we’re in setagayaku of takutamagawa area and we are at J Otto let me turn the camera around so you can see uh this is a very famous shop in Tokyo

It’s been around since 96 so 26 years and the they are Specialists or basically any old Mercedes that you would want to collect these days they deal on it so you know 500e’s e500s e60s the 190 cosworths and even the old station wagons here the e320s so basically these guys

Collect an insane amount of stock they select the cars that you know look the best and are looked after well and of course they offer maintenance the workshop is across the street we’ll go and take a look uh after the the main shop here in a second

The cool thing about this shop is that I actually remember when it first opened because I was actually in high school just behind here in the mid 90s so I remember seeing the shop and I remember seeing all these cool cars which at the time were new being modified and tuned

And you know getting fitted with a nice suspension and wheels and and it’s and it’s been here ever since it’s it’s kind of like an institution in Tokyo if you’re into Mercedes so let’s uh go inside take a look Thank you so right here in the middle of the shop they have this beautiful 500e so w124 chassis and what makes these cars super special is that back in the early to mid 90s when they were being built it was actually a collaboration between Porsche Mercedes so the chassis were actually

Sent from Mercedes to a factory that Porsche had in different housing to to get built and then they were shipped back to Mercedes where they were painted and then sent back to Porsche to get the modified 5 liter V8 dumped into them so that’s why they’re called

Often referred to as the cards that were developed or built by Porsche and of course being in Japan you always end up seeing lots of upgrades so this one in particular is running what looked like a rainbow F50 calipers four pots big 18 inch wheels and the rest has been kind of left

As it was always kind of from Factory very fresh there’s another one here or more old school Wheels the crazy thing is that these cars continued to be very sought after by collectors you see quite a lot of them being used and you know they show up at daikoku meetings and uh

In the like car shows so they’re sought after they were built like tanks which is probably why they’re kind of like a car that people want because they know they’re just gonna run forever and this is kind of more of the run of the mill 320. but very much the old school Mercedes

Interior wood paneling this is about 143 000 kilometers in this particular car and the amount of spares that are on display in the shop just insane like these are the kind of things you know having on the 964 for years now I know exactly how difficult it is to find parts

Especially how expensive it is to order from Germany the legit stuff luckily for Porsche there’s a lot of like sub Brands which kind of do a really good job of recreating you know trim pieces and parts and stuff like that so there is a choice but

As with any uh collector car old car it gets expensive pretty quick cold AMG rims look at all the Bosch and hella parts lots of electrics speakers bulbs lights relays hey they even have an attack mask we were there last last weekend tons of uh trim parts

Steering wheel seats you name it they have it it’s incredible and check out this really cool old G wagon it’s a shorty which you actually see quite a lot in Japan and Japan is a massive country for for g-wagons they’re so popular this is a 280 GE AR this would probably be from

I guess early to mid 80s plastic Grill very much the Spartan kind of military approach here that you really see with how the G wagon was originally developed and designed love the seats we have a 190 here but it’s a special one this is a 2.6

So not the fully fledged Cause worth but definitely something uh put it away from the norm again we have a ton of like trim pieces this looks like a b pillar with a seat belt adjuster there arm rests dashboard covers head gaskets bumpers Wheels seats nice selection of steering wheels here

This one has a Porsche logo so later in the mid 90s onwards the 500e was renamed as E500 so this would be a letter A later version to what this is here paint on this is kind of like a it’s got like a purpley haze on what is a metallic silver

See if we can get a better shot from the front so cool on the AMG design Wheels this is a five liter V8 awesome torque and you can just imagine the sound so most of the 500 ES or e500s in the shop South between uh seven to nine million yen they’ve held uh

A pretty consistent value throughout the years they’re not crazy expensive they’re not like an E60 actually there’s one outside which would probably cost about double this is an E500 so it came uh 94 and after and let’s take a look inside because these cars were built very very well amazing quality of materials

Even after 30 years really thick resistant Plastics you know a lot of Steel proper thickness in the door so you can really hear it you’re gonna smack them to close them properly built very well and that’s why they’ve lasted so long Okay so this five liter V8 that these cars are powered by

Originally came from the the original SL the Cabrio performance is quite acceptable for for the age I mean early 90s this was putting about 330 horsepower which kind of gave you about six seconds zero to 60. acceleration which was uh impressive for a car that weighed what 1700 kilos

Pretty much a tank at that time definitely F50 calibers and some forged five spokes so like pretty much most shops in Tokyo they’re always like next to like apartment buildings and houses and then you turn and you boom car shop so we got um two more 500 E’s one here and there

This actually has the uh I guess the optional AMG spoiler there’s basically an add-on to the trunk and to the side of the fender here just to create that slight lip with this this is something even more special this is the E60 so again it’s based on the

W124 chassis but it came with a 6 liter version they’ll do here engine which was rated to about 380 horsepower God it looks so good I think these wheels these AMG Style wheels are far more of a better fit to these cars than anything I’ve ever seen them fitted with well you know

Maybe some Porsche Wheels would look pretty cool in these and again old school G-Wagon here so nice to see these early ones this is a 300 GD so it’s a diesel got the Plaid seats yeah so good and there’s two cars here that are covered up

I don’t think they have anything to do with Jay Auto but if I had to guess that silhouette and Fender mirrors that these uh Old Fair ladies this one definitely looks like a fair lady Z yeah for sure oh watanabase looks like it’s been sitting here for a while

Let’s take another look at the E60 from the front I love these little stubby mirrors so much shorter than the the original um we just crossed the street to the workshop side of things and looks like they have two cars inside Brabus 6 liter again w124 and then another 500e I was just

Thinking like how crazy it is that they engineered the hinges on the bonnets to actually click into place at like 45 degrees and then there’s a second option to get them upright like that at 90 degrees for like you know when you do proper maintenance LP 110. Saturdays in Tokyo are always fun

Because people take the cool cars out in Brazil you can get a nice view of Jay Auto the main shop uh this is the kind of famous GTR famous company I actually did a story probably like a decade ago now on speed Hunters where I took my bike and I went

For a ride and I kind of stopped all the cars shops and Tuners I’ll put some links up here so you guys can go and check that out in more detail okay so I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing uh this quick stop by joto this is

Something I really want to do a lot more of on this channel uh basically kind of explore all the little shops that I kind of either know of or kind of find around Tokyo and Japan in general I think nothing represents the Japanese car culture more than these little shops

That you kind of spot everywhere around the city or you know Japan in general so again a big thanks to the guys from joto for giving us an hour to shoot here today and uh until next time I hope you like this episode let us know uh your kind of

Feedback on on the comment section I’ll make sure to check that out so I hope you enjoyed it foreign Foreign