Hagerty Video Transcript

– [Larry] I’m Larry Chen. I’ve been shooting car culture all over the world for the past 18 years. From the best builds, to the fastest races, I’ve seen it all. In this series, I’m highlighting the gearheads that inspire me, in our generation. For the true car nerd, everything I’m about to tell you, is almost unbelievable. Mr. Ide-san has had his tuning shop, in the same location for 50 years. He used to own and run the only McLaren dealership, in all of Asia, and it was located in Central Tokyo.

At one point, he had six brand new McLaren F1’s for sale in his showroom. Mr. Ide-san is 72 years old, and he said he learned how to drive when he was 12. Today, he builds insane Ferraris and BMWs. He even created his own stroker kit for the Enzo Ferrari. – You’re speechless. – I’m speechless? You are speechless. – I’m speechless. – You are the Italian. – I know. – And you’re a speechless. – And I’ve been here before,

And I’ve never seen it like this, and I’m lost for words. I really am, starting with the car that I’m next to. Which I’ll just get closer to. – This is what I love about Japanese car culture so much. Earlier today, I was driving a GR Yaris,

On the street for the first time. You drive a couple hours, and now we are legitimately in Ferrari and BMW heaven. – Yeah, which happens to be in the middle of a Yokohama housing estate. Which is very weird. (laughs) – Right. So, which by the way,

I was driving my high GTR through the streets here. I can barely make a turn, just to get here. I don’t know. How is it that something like this exists? It’s incredible. – It’s so Japan, it hurts. It really is, I mean, these places are what make Japan so special,

When it comes to cars and car culture, in general, because who does this? – Let’s lay it out right now. Okay, so this is not just any F40, F40, without a doubt my favorite Ferrari,. But the fact is this is heavily modified. And not only that, we have modified Enzos.

– [Dino] Everything you see here is modified. There is nothing here that has been spared, and it’s been done with such class, and such engineering know-how. Okay, so just before we start, I think we should probably point out that every car here is an actual IDing Power complete car.

So the names are, are kind of play on the original name. For example, here we have Ferrari 328, so that’s been stroked to 3.5, hence the name, 358. Basically, that’s what they do, they stroke engines, and try to extract as much power from the engines. They’re all NA.

So a lot of work on the heads or cams, strokers and piston designs. So every car here has been developed and tested for many years. Like I came here 10 years ago and they were still working on the Enzo. So it’s, you know, a decade worth of slow, but you know,

Continuous evolution and research and development. And one is done, one is on the way to being built right now and there’s only two being made. – [Larry] And that’s what we’re seeing right here. This is a complete car, not like you could just buy a stroker kit for an Enzo Ferrari.

– [Dino] Exactly, yeah. – [Larry] He’s actually building it from the ground up. – [Dino] Yeah, so, as you look, you know, instantly you notice that the rear bumper is completely new, redesigned. The wheels are also his original design. If you kind of skip the engine for now, we’ll get to that later.

But even the front fender design is all his, he’s actually removed the rear view mirrors, and replaced them with cameras, and he’s redesigned the dash to hold up two screens. – [Larry] No way. – [Dino] And he’s got his, the logo for the cards F07. – [Larry] Uh-huh.

– [Dino] He’s gotta play on the Ferrari Chassis code, and yeah. – [Larry] This is incredible. So IDGP. – Basically, this is Japanese tuning. Yes, of course, the cars are different. And that’s because he started tuning, at the very kind of like, you know, epitome of the Japanese economic bubble.

So people had a lot of money to spend, they wanted to better their friends that had the same cars. So what did they do? They modified them, stroke them and- – [Larry] Yeah, and even in the nineties, he actually was official McLaren F1 service guy in Tokyo.

And he actually worked closely with Gordon Murray. – Yeah, so he had the service center in Japan when the McLaren F1 initially came out. And you know, each kind of country had it’s own maintenance center. He was the maintenance for the F1. So, he’s good friends with Gordon Murray probably,

And knows a lot of stuff about the F1 as well. – [Larry] What, okay, so this is actually the demo car. This is the IDing Power demo car. And you could see this is the front bumper for this car, but this is actually a customer’s car. – [Dino] Exactly, yeah.

And this is the, the first one to be completed, and we’ll get to hear the engine. – [Larry] Oh, he’s actually gonna turn this on? – Oh, he’s gonna turn this on for us. We can’t really rev it ’cause, you know, there’s houses around, but yeah, we just,

We can kind of have a listen to that exhaust. You can see it, at least, how the tell portion. – [Larry] Yeah. – [Dino] So, you know, they’ve done a lot of testing, so it’s already like, heat cycle multiple times. But it’s all titanium. – [Larry] So, Mr. Ide-san, it is very, very nice to meet you. Thank you so much for having us. I am so blown away. I don’t really know what to say. What’s the idea behind this vehicle? – He want more power. It’s more speed. Original, Ferrari, it’s good, but need more passion. He wants, he put on the tuning, because his tuning is a passion for the power. – I think we can relate to that. – [Larry] Yeah, passion for power.

– Passion for power. – [Larry] Yeah, that sounds about right. – We all need more power from our cars. – [Larry] Hard enough as it is, to keep this running in tiptop shape, for him to take it to the next level. – And that’s what he’s done.

Like if you look even the break in suspension, it’s all changed. It’s a complete package. It’s there to perform in every way. So like for example, like you take a little peek in here you see back in the day he was using JRZ dampers. Now he does his own, again, stroker kit.

So like, before they started modifying it, and they did the testing on this, like power wise, the engine put out 290 horsepower. So with his stroker kit, and all the work, 390. – [Larry] 100 more. – 100 more. So I think that’s probably what most owners, would’ve said about the car.

It’s kinda like when you drive an NSX, oh, it would be so good, if it had like maybe another hundred horsepower. That’s what he did with this, I guess, so. – [Larry] Wow, this is a great car. Look at this build. – [Takada] S50. – [Larry] S50. – [Takada] Yes.

– This is over a hundred horsepower per liter. 355 horsepower from a 3.2 liter. So, that’s good tuning right there. – [Larry] Yeah, you want to talk about good tuning, Mr. Ide-san built his own McLaren F1 engine. – [Dino] His dream was to create, based on the 355 Ferrari

To drop the V12 from the McLaren F1 in there, and make his own complete car. – [Larry] It’s like combining his two passions of BMW- – And Ferrari. – [Larry] The best of BMW. – Exactly. – [Larry] And the best of Ferrari together.

– He said it’s it’s block, he made all his original. – Okay, that just blew my mind. – [Larry] Okay. So I… Assumed, wrongly assumed that he took a V12 from a seven series as the base for the engine build, ’cause it makes sense, right? But no, he actually designed the engine block, and the heads and cast them. He did his own casting. So it’s his complete engine based on the McLaren F1.

– [Larry] And that’s like an inspiration, from that McLaren F1 six liter V12 engine. – Exactly, that he was working on at the time, as the official McLaren, you know, service center. – [Larry] Oh, okay. – Yeah. – [Larry] So he learned a lot of this stuff from working on real F1s.

– On real F1s, yeah. Okay, so his engine is also six liter, but he didn’t like how the McLaren engine stopped revving at 7,000, he wanted more. So this engine, which is actually complete, like he bench tested it and you know, got all the power, it spins to 10,000,

And it does exactly 802 horsepower, from a six liter. – Hmm. So then, my question is, Ide-san, where did you learn all this stuff? How did you learn this? – Bike. – Motorcycle, when he’s kids, he drives the motorbike. – So motorcycles, Toyota engines. And then you told, he went to Schnitzer Motorsport. – Schnitzer. (speaks in Japanese) – So he went to Germany for six months to work at, Not AC Schnitzer as in the actual, you know, aftermarket the Motorsport side,

To learn how to build and work on race cars. Okay, so back when Nissan was developing the RB26, the Nissan guys came to his shop, to look at the straight six engine, from the BMW M1, to kind of get a gauge, on their next racing straight six, which was the RB26.

So, they came here to get some inspiration, for what BMW was doing at the time, in racing. – [Larry] So has he been here that long, this building? – 50 years. – 50 years here. – [Larry] 50 years? So, all of these houses, and everything built around him, basically. – It was all fields. – Okay, all right. There’s just so much to take in right now. – [Larry] We do the- Everything? – [Larry] Everything. Can we start the engine, of the Enzo? I’m so excited! – Me too. – [Larry] So I’ve never heard- – I’m ready with my phone. – [Larry] I’ve never even heard a Enzo start, a cold start.

But this one is a stroked and modified one, so I don’t know anything about this. Let’s have him turn it on, so we can hear the cold start. Your glasses are steamed up. – I love it. (laughs) – [Larry] Wow! So there’s a couple things I wanted to talk about. First of all, it’s actually not that loud when it’s idling. It’s a really nice tone. It sounds really good. So it’s a stroker motor. How much more power is he making, and what, how many more liters is it? – 66.4. 66.02, to 66.4. (speaks in Japanese) – So, 400 cc up. – [Larry] So that means half it’s new crank shaft, right? – Con rods. – [Larry] Con rods, pistons. – Everything. – [Larry] Everything. – Yeah. And it’s only stroked because he looked into actually boring it out.

But the block is actually really thin and weak. So it’s only stroked. The pistons are the same side, different design, his design pistons, but the same diameter. – [Larry] And then how much more power does that make? – [Dino] So he said there’s a lot of variations with Enzo actual power outputs ’cause

They’re all handbuilt and you know, whatnot. Maintenance quality and all that. So just based on the actual starting car, it’s plus about 70 horsepower. So it’s not just a question of how much horsepower, just numbers, right? It’s all about the complete feeling, of the engine that he’s developed.

So together with the manifolds and the exhaust, the way the silencers work, basically he wanted to create a great car all around, and one that’s, you know, a good daily, you could actually drive this as a daily. He said it’s smooth, it’s easy and it’s not too much.

So, also the engine management is all his, so he’s done everything like injectors, the fueling, the engine management, the suspension. – [Larry] And then the exhaust is his design? – [Dino] Yeah. So starting from the equivalent manifold, onto a titanium system. So basically, just to avoid issues with, with throwing errors and stuff, he kept the stock Ferrari catalyst, so. – [Larry] Does Ferrari hate him? (laughs) Yes, yes. (laughs) – They don’t like when you touch. – I love that, I love that. It’s just, not even a split second to think about it. He’s just like, yes, yes. – Well, you know, I think being Italians, they probably would look a car like this and say, well it’s better than being wrapped in pink.

Which is probably most of the cars that they’re kind of like complaining about, you know, the bright pinks and the the weird body kits. This is proper tuning. This is something any Ferrari customer back in the fifties and sixties would’ve done to his car.

I mean that’s what people did back in the day, right? – [Larry] Right. – [Dino] If you took a Ferrari and you wanted to go to the track, you would prepare it. And this is what he’s doing here. – [Larry] This is his design too? Is this 3D printed or what?

– [Ide-San] 3D print. – [Dino] 3D printed. – [Larry] Yeah. This is all 3D printed, crazy. This is his own rear bumper? – [Dino] Yeah. – [Larry] This whole thing. So then it becomes this whole part, wow. – So this inspiration came from the Testarossa but- – [Larry] Got it.

– [Dino] You know, the new Ferrari, that just was recently released. The new hypercar, I forget the name. Looks like a- – [Takada] It’s a Daytona. – Daytona, yeah, the Daytona. So he came up with this design of the back, the louvered back. – [Larry] Yeah.

– 10 years before Ferrari did it on their… 200 kilometers an hour. So like 120 the front end gets really light on… So he’s designed the front bumper to generate as much down force as possible. So, the actual stock bumper ends here. So, he’s actually added like that much. – [Larry] Hmm, okay. – [Dino] Protrusion. – [Larry] And then, so, because he designed this front bumper himself, this has to match with the stock Ferrari paint, huh? And that’s gotta be so hard, too. – Oh, it’s fully repainted. – [Larry] Oh, the whole car is repainted! Got it, of course it is. – Silly question, Larry. – [Larry] Yeah, I know. I mean you stripped all the way down to the raw carbon. – [Dino] Yep. – [Larry] Yeah. – [Dino] And it’s all carbon. – [Larry] Yeah, so, ’cause this is all carbon, too, right? – [Dino] Yeah, everything. – [Larry] And then, so this, of course it’s carbon, it has to be resprayed completely. Was this originally black, this car? – Oh, that was yellow originally. – [Larry] Oh, and he did a complete color change. – Color change. – [Larry] Who does that? – Mr. Ide. (laughs) – [Larry] Yeah, I see that. What is going on with this E36? – So again, this is a a complete car that he makes, based on the E36 century. So 3.2. – [Larry] 365 horsepower. – [Dino] Hundred plus horsepower per liter. And I actually drove, maybe not this car, the one outside maybe, 10 years ago.

And it was a kind of slightly more underdeveloped package and it was phenomenal. – [Larry] This is so incredible. And this is everything, the paint, he did everything. – [Dino] Yeah. – Car paint. – [Dino] With the over fenders, the bumper, the lip. – Wait, and this is his own design too.

– [Dino] Yeah. So again, he always tries to have a bit more down forces to the front. – [Larry] What does Ide-san, what does he not do? Look at this. This is crazy. This is so cool. And the, are those as wheels too? – [Takada] Yes. – [Dino] Check out the back. – [Larry] Oh, rear seat delete. Geez. Oh, he even went as far as to like change the, the gauges, huh? And then this is Japanese road legal, too. – Oh yeah.

I mean it’s road legal, everywhere. Like if somebody wants to import one of these, to the US, I guess they can send like a US car here and get it rebuilt and turned into this. So the whole over fender thing, 20 years before over fender. – [Larry] Right.

So this, this is built a while ago then, huh? – [Dino] Yeah, it’s early two thousands. It’s funny how we find this so crazy and interesting 20 years later, right? (laughs) But it’s probably the loudest car in Tokyo. (laughs) – [Larry] Yeah, this is actually, it sounds good. – [Dino] Yeah. – [Larry] As if it’s not crazy enough. – [Dino] This is where the magic happens, I guess. – [Larry] Wait, so this is the engine out of the red Enzo. – [Dino] Yep. – [Larry] And then you’re, he’s really, or he’s just building it right now? This is what he’s done. – [Dino] Yeah, so he’s fitting the stroker kit. But this is because of the whole, the shipping problems,

And whatever’s happened over the last few years, there’s a bit of delay on the sleeves. – [Larry] Mm. – [Dino] So it’s kind of delayed. – [Larry] And that’s the crank? – [Dino] That’s the crank, yeah. So that’s where the stroking happens, there. – [Larry] Hmm. So this is the engine room. Oh.

– [Dino] And the heads. – [Larry] Wow. I hope he knows that we appreciate it, you know, we just, this is what we love. This is so cool. We actually came from the main workshop, but since then I picked up my cameras, and I just haven’t had a chance to stop shooting, because there’s just so much godo stuff such to shoot. So Mr. Ide-san wanted us to come here, to a storage warehouse just to show us

This E30M3 that he built. – [Dino] Yeah, so this is the highest spec that he does for the S14, S4. This is a 2.5 liter stroker, and 300 horsepower. So again, we’re quite a bit over a hundred PS per liter. So same as all the other engines. A lot of head work cams matching with manifolds, and getting all the feeling right. And as you can see, he’s turned into a race car,

All the row cage. And, but the thing is, even a race car, like would you do door trims like this? – [Larry] Let me see this. – [Dino] Over on the side. – [Larry] Here, I don’t want to hit this door. Let me see. Yo, it’s so clean.

– [Dino] And like, leather wrapped. – [Larry] I love it, I love it. – [Dino] Too cool. – [Larry] You know, this is the thing about these kind of cars, right? The E30M3 has become pretty much unobtainable status for most normal car people. And the fact that he’s taken this and modified it,

Just to the max stage four, there’s no more stages after this. Something else, it really is something else. – [Dino] Nice number plate too. – [Larry] Nice plate. – [Dino] You can take it off and put it on S14. – [Larry] Yeah. (laughs) This is cool.

This has gotta be so much fun to drive. Oh man, I love it. The hood is carbon fiber, but you know. While this is cool, what’s really cool is the Enzo. – [Dino] The hatch. – [Larry] The hatch of the Enzo is literally leaning on all of the wheels that he has in storage here. Yeah. I know, right? It’s crazy, and of course, another 328 GTB, waiting on parts. – Yeah, another conversion, 3.5 stroker. – [Larry] Dino and I are actually gonna take

Out his stage four E36M3, which is the highest spec, E36. I don’t know if I’m gonna be ready for this. He actually said, it’s too responsive. – The car I drove that first time I came here, was very responsive and he said, it’s way more responsive than that,

To the point that it’s almost too much, for the street, because it’s a circuit car. So, but yeah, you can tell me what you think about it. – [Larry] All right, we’re gonna go on a little cruise. – [Takada] You wanna get in? – Okay. – Okay, here we go, with Mr. Ide-san, riding with him. – I test, mostly. – [Larry] Oh, this is your test, mostly, yeah, yeah. – [Dino] So, how was it? – Ide-san is… – [Dino] Crazy guy, right? – We went sideways right out of the driveway. Oh, my god! Off the rev limiter. Like- (mimics engine) This is a D1 driver over here. – [Takada] Yeah, he’s good, next year. – That is too responsive. – [Larry] It’s serious, right? – That’s so… It’s got a very light flywheel. – [Larry] Very light. Well, you could hear it. Oh! Dude, it accelerated so fast that it lost focus. Oh, my god. Dude, this is just crazy. I don’t really know what to say about this thing. – I have never driven anything so responsive in my life. Absolutely shocking. – Speechless is the word, but just when you think you’ve seen it all. I’ve been shooting cars and car culture,

Now for almost 20 years. I’ve just never experienced anything like that before. – [Dino] It’s what I’ve always tried to kind of portray, through my stories on speed hunters. That car culture here, it goes so much further than just being about Japanese cars. And you know, the cars that we all love,

There’s a deep love for everything. And the German stuff is always being really popular. – So Ide-san has really taken the Japanese tuning philosophy to the next level. But with German and Italian cars, this thing revs like a motorcycle, dude. – He just revved it there a second and it went to 8,000. – It goes to 8,000 rpm. The flywheel feels super light. It’s unlike anything else. The way I, I basically floored it on the highway, just now. And then Mr. Ide-san said, “NA is best power.” – That’s awesome.

– So it’s very, very Japanese. Very, the tuning philosophy is really cool. – It’s all about perfecting. – Yeah, this is- – Edging forward every time. – This is E36 perfection, this is stage four. And I’m just so glad to be able to experience this. Hopefully next time we can

Actually shoot his Enzo on the road. – Yeah. – Or at the track going full tilt. – Yeah, shake down test coming up soon. – Stay tuned.