TYPE ONE: A Visit With the Masters of VTEC [Gallery]
When considering automotive pilgrimages for Honda fans, TYPE ONE, the workshop facility of Spoon Sports, is among the most desired. Along with Mugen, Spoon is one of the oldest and most respected Honda tuning companies, opening 1988 in Tokyo's Suginami City. They have created many of the iconic blue and yellow liveried race cars we associate with the brand, from third-generation Civic hatchbacks to the top of the line NSX.
Upon arriving to TYPE ONE after a 30-minute walk from the train station, we were invited in by one of the employees to the upstairs showroom. Despite the language barrier, we were welcomed in to look around and take pictures.
The first car we noticed inside was a meticulously restored Honda S800. A progression of the brand's first sports car the S600, the S800 offered a larger, more modern engine, capable of revving to 10,000rpm. Although the car was designed with the idea of importing it to the American market, no S car would be officially sold in America until the S2000 in 1999.
TYPE ONE also services customer cars, both with regular maintenance and repair, as well as tuning and upgrades. There was also a small collection of memorabilia for sale, from parts catalogs to incredibly detailed scale models of famous Spoon demo cars. Overall, TYPE ONE is an impressive, if unassuming, establishment and should absolutely be on the list for any automotive pilgrimage to Japan.
