For those of you not familiar with the yellow Aristo in the photos, the owners name is Yuhei Baba, a 26 year old drifter from Narita Japan. Yuhei has been part of team Moccomans since the age of 20 and SERIALNINE has been sponsoring him for since 2015.
We originally got introduced to Yuhei through C Zee Zayas of AllThatLow. C Zee mentioned there was this guy from Moccomans building an Aristo and and wanted our BREED fenders, perhaps we'd be interested in sponsoring him. I've always loved the Moccomans cars and the full radiused S14 on TE's is an all time favorite of mine, so needless to say we were excited!
We checked out Yuhei's IG and FB pages and were definitely interested, it showed a sick JZX100 Chaser with wide fenders and awesome stance shredding! It was 100% SERIALNINE style and a great opportunity to expand SERIALNINE to Japan.
Yuhei decided to build an Aristo after he crashed his JZX100 at the 1jz festival in 2014. The car was hit pretty hard and was essentially destroyed so it was time for a new whip. We discussed the sponsorship and in 2015 and we sent Yuhei a full set of BREED fenders and our GT trunk for his new Aristo build. It had a 500hp 1.5JZ (because it sounds better according to Yuhei) , ORG twin clutch, an R154 transmission with dog engaged upgraded gears, custom coilovers, 19" Work CR2P's and various bits from Garage Yamaguti, FNATZ, and others.
He proceeded to drift the Aristo at various events gaining popularity for his wild drifting style shown both in this Tsukuba high speed drift, and in this NORIYARO video at the 2015 1JZ drift meeting where his front wheel gets ripped off drifting over a curb.
So that's how we hooked up with Yuhei, and throughout 2015/16 he continued to drift the Aristo at various events tapering off in 2017 due to a blown motor and life things. Fast forward to mid/late 2017 and Yuhei messages me saying hes building a new shell and its going to be at Tokyo Auto Salon in the FNATZ booth. He proceeds to ask if we can help him with the car, CAN WE!!? Hell yeah!! To have a car at TAS has always been a dream of ours, and although it is not 100% a SERIALNINE car in a SERIALNINE booth we were very happy to have the opportunity to exhibit our products at TAS especially with other esteemed Japanese companies. We agreed to sponsor his new build and sent him the whole SERIALNINE catalogue and eagerly watched as this sick Aristo came together for the show.
The team worked for weeks straight to get everything done including all of the wiring, paint in and out, bodykit and aero fitting, full suspension, bushings and drivetrain!
Needless to say when we saw the final product we were EXTREMELY happy with how the car turned out! The molded BREED rear fenders on the MOCCOMANS highlighter yellow paint, offset by the black GAIA wheels and complimented by the VERTEX body kit look SO good.
One of the goals for this build was to have a light(er)weight drift car that was purpose built from the ground up for drifting. I think this car has hit that mark perfectly. Yuhei will be running some prototype SERIALNINE products to the upcoming season and we're looking forward to seeing Yuhei and the Aristo in action this year at many events and in the media.
Yuhei would like to thank all of his sponsors for the support. Garage Yamaguti, FNATZ, Premium Japan, JPturbo, Project μ,TRUST, GAIA wheel, TBO, ORC, T&E VERTEX, TRI-ACE tire, Saito roll cage, and of course SERIALNINE!!
Stay tuned for a follow up article with the first drift event and photo shoot!
Check out the Gallery for more photos!!
Thank you to Steven Plascencia @firstnamesteven and Ali Graham @streettracklife
for the photos!
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