This is an editorial piece exclusive to this blog. It is simply my personal opinion, not the official opinion of any business I’m connected with.

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To a lot of the JDM tuning fans that started in this millennium, you might think that it’s blasphemy that I’ll be praising Veilside on this blog. Although it is true that Veilside no longer represents the JDM ideals of this blog like the other brands discussed do, Veilside does have a unique history that needs more attention. Not because their business has gotten better or worse, but simply that it has changed so much over the years. Veilside over the years has alienated some from being fans and yet it has also found new, different fans all at the same time.

These days Veilside is an economy focused brand that although designed in Japan is produced often outside of Japan to make use of cheaper labor and supplies. The Veilside of today that you might think of would look like this:

Yet I entered into the JDM tuning world thinking a far different image from Veilside. Veilside for most of the 1990s was an iconic brand and a brand that for years I idolized. Here’s one of the main differences over time with Veilside:

Notice the difference? The hood is open for starters. Veilside was building complete racing machines and were true racing car builders. Veilside of the 1990s was then what Top Secret is now. In the 90s Veilside was unstoppable, winning best tuner car of the year almost every year at Tokyo Auto Salon. There was no competition. Their Fortune models were intense widebody conversions usually with one-off headlights and tailights, massively tuned engines and full chassis work. Truely they were complete cars and works of art.

Veilside was a legendary engine builder as well. Their R34 put out 1360 hp at roughly 10,000 rpm (going off of memory here) and was one of the fastest R34s ever built (doing a clocked 215 MPH on the street). For about a decade they had my utmost respect and I was always so excited to see what they would do next because year after year they were innovating.

(These pics are not at some shop, this used to be how they showed their cars…with the hoods open. Hard to believe nowadays)

So what happened? Veilside grew bigger, had more elaborate showrooms, even bigger booths at trade shows and started foraying into VIP tuning amongst other things. The image of a global giant in car styling became the focus and the art of innovating and building incredible complete cars dwindled away (at least by what I and most enthusiasts saw of it).

By the time Fast and the Furious 1 hit, Veilside was geared up and ready to hit mainstream. Ever since then it hasnt been the same. To me, I miss the high end image, made in Japan quality that they once had. I miss the innovation and complete car tuning they had. I miss the fresh new ideas they had with aerodynamics. Overall I’m simply sad that Veilside is no longer in the category of a Top Secret, or an Amuse or an RE Amemiya. They quite easily were before and most would say that Veilside was the best of anyone in the world back then. These days Veilside to me is like Chargespeed. Both are Japanese companies, but the majority of their parts are not made in Japan and their focus is on “aero trends” at economic prices. Surely there is demand for parts like that, as other economic aero parts brands like Wings West and Erebuni were also flying high for a while off of that model. But in my opinion, innovators stay fresh and have longevity whereas mainstream trendy parts brands tend to sell big briefly and then go out of style.

From game changing innovator and complete car builder to economic trendy parts supplier is a drastic change and one that lost me as a Veilside fan. (as a disclaimer I still offer Veilside parts to my clients if they request it, but we dropped our official Veilside Dealer status years ago when my interest dwindled and we slowed down our promotion of it.)

The Veilside business case reminds me of the BAPE (A Bathing Ape) case. Nigo, BAPE’s owner faced a similar situation where he risked sacrificing the fan base/clientbase that got him success by going excessively mainstream with a big Pepsi deal. For a brief period of time Pepsi cans had BAPE camo on them and there were BAPE Pepsi vending machines along with a national Pepsi campaign. Then Nigo pulled back on the deal because he feared that it would alienate his true fan base and clientele that helped him get to where he was. Nigo chose to stick with his roots because he felt that going mainstream would only be a short term gain and would eventually destroy his brand. Instead he stayed limited production, high end and has kept on innovating year after year with incredible success. Now compare that to Veilside when their “Pepsi moment” came (Fast and the Furious 1), and how Veilside treated their product line and image after that time…It makes me wonder if BAPE kept with the Pepsi mentality whether it’d be on the discount bin at Walmart right now rather than being sold in a Hollywood boutique for $80 a T-Shirt.

With stuff like this there is no right or wrong answer. Only Yokomaku-san, the owner of Veilside has the right answer since its his company and he runs it to satisfy his own needs. Me, as a prior fan of Veilside am sadly not impressed with them anymore…just as perhaps BAPE fans were briefly disenchanted with the direction it was headed as a mainstream commodity brand. In the end some companies stay true to their roots meanwhile others evolve into new directions. Results vary…I just wish someday I could be inspired by a Veilside demo car again.

How do you feel about Veilside these days? How many of you were fans of them in the mid-late 90s? Comment please, I’m interested in hearing your view.