Sometimes matters just need to be taken into our own hands…My company is not the wealthiest company out there, not even close, however we have enjoyed enough success over the years to help make a bit of an impact on the industry where we can. One of the natural goals of my business life is to positively impact the tuning world and to encourage innovation. Every minute of every day I spend working, my efforts are pointed towards that goal. However never has a specific project of ours so directly pushed innovation as this one.

A few months ago I invested into a new product that I thought would be great to have available to Evo X owners. I am a huge fan of Do-Luck’s trunk for the Evo 8/9 and the Impreza, and I found it unfortunate that they didnt have a plan to produce any trunk for the Evo X. I really wanted to see this happen, so I decided to make it happen. I took on the risk, paid for the R&D and gave Do-Luck the up front money needed to produce these for us. And you know what…a few months later, here I am writing this blog post introducing the part and showing pictures of it on ARC’s demo car in Japan!

The project has really made me feel good, knowing that a product will exist because of our investment and confidence in the industry to support it. I encourage other companies out there to also invest into innovation if they want to see new parts come into reality. In a downtrodden economy, especially in Japan, it is very difficult and risky for companies to invest the R&D to keep cranking out new parts. Methods like this, allow small injections into the industry to keep new innovation moving forward. If anyone else would like to invest into new products, please contact me and I’d be happy to help make that happen again. For now, here are the initial photos…the fruits of our investment are coming via ocean container after Tokyo Auto Salon ends. Here’s the test fitting photos as used on ARC’s Evo X demo car:

http://www.bulletproofautomotive.com/catalog-detail.php?ID=6782

The link above is the product page on Bulletproof’s website. The other key to this project was to keep the costs in check so that pure JDM quality and performance can be purchased for a fair price. With the current exchange rate the way it is, $1080.00 for a Japanese made aero trunk in carbon fiber I think is a steal since it already includes shipping and duties to our Los Angeles warehouse. If anyone wants them, they’re arriving early 2009.