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Do you have a garage space all to yourself? Or maybe it’s something you aspire to having? How would you set it up? Would it be clean and clinical, or filled up with memorabilia, collectables and trinkets you have accumulated over the years?
These Garage House stories have been so much fun to hunt out and put together. And it’s not just the garages and their content, it’s meeting the owners themselves. I see a lot of their character reflected in the choices they have made, their tastes and love for cars coming across in the way they execute it all. If I had to choose one word to describe the Japanese garage houses we’ve looked at so far, Chiba-san’s would stand out for its clean approach to creating a dream garage, and Shinji’s would be an ode the world of rough.
Today, we’re going to check out Fujiyama-san’s annex to his main residence. We’ll call this one V12, because four out of his six cars sport rather large V12 motors. But as you can see in the featured image, there’s a little surprise lurking in this garage too…
Now, unlike Chiba-san’s house where three garage shutters reveal each of his cars for maximum impact, Fujiyama-san’s garage is three car length’s deep and thus requires some shuffling around.
So, while I looked over his W124 Mercedes-Benz E 280 wagon, which after many years continues to be a great car for family duties, Fujiyama cranked some V12s to life. First out of the garage and down the driveway was his W140 S 600.
The car sits on Lorinser wheels, and of course is powered by the M120 V12 that AMG modified and used as a base for the Pagani Zonda 20-odd years ago. If you want a ’90s limo to sound like an old F1 car, then this is what you need to buy, along with a Japanese-made Brilliant headers and exhaust combo, which costs around the same as the base car.
Fujiyama-san is a true connoisseur, appreciating both naturally aspirated as well as boosted V12s. – as any gentleman should. The W222 S 65 AMG is the car he spends most of his time in, enjoying the luxurious ride quality and the seemingly limitless reserves of power and torque.
With his Benzes out of the way, Fujiyama-san was able to back his yellow Lamborghini Aventador deeper down into his garage, in what we can probably call the Italian corner of the collection.
This gave me room to begin checking out the overall decor, starting with his collection of license plates on the back of the shutter.
The first thing I noticed was the sheer width of the building. There is room to line up two cars side-by-side, but unusually for a Japanese garage, there’s also enough width to swing open doors all the way. It certainly makes things far easier when parking, and even frees up enough space for Fujiyama-san’s Ducati 749 to be displayed.
It wasn’t long before the familiar sound of a totally un-silenced Italian twin-turbo V8 disturbed what had up until this point been a tranquil afternoon.
Cars were shuffled around.
And positioned for maximum impact.
A view like this makes me go weak at the knees. I’ll get into the F40 shortly, but first we need to continue checking out the garage itself.
One of the first things I noticed was the red door that provides direct access to Fujiyama-san’s home. It’s painted to look like the red front door on Enzo Ferrari’s house inside the old factory grounds in Maranello.
Fujiyama went all-out with the red highlights and details, even having his breaker box and the plug trims painted. You have to appreciate little details like these.
The decor is more akin to an automotive museum than a private garage. One wall is decorated with professionally-shot images of all the cars that Fujiyama has owned, and if you look closely you’ll see that one of those was a Koenig Testarossa. Respect.
Now here’s a poster I need in my office!
There are also bits and pieces that Fujiyama has ended up keeping, like this Ferrari 348 rear grille.
And a few steering wheels.
Then we have another important piece of his current V12 puzzle, a 25th Anniversary Lamborghini Countach… minus the rear wing. Bravo!
I really don’t think Fujiyama-san was able to decide which late ’80s supercar icon to get, so he did the sensible thing…
He armed himself with both the Countach 25th Anniversary with the Horacio Pagani-designed wide body aero, and a Ferrari F40.
Check out how close to the back wall the old Lambo needs to be in order for the two cars in front to fit in the garage. Fujiyama-san has also placed small square carpet marts under each wheel so that the epoxy finish on the floor doesn’t get stained or damaged by the gigantic tires.
Of course, his second Lamborghini isn’t a random purchase – it’s the limited edition 50th Anniversary Aventador. It makes so much sense with the 25th Anniversary Countach in the back.
The car is just a normal Aventador but it’s finished off in the signature yellow and has a similar yellow on the center quilted parts of the seats. The stitching is color-matched too.
Wow, listen to me talk like one of those supercar spotters on YouTube. I almost feel I should stage a reveal next time I change the color of the wrap on my car. Like, subscribe and don’t forget to smash that notification bell, too! OK, I’ll stop… I promise.
Seeing as I am the biggest F40 fanboy, I asked Fujiyama-san if he could park the Ferrari in the center of the garage so we could get a few detailed shots with its cowls and doors wide open.
When I can, I take in these moments as slowly as I possibly can. I love poring over the details of cars like these, and with the F40 it was getting lost in the smallest parts, and the rawness and overall simplicity of the design.
While Fujiyama-san’s F40 is a very well looked after example, it’s not museum perfect – it’s road perfect. This car gets driven; it’s enjoyed and taken out often as it should.
The car wears its original Speedline five-spoke wheels, and is even shod in the OEM Pirelli P Zero tires it originally came with for a true poop-in-your-pants-when-the-boost-hits experience.
To emphasize the sound of the tiny twin-turbo V8, the stock Ferrari exhaust system has been replaced with a straight-through Tubi Style system. It’s pretty loud at idle, but move the throttle pedal by 0.5mm and all aural hell breaks loose – in the best way possible.
What emissions?
Like so many exotics in Japan, this F40 runs a more modern Aragosta coilover setup and Roberuta air cups all around so that it can be lifted at the flick of a switch.
Everywhere you look you can’t fault the execution. The F40 was so compromised as a road car, but at the same time it hit the bullseye in every way possible. These days, supercar buyers expect ridiculous performance, luxury, comfort and an infinitely customizable vehicle. In 1987, with the F40, you got a barely-legal race car for the road that would terrify its owners. And that’s it.
This brings us to the end of our third Garage House visit. I hope to revisit this story type a lot more this year, even if COVID continues making things a little tough. As always, I’m open to hearing what you guys want to see more or less of, so let me know in the comments section below.
Dino Dalle Carbonare
Instagram: dino_dalle_carbonare
dino@speedhunters.com
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