[0:00]If you looked at this frame right here, you would think we're shooting a GTR. And then we pulled back and it's like this crazy three rotor FDRX7.
[0:40]Beerbaiyoke is a Thai car enthusiast that has single-handedly revitalized the Top Secret brand from its peak popularity in the late 90s and early 2000s. He's showcasing the builds and his lifestyle on the world stage, and he is also the sole reason for a collab between Top Secret and Ariyamemiya that nobody thought was possible. But in the end of the day, it makes too much sense.
[1:19]I first met Beer back in 2023. We went to his workshop in Bangkok, and I had a chance to check out a few of his cars. The stand out of course, was a fully built Top Secret Mark IV Supra.
[1:37]As if it wasn't crazy enough that he showcases these in Thailand, he also ships these out of country and attends shows like Retro Havoc in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
[1:54]Beerbaiyoke comes from one of Thailand's most well-known business families. They earned their wealth in the hospitality industry with many hotels all over Thailand. He was naturally exposed to business early on and he has been very vocal about the pressures that come with that sort of identity. He had his supercar phase, as one does, but he really is a true car enthusiast through and through.
[2:25]So, the first car I bought is a, you know, Ferrari F430 Scuderia Novitec, 700 horsepower, my first supercar. I bought a Lamborghini, McLaren, blah blah blah, maybe 40, 40 cars. I bought a supercar, and when I drive it, I'm not having fun, you know, I'm bored, just, you know.
[2:59]You don't have sounds like this.
[3:04]These, this is my dream car when I was young. Why Top Secret? Because in my eyes, this was a brand that was started by Smoky Nagata. And it was super popular in the 90s, but then over time it's kind of gone down in popularity. And now all of a sudden, it seems like it's shooting back up in popularity because of you. Really? Oh, thank you. So, why Top Secret? What is it about Top Secret that made you want to help revitalize this brand? 20 years ago, I watched the JDM option video and I saw the Smoky Burnout in the U.K., and then the police came. That's legendary.
[3:59]That's all. And, and now, I think the legend of, you know, Japanese JDM factory is Smoky Nagata. Um, you know, Amemiya. You know, now they, there are many, many like Kato-san, Liberty Walk, but I choose Smoky Nagata because I'm, you know, always his fan. The first time I met him at Auto Salon, I waited for him two hours, stand up queue for just one shot photo, and I took a photo with him, and he just, you know, crazy in speed, but his mind's really, you know, warm, good uncle, Smoky uncle, yeah. What do all these cars behind me have in common? They're all insured by Hagerty. It's because they mean the world to me. You name the value of your own car, they get it, they're enthusiasts, just like us. Go to hagerty.com to get a quote for your car today. After finally meeting Smokey Nagata, Beer got inspired to the point where he sourced a real GT300 JGTCC original body kit, only one of two in Thailand that exists. He set out to build the ultimate Top Secret Mark IV Supra. But the difference is, everything was to be built in Thailand. He went out to source the best craftsmen from all over his country, the best painter, the best fabricator, the best engine builder, you get the point. His goal was to get Smoky Nagata's approval on the build. One of his friends knew Smoky's secretary, and from there he made a connection and asked if Smoky would come to Thailand to see his build and sign his car. Smoky eventually responded and he said he would come to Thailand to see the car in person, but he would sign it only if the build was worthy and if it was up to par. Smoky originally dismissed Thai craftsmanship having traveled to Thailand many times before for car shows. But he was absolutely blown away at the quality of the build. This is where the relationship started. Smoky's personal challenge to Beer was to build more Top Secret cars. Almost as a test, as if he was scouting out his successor. The second build was an R34, but this time it was a true collaboration as Smoky built the RB engine, while the Thai folks built everything else. The R34 ended up costing Beer around $1 million US dollars. Because Thailand has a 300% luxury tax, everything imported from Japan was very expensive. He then built an R35, a Z33 and also an S15. Did you ever think that you would be friends almost family with Smoky? Never, never thought, it's my dream, a dream come true. When he met me, I said, Top Secret is more than Top Secret, it's more than a tuning shop, it's passion, it's passion, it's, you know, the gold one, you know? It's iconic. Yeah, iconic, yeah. Nobody built anything this color before.
[7:22]So you are the legend, I said to him. Is there somebody to continue Top Secret in Japan for him? He has one daughter, the same age as me, but he jokingly said to me, that I will give you Top Secret Japan. I said, no, no, that's impossible. Top Secret Japan has to have you. He said, no, no, I'll give to you, but jokingly.
[7:56]So the question is, what's next? The project collaboration with Top Secret, and RE Amemiya, first time, first time, they're building an RX-7. They've never worked together before. Never, never. Just T-shirts, but you brought them together. Yes, and then so this one is going to be your first car built in Japan.
[8:26]Yes, sure. I can't wait to see it. Yeah, thank you. You have to come. I will, I'll be there.
[8:40]My first stop at this year's Tokyo Auto Salon was Ariamemiya to check out this build in person, which is where I had a chance to catch up with my good friend Dino who helped me with some translation.
[9:23]I was also surprised when I saw this. What is going on with this three-rotor, three-turbo RX-7?
[9:37]This is a car built for the son of the owner of Matsumuto Kiyoshi, which is a big like drug store in Japan that has always sponsored Amemiya back when they did GT.
[10:07]So, his dad continues to do all the engine work in the Tokyo shop. This is mainly like for customer facing business. So, you know, if you have a car, and you come here for parts or general maintenance, you would come here to the Chiba shop, where the Tokyo outlet is basically where Amemiya is left to his own demise.
[10:27]He builds all the race engines for D1 and does all the special projects for TAS and, you know, I guess special requests like this. So then like, what's the, how does this even work? Because there's so, this is so complicated. So they had to like figure out the clearance of everything beforehand, so that they could fabricate a manifold to not only hold up the three turbos, but also like balance exhaust pulses equally to all three. Is it one turbo per rotor, like in terms of how they exhaust?
[11:03]Yeah, you can see how it's all laid out. Like one one rotor feeds one of each turbos and then combines to the intercooler for the intake charge. What are they expecting to make power-wise with this? They don't really know right now because it's the first time they attempt something like this. Uh, with the roadster before they had a similar project where it was actually two turbos. They kind of know what that did, but they have no real expectation for this yet. It'll depends when when they set it up. Is this the first time this has ever been done?
[11:39]Uh, maybe.
[11:43]I've never personally heard of anything like that. When he first told me when we arrived, I thought he misspoke. I thought he meant three-rotor, not three-turbo. Um, when I walked over here, I was just floored because I've never seen anything like this. But the body is so crazy too. The fact that it's like a FD style front on a FC. Like, is, is this something that, like, did they figure this out? So basically they inspired themselves to the Greddy 1, uh, which was done many, many years ago. But they wanted to maintain the, the wide body look, but do something modern, which is why they integrated the FD, uh, kind of like position lights and indicators. And then they kept the pop-up lights rather than doing the, the fixed headlight conversion, which is always something that they did. So then this is debuting at Tokyo Auto Salon this year. This is the main car, so this will be center stage of their booth. This is so crazy. What a freaking dope build. I just love that they kept like the wheels kind of old school. It's kind of chunky sidewall, right? Late 80s, early 90s feel about it. I think they nailed it, even the bonnet design. So, is this something that a kit that they're going to sell eventually? Maybe limited version because it's it's very expensive and uh, maybe not so many people want to go quite so crazy on an FC.
[13:26]The reason why I'm here is I wanted to talk about this collab. I think it's so cool that they waited this long to do a collab with Top Secret. Like, what's the, what's the story behind this?
[13:45]Basically it started last year at Tokyo Auto Salon. They did a collaboration with Top Secret for like goods, like merch and stuff. And Beer from Thailand noticed that I guess, you know, Top Secret and Ariamemiya, you know, they're both in Chiba. They have a good relationship. Why don't we try and do a car together? It's pretty interesting because they kind of both stayed in their lanes for so many years. And they're friendly with each other, but they also have their own specialties, right? Whereas you, you look at something like Top Secret, they focus on GTRs, uh, on Toyotas, uh, and then Ariamemiya, of course, is focused on rotary powered cars. It's almost like it was bound to happen eventually. Who did what for this collab? Top Secret kind of laid out the, obviously the, the tone of what the car should look like uh, with the coloring, uh, the graphics and the wheel and brake package. And then Ariamemiya basically took the car down to bear shell and built it up. So body, graphics, the way it, it sits, and then it was uh, put together by Ariamemiya. That's right, yeah. So again, this is a part that would have gone to Amasan in Tokyo stripped down right down to bare chassis. As you can see all the the chassis has been painted in gold. Engine built there. The Aero is an inspiration from the D1 car. So they took that as inspiration, but then Beer had his own kind of request to make it a little bit more special. So they added, you know, more kind of profiled sides and kind of like, different details and venting and stuff. So it's a, it's a one of one, basically. So then why the NA three rotor? So it was basically, uh, because Beer saw last year's uh, main show car, which again was another Matsumuto Kiyoshi kind of requested car. And he loved the gold three rotor NA in it, and that's why he wanted to go for the same setup on the FD. This is amazing to me how finished it is. Like every bit is so clean, including the carbon like wheel well, like custom wheel well. Amiya especially has always been one of the very few builders that has really finished every detail of the car. Like it was one of the few shops that really gave importance to everything. Like any Amemiya car from like the last 30 years always had to like a really cool interior, something, you know, done everywhere, like no detail skipped. So, you know, and that goes right down to the engine bay. And I think that has helped progress what you're talking about, in that, you know, every car now at TAS is really well finished off. Uh, there's attention given to the engine bay, you know, shaving, cleaning up, all that kind of stuff. Uh, so I would say yeah, definitely, style has definitely evolved. I just love that this is more of a streetable build too.
[16:51]It's so weird seeing an Amemiya car with top secret colors though, I have to say, it sounds so crisp.
[17:11]I cannot believe how good it sounds. It's so weird seeing R35 brakes on an FC. That's so good.
[17:53]You know, I have to say, it's such an interesting thing to hear the intake noise coming from this.
[18:15]I really do think it's Japanese tuning grown up. It's matured, it's matured, and it still sounds really good. It doesn't need to be loud. I, I kind of really like the R35 brakes as a touch for Top Secret, you know, I, I kind of feel like it's like a homage to to Nissan tuning on a RX-7. It's a weird hybrid. I've never, I've never seen or even imagined something like that.
[18:47]If you looked at this frame right here, you would think we're shooting a GTR. And then we pulled back and it's like this crazy three rotor FDRX7. It makes me so happy that this is a classic car now, you know? This is old, but there's still new things happening to this chassis. I've always wanted to visit Ariamemiya in Japan because I had a chance to see the JGTC GT300 FDRX7 back in 2004, at an event called GT Live at California Speedway. I shot this very grainy clip from a potato camera from the stands 22 years ago. These sort of vehicles really inspired me to do what I do for a living, and it makes me wonder how many other people got inspired by these builds all over the world.
[19:54]You're doing so many interesting projects, like you're bringing two legendary brands together for the very first time. I think I'm lucky because they are, you know, good friends from 30 years ago. And they know each other, but nobody started thinking about this machine. I jokingly said to them, can we just make an RX-7 in a gold color, just like a collaboration? I said to Ama-san after thinking if it was possible or not possible, I discussed it with Option Japan.
[20:43]I started to discuss with them, is it possible? And they're thinking, just ask, ask first. And if it's possible, let's do it now. So then what's the idea? Are you going to take this to Thailand? You're going to drive it around Thailand? I want to bring this one to Thailand because now they're legal. Right, it's street legal, it's quiet, and you can drive it around just Tokyo, but then when you bring it to Thailand, it's going to be Thai style. Yeah, Thai style, just like Malaysia, and it's going to be loud. I love that. How many Top Secret cars do you have now then? Maybe 10 or 11. Yeah, I'm building two or three new ones. I'll bring Smoky back.
[21:37]You're like a Smoky's son.
[21:41]You know, like an honor son. Yeah, yeah. It's so good to see you, as always. Thank you. Thank you. It makes me happy to see these legacy JDM brands thrive in this day and age. With the help of Beer and so many enthusiasts around the world, the peak of their popularity may not actually be the late 90s and early 2000s. It may actually be right now. And who knows what else is possible in the future? All I know is that I'm glad that folks like Beer are doing their part to keep this culture that we love so much alive and well.
