RIP Tanabe-san of Power House Amuse

HavockJoker · September 24, 2008

Blog by the famous DinoDaleCarbonare

http://jstyle2.wordpress.com/

The Japanese tuning world has suffered a great loss. Powerhouse Amuse founder and president, Hideki Tanabe, passed away on September 20th. He had been suffering of a serious illness for some time, and his condition began deteriorating shortly after TAS this year. I knew things were not good, but I was shocked to hear of his passing last night. He leaves behind one of the most successful tuning businesses out there, and a long line of incredible demo cars that over the years have helped show the world what a perfectionist he was.

I first met Tanabe-san back in 2001 at Tsukuba circuit. He was there putting a few of his demo cars through their paces, and the first thing that surprised me was how damn fast he was behind the wheel. Over the years he never hired a pro driver to drive his cars, always preferring to set lap records himself. He was always on pace and the R35 GTR record he set at Tsukuba and Fuji with the Phantom R earlier in the year are still there.

I first went to the state of the art Amuse shop in 2005 to shoot the S2000 GT1, the 350Z and the Carbon-R. Talking to Tanabe-san revealed just how passionate he was about creating the best possible tune out of any car. Business aside, Tanabe-san loved to have fun in cars, just look at what he created with the Carbon-R. The whole project was started to develop a lightweight, RWD GT-R just for himself, to see what could be done with the R34 when taken to extremes. He was never interested in marketing any of the parts for retail, it was just a little project for himself to enjoy.