List of Recurring Wangan Midnight Characters - Tuning Shops

Tuning Shops

• RGO

A shop owned by Kazuo Ota. Infamous in the manga for tuning Masaki's monstrous Mazda RX-7 and a light blue R33 Skyline driven by Kazuo and Yamanaka themselves. Kazuo is familiar with Jun Kitami and scoffs at anyone trying to chase down the Devil Z. His teenage daughter, Rikako, a university student, studies under his wing. She's inexperienced but learning, and she's even developing a taste for actual battling, driving a Nissan Silvia. She actually started tinkering with engines since she was in middle school by dismantling scrapped engines (and being scolded by her father for it), and eventually she was the one who assembled the engine of the tuning shop's demo car, a pink R33 Skyline. She was also the one responsible for enhancing Eiji Kamiya's Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI along with her father (Eiji then tried to get her to go with him back to Osaka, but she staunchly refused). She even got to tinker with the engine of the Devil Z, going as far as to take it completely apart in the process of tuning it. It is revealed that in ten years, she is slated to inherit RGO from her father. Yamanaka, who challenged the Blackbird also works here and also drives Skyline.

• R200 club

Consists of Jun "JPP" Sonoda, Ryoichi "JAPAN" Teizuka, and Yasuo "CCR" Motoki; a ragtag alliance of speed shop owners who banded together due to their inability to beat anyone alone. Named themselves R200 from the fact that they claimed to be among the first drivers to break the 200 mph speed limit. Yasuo Motoki acts as the leader, Ryoichi Teizuka acts as his crony, and Jun Sonoda, the wisest and best driver, is the "go-to guy". They all drive the Nissan Skyline GT-R R33 V-spec...and quickly got wiped out by the Blackbird. Since then, they gave up street racing and relegated themselves to mere mechanics.

The group also had minor members and friends, though only Yasuhiko Miki and Takayuki Kuroki (see above) were named. Miki rode as a passenger with Yasuo Motoki during the chase against the Blackbird. After the R200 club disbanded, tension arose between Yasuhiko and the other members (but he remained friendly with Takayuki), and he subsequently disappeared. In Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune's Outrun mode, and later in the new Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3 DX Story Mode, he also drives a Nissan Skyline GT-R R33 like the other R200 Club members.

• ACE

Owned by Gen Goto. Tomoya, Kouichi Hiramoto and Harada works here, and they tune the Nissan Skyline GT-R exclusively, later driven by Tomoya.

• Tominaga Speed

Owned by Kou Tominaga. Speciality in ECU Setting and tuned Akio's Z, Tatsuya's Blackbird and Kei's Supra. More of a companion to Kitami's shop than a rival due to the owners' acquaintances with one another.

• Yamamoto Speed

Owned by Kazuhiko Yamamoto; the shop that specializes in Nissan Skylines. Reina's White GT-R (BNR 32) was tuned there. Kazuhiko Yamamoto drives a Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec II (BNR 34). The shop was originally named Yamamoto Speed, but was renamed to YM Speed, it was named that when Reina first came to have her car tuned, the shop reverted to its original name at a later time for undisclosed reasons.

• Kitami Cycle

A regular bicycle/motorcycle shop owned by Jun Kitami with a large warehouse to tune cars. It is the very shop in which he built Akio's Z, Tatsuya's Blackbird and Ishida's Testarossa. It was once a famous tuning shop that rivaled RGO and Yamamoto Speed until the series of accidents that labeled Kitami as the Devil's Tuner that lead to it slowly losing customers, and consequently close down.

• Works-R

Eiji Kamiya's own tuning shop in Osaka. This is also the shop that tuned the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution of Eiji and Maki. The shop is speculated to have closed temporarily when Eiji came over to Tokyo. The shop is also affiliated with Shige, the famous exhaust maker that made the exhaust pipes of the Kamiya brothers' Evolutions and Tatsuya's Blackbird.

• ZERO

The shop that tuned the Legendary FC that Kijima used to create a course record in Tsukuba. ZERO is famous for tuning boosted up cars and was featured in numerous car magazines for the boosted cars' course record. Some known workers of this shop are Kouichi Kijima, who races the tuned cars, Machida, who tunes the demo cars and Kou Tominaga, who sets up the boost and ECU settings along with Machida.

• SpeedShop MACH

A rag-tag tuning shop specializing in cars that combine luxury with performance (e.g. the Toyota Celsior). It is not a serious shop by any means, as it is "owned" by Gen Sasaki.

• Body Shop Sunday

The shop specializing in bodywork, it was there that the bodies of the Devil Z and Blackbird were worked on. It is owned by Yuichi Takagi, an expert in welding, who actually was among those who helped first build the Devil Z years ago. He worked on the Devil Z again after it was destroyed in a collision, and repaired the body of the Blackbird when it was later involved in an accident. He also worked on the body of the Supra RZ/Monster Machine of Keiichiro Aizawa, as he was a close friend of Keiichiro's late father.

• FLAT Racing

The independent shop owned by Takayuki Kuroki. Originally it had a large staff, but Takayuki eventually dismissed all of them and became the sole worker. The shop exclusively tunes the Nissan Skyline GT-R. Takayuki suspended the shop when he decided to challenge the Devil Z, putting all his effort to tuning his personal R33.