Every time I visit A & J Racing, my eyes open a little wider — both literally and figuratively. This Richmond, B.C. based shop is like nothing we have where I live; The walls are adorned with shiny car parts and the shelves are stocked with the latest car mags. What I like about A & J Racing is they practice what they preach. While visiting a had chance to speak with Jason from A & J about the industry and future plans.
Taking it from the top, A&J started in 1992, as a well known Honda tuner working with cars like the CRX and civic Ef. It was around that time they started their long working relationship with spoon. Things have changed a bit since then, the market has seen a few changes but they still have a rep for their Honda roots.
However, since Honda discontinued a lot of their sports cars in favor of economy A & J had to expand its automotive scope. The expanded scope of A & J now crosses the spectrum from Nissan to Lexus, there isn’t an import they won’t do.
They are the head Spoon distributor in Canada and also deal with T1r, Cusco, and pretty much any Japanese brand you can think of. While most shops aim for quanity they are looking to specialize in quality.
At the end of the day most shops can get anything, but they don’t always aim for the high end stuff, whereas A & J does. Dealing direct with Companies from Japan definitly makes it easier to fulfill their philosophy of quality.
Earlier, I had mentioned that A & J practices what they preach. The shop is one half of what makes A & J successful, the other half is building and testing cars. In fact A &J Racing holds the record at the Button willows race way in California for the limited FR class. Their S2k was N/A running 240 horse power to the wheels and still considered a street car. It beat out some fully built cars and hit the time of 1:54:888. To Jason’s understanding it has not been beat for the limited FR class, which is pretty amazing for a street car.
What really makes me respect A&J is their willingness to move forward. When I arrived at the shop I was surprised to hear that they had sold the S2K that brought them so much success. After my conversation with Jason, I realized it was all in the name of progress. That progress is what I will discuss in my next article.
Beauty. Wish we had something like that here in Regina.
sweet never heard of these guys before … going to have to check them out nexted time i head to BC