Autobacs Seven Co.

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Current Autobacs logo

Autobacs Seven Co., Ltd. (株式会社オートバックスセブン, Kabushiki-gaisha Ōto-Bakksu Sebun^?) (TYO: 9832 , LSE: AUB) is a retailer of automotive parts and accessories based in Japan with branches all over the world.

[edit] History

The company was founded by Toshio Sumino, in 1947 at Fukushima-ku, Osaka as Fuji Syokai Co., Ltd. A year later, he then opened a second branch in Osaka. In 1960 Sumino opened the first large scale automotive goods store, the Fuji Drive Shop Then in 1969 would be involved in motorsport sponsorship by sponsoring a car in the Japanese Grand Prix and in 1974 he opened the first of the Autobacs store "AUTOBACS Higashi Osaka Store" in Daito, Osaka. For the following year, Autobacs would run its first franchise store "AUTOBACS Hakodate Nakamichi Store" in Hakodate, Hokkaidō. In 1977 Autobacs would start to develop and sell its own motor oil and tire to be sold in its own store, and at the end of the decade would had opened their 100th store - only to double that in 1984.

[edit] ASL

When the speciality car manufacturer Tommy Kaira went into financial difficulties during the Asian recession in the late 90's, the company was bought out by Autobacs in 2001 and renamed the car manufacturing arm ASL (Autobacs Sportscar Laboratory )This allowed the aftermarket parts manufacturer to continue trading with its usual name.

The first car to be produced by ASL was the Garaiya and the RS01 sports car. There is not much known about the company or the cars besides that the Garaiya will be the slower model, with around 190 hp, and the RS01 will be the faster one with a Nissan Skyline R34 GTR (RB26DETT) engine producing 276 hp. There will likely be a faster version of the RS01 with a race tuned RB26DETT engine producing close to 500 hp. These models were spawned from Tommy-Kaira, which had specialized in Skyline GTRs, and the RS01 is the same as the Tommy-Kaira zz-II. (The Tommy Kaira zz-II is a smaller car like the Mazda Miata but much more expensive, rare, and only available in Japan).