I’m calling it now. Today – March 29th – will go down as one of the best days of 2016 for me.

For the last little while a lot of us had been counting down to this day. It was announced earlier in the month that Akira Nakai would be flying in to build what would be Alberta’s first RWB, the first cabriolet RWB in Canada (second overall) and apparently the first 964 cabriolet in all of North America. The build was to start on Monday the 28th (yesterday) and be revealed to the public the following afternoon – aka today. All went as planned and we got to witness it!

For many of us Nakai is an inspiration and an idol, and the opportunity to not just see him unveil a new car but also meet him, get autographs, and even photos was something we did not want to miss for anything. The level of excitement was incredibly high and it was hard to believe that the big day had finally arrived.

This was the site of the unveiling – Tunerworks. The event was to officially start at 3PM, but when I showed up a little after two (I didn’t want to have to fight for parking) there were already lots of people present, most with cameras and many with various items for Nakai to sign.

With parking spots claimed, we could do nothing but wait as the crew finished up. Fortunately there’s always some nice machinery parked out front of the shop to admire.

Opposite the main Tunerworks showroom was the auxiliary building in which the build was actually taking place. We could hear various noises coming from behind the door, and even hear the reactions (“oh wow!”) from a few people as they walked in to check on the car.

Late last night Dominic started fitting his new coilovers, and after staying up until 5 this morning he had the car back together and drivable for the event.

I already told Dom this – his fitment is better than mine. VMAXX coilovers, wound waaaaay down, on 18s with spacers. Would you look at that? Just look at it!

I’d say it was definitely worth working through the night for this stance!

With all of the cars out, friends around, and the fact that we didn’t need to wear hoodies or jackets, it was definitely feeling like summer.

Naturally, quite a number of Porsches were scattered around the streets.

A handful of S15s arrived too, which I was quite pleased to see.

Suddenly, the garage door was opened slightly and we could hear the car running inside. Everyone was waiting by the front door as you can see here, thinking that they would leave through it – but then I saw some people out on the street suddenly raise their cameras and I realized that they were using the rear doors to bring the car out instead.

I promptly ran over to the road just in time to see Nakai cruise up in the freshly-completed  car. The first look at RWB YYC!

At this point everyone was running over. What you don’t see here is the massive crowd behind me, cameras snapping away like mad.

With Patrick (the owner) riding shotgun, Nakai rounded the corner and took the car for its first blast down the road.

This gave us just enough time to run across and re-position for more shots as they returned.

What the pictures obviously don’t capture is how good it sounded, but don’t you worry – I had the GoPro with me!

I knew this would be the one chance to see the car rolling by so I was firing off shots as fast as I could. Glad to see that I got some half-decent ones. Haha

With the quick blast concluded, Nakai and Patrick went around to the back of the main building…

…and pulled the car into the showroom.

Once again, the crowd was forming fast. Friends and I were taking turns standing in front just so we could all get clear shots.

And with that, the car was parked and soon after quickly wiped down. It was a little after 3 at this point and I ended up staying until after the scheduled end of the event which was 7pm. After the gates closed I came straight home and before even eating, plugged in the cameras and uploaded everything just so it was all backed up on my computer.

I wanted to get this post out first so I only edited a fraction of the pictures from today. It was an incredible afternoon and I took plenty of photos to remember it by. Everyone was commenting on how nice and humble Nakai-san was, and we were all incredibly excited and honoured to meet him. He put up with seemingly endless requests for photos and signatures and was very approachable. I’m so pleased that I was able to attend and as I’m sitting here typing this I still can’t believe that we got to witness the unveiling of the new RWB.

More posts covering the event will be coming so please stay tuned! I have a lot of editing ahead of me now, but there was one extra photo which I couldn’t resist getting ready even though it was from much later in the day.

Yes this happened, and yes that trim piece is getting wrapped in 3M ASAP. I don’t always let someone write on my car with a marker, but when I do, it’s Nakai-san.

-Bill