Hello Everyone,
Recently PASMAG sat down with the President of Bulletproof Automotive, Ben Schaffer, and had the chance to do a Q&A interview with him. In this interview Ben talked about Bulletproof's roots, what makes us who we are, and the true philosophy behind JDM tuning. We wanted to share this article with you to give you an insight into the Real Bulletproof Automotive, and The Real JDM. Enjoy!!
JapanAmerica: The Real JDM, with Bulletproof's Ben Schaffer
WRITTEN BY MICKY SLINGER | 16 JUNE 2015 PASMAG | PERFORMANCE AUTO AND SOUND - Welcome
We sat down with Bulletproof Automotive boss Ben Schaffer, North America's authority on all things JDM, to really just get an answer to what this whole JDM thing is about. Mr. Schaffer is a super passionate individual, especially about this topic, and had a lot to say. Here you can read the original interview, as well as some tasty bonus ones that we didn't have room for in the pages of our JDM Special Edition book!
Words by Micky Slinger. Photography supplied by Bulletproof Automotive.
Why do you think JDM became so big in North America, and why do you think it’s stayed so big?
I think there has always been a demand for innovation and well-thought-out products. If there was an increase in demand, it would be only based on a few factors: one being education. For someone to know why one exhaust is higher quality than the other, they would have to be taught that information by someone. You can say that it grew because people’s own knowledge about car tuning has increased with the Internet and information comes from Japan to North America more freely. In other words, I don’t think people’s tastes have changed, I just think that people would think that high quality, innovative, cool stuff was awesome 15 years ago, just like they do now. The difference is now they can learn about it and they can understand it and they can get access to it. Quality is timeless.
Would you say that’s true across the board with Japanese parts – that they are higher in quality than product here – or has it been a catch-up game on our part?
I think there are certain categories of tuning that the Japanese excel at compared to the US. Most people would say that the quality of aero parts, exterior components and carbon fiber components far surpass whatever’s going on in the US aftermarket. However, the opposite could be said of engine tuning. If you talk about drag racing, the quality of drag racing parts in the US far exceeds what’s going on in Japan. It’s not necessarily that everything made in Japan is the best quality, it’s that certain categories of Japanese quality is leading. American horsepower tuning on Japanese cars has come a long way in the past 15 years. If you look at drag race results, cars in the US made by US tuners are outperforming Japanese cars. Drag racing is the hamburger culture and the circuit and aerodynamics are the sushi culture. Americans make a better hamburger and Japanese make better sushi.
Great analogy! Why is it that the Japanese make much better “sushi” in this case?
I spent a lot of time in Japan, I studied out there, went to school for a bit, and I’ve been back and forth for about 15 years. The one thing that I personally found about Japanese culture is that they dive very deep into their hobbies and into their passions. When you see someone who does something as a career, it’s not, “Let me try this for a little bit and then do something else.” It’s a lifelong profession and they work their entire lives to perfect the last 0.001 percent. You see it in all areas of the culture over there, especially food. The quality of food in Japan is incredible because someone who makes soba noodles makes soba noodles their whole life, maybe their father made them his whole life, and they live and breathe soba noodles. This is the story for every element of their culture; there are people who have a dedication to their craft that goes deep. Would you say this translates to the enthusiasts and customers as well?It’s the exact same for the customers. I kind of consider it is being an “otaku” or connoisseur. The premise of being a connoisseur means that you don’t just love it at face value, you dive deep and you learn about it. You constantly strive to enjoy it and to experience it and to learn about it at the deepest depths possible. In Japan, it seems like that’s widespread. People in Japan who are into cars are really into cars. When you have customers and people in a culture that obsess over details that are so exciting to them, and at the same time you have manufacturers that look at what they do as a lifetime art form, those two things combine into what is Japanese tuning.
What is the process of bringing in these parts and distributing them like at Bulletproof?
It’s pretty easy now because we’ve been doing it for so long. It basically involves a ton of relationships on the supply side. We’ve never dealt with the companies that were huge and already doing it themselves, we’ve always fought for the little guys that are usually less than 10 people as a company, maybe have nobody who speaks English, and would have no idea how to explain their brand to an overseas market, nevermind how to ship it there. We manage those relationships with a great deal of care and respect because they are very important to us. Logistics-wise, we keep a warehouse in Yokohama, which is near to the major port. Whatever we order, it gets shipped to our warehouse and our warehouse stages the items and then we ship the container. The one thing that’s unique about us is we ship our containers on a fixed schedule, regardless of whether they are empty or full. We willingly pay to ship empty air in our containers just to get products faster. Most companies have a model where they will hold the container shipment until it’s full to the brim, which is great for their bank accounts, but that sometimes means that containers can sit for a month or longer.
Seeing as you deal with a ton of parts from Japan, is everything stamped with “JDM” golden, or are there some misconceptions that maybe some enthusiasts wouldn’t be aware of?
I think there’s a lot. The theory of JDM tuning being a trend is really wrong. Japanese tuning is a philosophy; you have to think about what it stands for and what it represents. When people say, “Oh, my car’s JDM,” and they end their sentence right there, they’re missing the whole point. The point is not where the part is manufactured; the point is what the part stands for. What does the quality stand for? What does the company that makes it stand for? We all know “JDM” stands for Japanese Domestic Market – that’s indisputable – but not everything has to be made in Japan. For example: Top Secret shocks are made in Europe and their steering wheels are made in Italy, not in Japan. Is the Top Secret steering wheel Japanese? It’s debatable. Is Top Secret a JDM tuning company? Yes. When people just say, “That’s JDM,” that’s a really surface level impression that can be really misleading and steer people in the wrong direction.
That being said, which manufacturer’s parts would you say are ones that you’re always pleasantly surprised with and resonate the most with your JDM philosophy?
I’m really lucky to be able to answer that question with actions and not words, and I’ll explain why. I started this business 15 years ago. The only Japanese tuning brands that were officially represented in the US were the biggest ones out there - the HKSs, GReddys and companies of that size. Those brands were already set up. Everything else that ever occurred back then, and going forward for the next 15 years, I pretty much had first shot at. I could essentially pick and choose which brands that I wanted to talk to and represent because there wasn’t anybody taking them seriously in North America. So, if you say which brands excite me, I’ve pretty much been able to choose those brands and distribute for them.
What would you say are some of the biggest trends you’ve noticed coming out of the JDM scene in the past couple of years?
Quality is always increasing. That’s something that’s not a trend, that’s just an ever-present fact about Japanese culture. The Japanese invented the term “kaizen,” which means to always make incremental improvements every day. Trend-wise, I think the aerodynamics are getting super functional, which means they’re getting super impractical for street cars. It used to be that if you had a GT wing, that was as much as you could get, then it was canards, then twin canards, and then it was a bigger front diffuser. Now if you look at some of the cars that are running time attack in Japan, it’s on a whole different level than I ever imagined it was going be.
Do you have anything that you’d like to leave the readers with?
If someone takes away, “Oh, JDM is cool because it’s made in Japan, I want JDM,” they’ve missed the whole point. If people can walk away from this with any value, I would hope the value would be to learn for themselves about what quality is. Try to figure out what being a connoisseur or an “otaku” means - that dedication to learn about every nook and cranny on the parts you’re putting on your car, how you’re building your car, and what your car represents as a cohesive statement of your own philosophy. I’d like to see an outcome of JDM being a lifetime pursuit and dedication to whatever someone’s interests, hobby, craft or career is. That’s what JDM is.
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