Guest
In late January, I reached out to one of Sunbeam’s managing partners, Kenzaburo Fukuda, to arrange to photograph the shop’s demo car; a widebody E46 M3 CSL. I’ve always wanted to visit the shop, and after seeing their CSL participating in time attack events again for the first time in several years, I thought now would be a great time to try and put something together. So I made the drive from Chiba to Setagaya, Tokyo, to finally get to see it in person. Sunbeam is a tuning shop with a long family history. The company has been active since back in the early 70’s and is on its third generation of family ownership. Over those years, they have amassed a loyal customer base that is able to take advantage of their vast accumulated knowledge in suspension tuning and parts development. Fukuda was extremely accommodating, and I was able to get a full tour of the facility, as well as photograph the CSL and another customer’s E92. It was really cool getting to see the demo car up close. Japan has a unique way of tuning BMW’s and I think that the Sunbeam CSL portrays that very well.
