The Mid Night Club of Japan

In the previous blogpost, we discussed about the Japanese Gentleman's Agreement and it was only right to have also brought to light the Mid Night Club, which was largely responsible for the aforementioned Gentleman's Agreement. To serve as  recap, the Mid Night Club was founded in 1987 and comprised a group of Japanese executives who were normal office workers by day, but became high speed racers by night fall. Personally, the words "Mid Night Club", is nostalgic.

The last of the midnight club games

January 2012, a certain young man in JSS1 got back to school from the Christmas Holiday. That one holiday he wished never came to an end. Anyhoo, everyone got talking about their holiday and they somehow started talking about the games they played. A friend of his then mentioned Mid Night Club and he was immediately hooked when he heard it was a racing game. Back in the day, when PS2 games cost just two hundred naira, he ran home for midterm break and immediately went in search of the game, but couldn't get it. So he pleaded with his friend to bring the game to school, so they could do a trade by batter. He eagerly waited for weeks until it was holiday again, in order to play that game and trust me, it was worth the wait!

I remember playing that game and thinking to myself, this cannot be done in real life, but I guess the streets of Japan tell a different tale. When travelling on a highway, most of our cars do about 120 - 140km/h and that's pretty fast, especially from a passengers perspective. Now imagine doing double of that speed on the highway and sometimes through the streets of Tokyo, Japan. The Mid Night Cub was rumoured to have a minimum requirement of 250km/h. I know quite a number of y'all are "ajebutter", so you have definitely been on a plane. A plane takes off at about 260-290 km/h and you know how fast those planes get just before take off, now imagine being in a car at such speed.

Remember I said that the Mid Night Club had a minimum requirement of 250km/h, one would think that was crazy enough. Even crazier is that with the minimum requirement of 250km/h, you would definitely be at the back of the pack, as most Mid Night Club members used to race along the Wangan highway between Tokyo and Yokohama at sustained racing speeds of 300km/h and upwards. If you gave a sigh and said under your breath, those people were insane, I totally agree with you! The next question on your mind would probably be, didn't they get into accidents and die?

We can rightly say the Mid Night Club were speed chasers, but one thing they were not, was reckless. They had a strong code of ethics to prevent any members of the club endangering a member of the public or any other members of the club. They did so by not letting just anyone into the club. Prospective club members were rigorously tested and only the best of the best made the cut. After joining the club, one was given a silver sticker with black letters thaf read, "Mid Night Car Special". I am definitely getting this sticker on all my cars.  

The Famed Mid Night Club Sticker

Tuner culture or what the lay man will call "car upgrade” is a big thing now, but we can trace the roots back to the Mid Night Club. Remember I said that these cars did well over 250km/h. Asides the super cars of the 1990's, no other car manufacturers produced cars that could reach such speeds straight from the factory. This means that the club members modified their cars by changing/adding parts, slapping on turbos or superchargers to make nearly thrice their stock power. Bottom line is that these guys did whatever it took to make their cars the fastest on planet earth.

For a long time, the Mid Night Club persistently disturbed the peace of Japanese Roads, until a faithful day in which a ghastly accident which led to loss of lives, was said to have been caused by a Mid Night Club member. Once again I urge you to remember that they had strict rules against endangering the public or other members of the club. Therefore, this very incident brought an end to the Mid Night Club, as they disbanded and went their separate ways. Or did they? (suspicious)

Rumour has it that the Japanese government and police were closing in on the Mid Night club, so the whole story of an accident was made up, in order for them to go underground and continue their activities without so much monitoring eyes. Disbanded or not, the Mid Night Club basically shaped car culture to what it is now, especially tuner culture. This is one story I will tell my kids, as their dad would have made Mid Night Club 2.0 by that time. (wink wink!)

This brings us to the end of today's blogpost and I hope you enjoyed it. I know it was a bit wordy and long, but trust me when I say that I barely scratched the surface on the topic of the Mid Night Club. I know a number of first time readers are here and I say a big thank you for clicking on my link and getting up to this point in this read. Until next time, I remain your friendly neighbourhood car guy. Always remember to Turbo that engine!

For collaborations, please hit me up; adeniranebunmidee@gmail.com, 08140266662