The term “Hokkaido style” has been floating around lately. While it isn’t entirely wrong, there it more to Hokkaido than nonsuri event cars.
In the 1980s when people were traveling to Fuji Speedway to attend the Grand Championship with their kaido racers, Hokkaido enthusiasts looked at media coverage of the cars and wanted to build their own.
In the Young Auto 2011 yearbook, Takamichi from Sapporo, Hokkaido talks about how he first discovered hatsuhinode boso or “first sunrise runaway” that was happening in the Tokyo area. He talked about how it wouldnt be possible in Hokkaido because of all the snow. Takamichi goes on to say that there were works fender cars and haiso styling going on elsewhere, but he wasnt interested in that.
Hot Rod Specification
In 1987, Takamichi and his friends were interested in “hot rod specification” or ホットロッド仕様 (hottoroddo shiyō). This would entail raising the rear end along with big and wide tires on the rear. Sometimes this is also referred to as ケツ上げ (ketsu age) or “ass lift.” Popular bases for this include Nissan Gloria 430 and Toyota Cedric Y30. This is also the year this style started to be published more in magazines and more people started building cars like this. Team Madonna also formed in 1987.



By 1988, Takamichi and friends started to gain a bigger following for their next New Years meeting. Over 100 cars showed up at Cape Erimo in the middle of winter. They went all out to try and be flashy. Front end swaps, sheetmetal work, ducts, body kits from Hiro or Imai.





Many of the Hokkaido cars and teams went all out in 1990. Madonna Racing pushed the envelope on their cars with flashy colors, cut-off roofs along with many other trends found on Chibaragi cars. The Kamikaze Road video below shows some of these modifications. Even some early
Very early Fukuoka styling started to appear in Hokkaido in 1990 as well.

Event cars
In the early 2000s, event cars for nonsuri, or non-slip differential festival, became really popular.
Teams like ぶっちぎり優先道路 (BYD) would create cars to do donuts on a skid pad.
Don’t assume all of the cars below belong to BYD unless you see their name located on it.







Some of the cars BYD builds also dont fit into the typical nonsuri look as well. Like this super silhouette Soarer.





Doto
On the Eastern side of Hokkaido, there is another style which they call 道東仕様 which means “Eastern Hokkaido specification.” It is also sometimes written as 釧路仕様 or “Kushiro specification”. These are typically lowered stock body GX61s with wheels like Focus Five, and mesh.