The Mid-Night Club of Japan

For those who do not know the Mid Night Club, this was a club created in 1987 whose members participated in illegal races in the Tokyo region. The fame of the club was due both to its secrecy and to the speeds they reached on these highways, normally above 250 Km/h

The Mid-Night Club was one of the most notorious and respected street racing gangs ever in the Wangan highway between Tokyo and Yokohama.

The usual cars among the members were the Nissan Z from its first incarnation to the Z32, also the Nissan Skyline GT-R in its R31 versions and, above all, R32 and the third most used model were the Porsche 930 and 964 in its versions Turbo, of course. There were also Mazda RX-7 FC and FD, some Toyota Supra and other oddities, but the Z was the favorite car of the band.

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It is rumored that a member of this group spent 180 million yen at the time to modify his Porsche 911 to compete with other members of the club. According to their internal code they could never find out anything about another member beyond their name, they never revealed their last names, address or even their profession, although those of two members are known: the first owner of a RX-7 FD3s was a real estate and another owner of a Skyline GT-R R32 worked at his family dealership

In order to organise a car meet, the club leader would agree at the previous meet that all members would look for a specific type of advert in a local newspaper specified by the leader. These adverts would contain secret messages that the members would look for to know when and where to meet up.

Japan has a long history of illegal street racing and the activities of the Midnight Club was also illegal. Since they were regarded as criminals, meetings were clandestine and they had to be fast enough to always evade the police. Interestingly, although the police saw them as a headache, the police respected the sense of morality and values of members of the club.

The gang disbanded in 1999 after bōsōzoku (motorcycle gang members) waited for them on the road after one of their meetings to challenge them. One of the gang members was drunk and crashed into a car, dying on the spot. Six other bikers were injured. Due to this accident, and as the rules of the club specified (the rule said that if someone died, the group would be ended), it was decided to undo the group immediately and forever. They were so faithful to their internal code that even if it meant their disappearance, they followed its rules, as if it were modern samurais abiding by the Bushidō.

The member who had a dealership is the only one who has publicly transcended and is Kazuhiko "Smokey" Nagata, who, in addition, today runs a preparation workshop: Top Secret. It is famous for vehicles like a Supra V12 of more than 1000hp that follow the spirit of the typical preparations of the cars of the defunct band.

In November 2020, the Mid Night Club came out of hiding for the first time since they disbanded before the turn of the millenium. Launching their very own Mid Night Club Racing Team website, they are carefully adopting the modern ways of the world whilst maintaining the best secrecy they can in such an era of visibility.