The first American Togue Showdown from 2004 was put on to see if American Tuners were up to par with the best from Japan, especially seeing as how these are Japanese cars. Comptech's supercharged Acura NSX was named the Touge Monster after the initial solo runs, but XS Engineering's Subaru WRX won the event when it was time to battle.
With the success of the first video, Best Motoring decided to have an open casting call for American Togue 2 the following year. This brought a bunch of cars that just didn't do it for the drivers Keichi Tsuchiya and Yasuyuki Kazama. Once they weeded through the field, things started to shape up. The touge monster NSX returned and XS came back to defend its title. This time, XS brought a monster R34 Skyline GT-R owned by Kim Johnson that walked away with the win and title of the new Togue Monster (Keep in mind, its the very same GT-R that won Sport Compact Car's Ultimate Street Car Challenge).
Shot this week at Willowsprings in Southern California, American Touge 3 looks like its going to be a sick video. They got rid of the open casting call to ensure only top level competitors and it looks like they all stepped up a notch. Expect to see high end performance cars such as a K20 powered Lotus Elise, Porsche 996 turbo, BMW M3, a Z06 Corvette, and of course an STI and an EVO (since what event would be complete without a couple of those?). Even the famous Mine's R34 GT-R will be there to sort of set the benchmark for top level Japanese tuners. The big question is whether or not XS Engineering can pull out a hat trick win with their insane 800hp R32 GT-R race car they brought along this year.
I can't tell you what happened, but all I can say is check this video out when it's available. It should be sick.
Full details on all the cars found here
http://www.bestmotoringvideo.com/AT3/