RB Motorsport are the UK distributors for OS Giken, Trust, Nismo and Tomei, all well-respected Japanese tuning companies who produce top-class gear. The racing background and technical backup that RB have means a lot to someone like OS, it allows them to do things like loan a gearbox to an RB customer for six months to see how it fares under regular road use, before taking it back to Japan and tearing it apart and scrutinising everything to see how well it’s held together. And having these choice parts on hand also allows Rod to sell them to a wider market, simply because the prices are less stratospheric. RB also have a thriving trade-sales side, and plenty of other Jap specialists know that if RB are distributing something they will have evaluated it and made sure it’s a worthwhile product rather than just selling it because it’s a pretty colour.

The benefit of this increase in sales is more leverage to get a better deal from the Japanese suppliers, and this brings a lowering of costs that RB pass on as lower retail prices. It’s amazing to see how expensive some things were less than two years ago, and how they’ve dropped in price recently, now that RB have a higher turnover of stock, both to the trade and their own customers.

As far as RB Motorsport’s plans for the future are concerned, the workshop diary is consistently full with enough jobs to keep the team tweaking and spannering on Skylines for the foreseeable future, and even though they’ve been playing with Imprezas and Evos to see what makes them tick, GT-Rs are the lifeblood of the business. And given that these cars are still coming in from the Far East, the size of the possible customer base goes up almost daily.

When it comes to parts and accessories, don’t expect RB Motorsport to branch out into selling anything that’s purely Bling or not proven in race condition. With their enviable reputation for supplying top-notch stuff, and for doing a great job at a sensible price – and recommending ways of saving money instead of spending everything you’ve managed to scrape together – Rod and the crew look like they’ll be sorting Skylines as long as there’s enough Super Unleaded to keep ’em on the road.