Anyone who doubts that Cobham Services is the UK’s busiest motorway services wasn’t there on the evening of Saturday 27 July, when the queue of vehicles to get in extended to the very start of the slip roads.

No, Taylor Swift hadn’t decided to hold an impromptu concert at the on-site Nando’s, but as the modified car world goes, it was as though she had: this was a Tanoshi Car Events meet, a phenomenon that’s taking the UK’s modified car scene by storm. 

Think about modified cars and you probably think of lowered Nissan Skylines, Mitsubishi Evos and Mazda MX-5s doing donuts and burnouts in supermarket car parks before being moved on by police.

That Tanoshi has been able to host its meets at Cobham with the site owner’s blessing almost every month since 2022 speaks volumes about its methods and the enthusiasts who turn up. 

It all started when Owen Loynes, 21, decided to form a car group during the 2020 lockdown and began hosting virtual car events online. Soon he had 300 members, and to keep them engaged, he added online meets and computer game racing.

When lockdown was lifted, he created the Surrey-based Tanoshi Events brand on Instagram and Facebook, and in June 2022 he arranged its first in-person meet at Cobham. The event was a success, with people coming from as far away as Scotland to show off their cars and meet fellow enthusiasts.

With Tanoshi’s profile growing, he was joined by Cieran Allen, now co-owner, Kyra Gorham, website designer and manager, and Jack Lawrence, photographer, and plans are in place to take the brand farther afield.

By now, you may be wondering what ‘Tanoshi’ means. In fact, it’s Japanese for ‘enjoyable and fun’.The group’s mission statement goes further, promising Tanoshi will “create a positive impact” in the car community, “celebrate creativity”, “foster community engagement” and “encourage inclusivity and respect”. Simply put, if you want to do donuts, you’re not welcome. 

“Our standards are our USP, but it’s a fine balance maintaining them,” Gorham told me. “Car culture is anti-establishment, and telling someone they must behave goes against the grain. But people know that if things get out of control, the police and the authorities will ban the meets – and then where will they be able to show their cars or make connections with other enthusiasts?”

Not that July’s huge meet at Cobham was entirely tea and crumpets. With the encouragement of onlookers, one chap was pumping the accelerator of his Audi TT to produce deafening exhaust bangs, while another was revving his car’s engine to the limiter.

Meanwhile, enthusiasts crowded the arrival and exit lanes videoing the passing cars. Still, it was all pretty harmless stuff. 

Among the people showing off their cars was Dakota, 19. He’d only got his 1997 Nissan Micra 1.3 16v in February, but he’d already fitted DC Racing coilovers and a Gizfab exhaust. “It’s only a Micra, but I love it!” he said. “I’ve brought it to a few Tanoshi car meets here. I like the marked-out parking areas, and people behave themselves.”

Kevin Burrows, 40, attended with his young daughter to show off his 1992 Nissan Skyline GTS4. “I grew up with these sorts of cars and love them,” he said. “I’ve been to a few Tanoshi events, and because they’re safe, I’m happy to bring my daughter.”

The Skyline cost Kevin £24,000, and he reckoned he’d spent another £30,000 on it. “Parts are scarce and expensive. When you’re modifying these cars, assume most replacement parts will cost £1000 and you won’t be far wrong.”

Many of the cars were triumphs of home engineering. There was an abundance of splayed and offset wheels shod with stretched tyres, while others were deliberately ratty-looking – a ploy to conceal their sophisticated mechanicals.

One car, a Mitsubishi Eclipse, had a pair of nitrous-oxide cylinders in the back. Pressing a button on the steering wheel released gas to cool the incoming air, allowing more of it into the engine, the owner assured me. 

Josh Harris showed me the fuel cell he’d fitted in the boot of his Nissan 180SX, designed to prevent fuel starvation during hard cornering, and told me the car’s turbocharged 3.4-litre engine produced 920bhp.

I laughed, so he showed me a rolling-road printout proving it. Crikey. Tanoshi first-timer Rory Farina, 28, brought his Mini Cooper S, a bright little thing finished in a stunning shade of burnt orange.

“I’m enjoying this evening and surprised how popular the event is,” he said. “It’s for people who enjoy their cars and aren’t out to cause trouble, which makes a change!”

As if on cue, a gaggle of young lads arrived, grinning happily in a bog-standard Triumph 2000: a runner but far from immaculate. It belonged to Cameron Montlake-Mees, who also owned a Stag, while his mates Oliver and Lorenzo owned three Heralds and a Dolomite.

“We love old British cars!” chorused the young engineers. 

Three young British car nuts: that was a surprise. But then this Tanoshi meet was full of those. 

One meet to rule them all

Chatting to the enthusiasts at Tanoshi’s Cobham Services event, one name kept coming up: Daikoku PA. It’s a custom car event that takes place in a highway rest area (hence PA for Parking Area) on a man-made island in Yokohama harbour, Japan.

Enclosed by entry and exit ramps off the Wangan Route highway and amid warehouses, many containing JDM (Japanese domestic market) performance cars destined for countries including the UK, Daikoku PA is one of the country’s most popular meeting places for lovers of modified cars.

Naturally, the events attract their fair share of extroverts, but everyone knows that if things get too out of hand, future gatherings will be banned, and in any case, police routinely patrol. It is Japan, after all.