As with all Honda enthusiasts across the world, my expectation from my Spoon visit was to learn of the new parts on development for new models. "What are the new parts that Spoon will be releasing for sale" was to have been the core question. In regards to this I was shocked to hear Ichishima's answer to the many times I asked this question: "No, we are not interested in selling parts !".

Surely something must be amiss somewhere. The purpose of any aftermarket tuner is surely to make parts desirable to the enthusiast and in the process to make sales - a lot of sales. Without the sales volume to generate revenue how is Spoon going to survive, what more indulge in the expensive area of motorsports racing ? So why is Spoon not interested in selling parts ? Again this kept me perplexed for a considerable amount of time until again suddenly it hit me.

You see, I had my formal education mostly in english (eventhough I am a chinese). It's just the education system here in Malaysia at the time I was going through my formal education. Because my technical training is mainly in english, when I think technically, I think in english too. Thus my questions and my approach to the Spoon visits were all carefully thought out in english and so too were the conversation between myself and Ichishima-san.

But, the thing is Ichishima is a japanese. And many of the colloidal phrases used by the japanese, especially when spoken in english can often take the unintended meaning. The most famous of this in play is the often told story of the Honda interview when they re-entered Formula-1 in the late-1980s, for what was to be their 2nd glorious era in F1. The legendary story as it was told was that the standard question asked to any manufacturer who enters Formula-1 must surely be how much budget they have to work with. As we all know, Formula-1 budgets are legendary in their size- the sky's the limit when it comes to spending money. But as the story goes, the answer by Honda to this question was a simple "No Budget !". The interpretation then of this answer was simply one of amazement. The standard english interpretation of 'No Budget" simply mean "No Money". And if you don't have money, how on earth do you expect to even consider playing in Formula-1. As the story goes, it eventually dawned on everyone, and by that time it was too late for many of Honda's hapless competitors, that "No Budget" was simply the japanese way of saying "NO-limit Budget" !

You see, the structure of the japanese language and how the japanese thinks is often very different from the english language and consequently how the western world thinks. Here, japanese is structurally very similar to chinese. So again once having realized this, I simply had to change my way of thinking. I simply had to think like a chinese and I had to rephrase my questions by first thinking in chinese, and only then translate to english before asking them. And subsequently when I receive the answer in english, I translate it to chinese and then understood it in chinese. This quickly made Ichishima's answer clear to me. "We are not interested in selling parts" actually means two things. First and foremost Spoon and Ichishima sees the car as a whole and integral unit, and not a disjoint collection of parts. Thus Ichishima means to say that just pushing parts is not the approach Spoon wants to take. Rather the approach is to offer the complete tuning solution - a Spoon tuned S2000 for e.g. rather than the simplistic "here is a Spoon cam-shalf for the F20C, fit it and you'll see 20ps gain". The engine is only one component of the car and the actual car's performance is influenced by the sum of all the components, not just the outright power of just the engine. So Ichishima do not just talk about his parts in isolation but rather his cars.

There is another message too. "We do not sell parts" actually means that Ichishima has taken Spoon to the next step. Spoon Sports as the mother company now focusses on Research and Development. Part of that R&D push is via racing - the avenue where intense competition brings out the best in everybody. As a result of this, Spoon Sports do not plan to sell Spoon parts directly but rather through a network of Spoon dealers. Type-One is a direct realization of this vision. Type-One is a tuning house. The Type-One showroom+office in the 1st floor is finally one which we enthusiasts are more familiar with - Spoon parts are carefully displayed on display shelves, complete with production description and price. A Spoon ported B18CR throttle body sits nicely on the display with the sign listing an asking price of 52,000 yen for an exchange format purchase (i.e. where you give them your original throttle body as part exchange/part purchase). Type-One is Ichishima's vision of how a Spoon Sports dealer should be. And that vision is the offer of a complete tuned car, not just individual parts thrown in without consideration of whether they will work in harmony or simply interfere with each other. Type-One therefore is a TUNING SPECIALIST, not a parts trading shop. What customers pay a premium for in Type-One is their know-how and their skills, not just the parts.

Thus the statement We are not interested in selling parts.