AFTER a historic moment at the recent Tokyo Motor Show when the Nissan GT-R was unveiled, many had expected the iconic sports car to dominate last weekend's Tokyo Auto Salon.

But a quick check with tuners such as HKS and Trust revealed that Nissan only started delivering the car to them less than two months ago. As a result, there was little time to prepare it for this glamorous annual auto accessory show, except to make some cosmetic enhancements such as paint colours and wheels.

The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X had a headstart, though, and tuners had more time to work on this latest generation of the rally-based sports sedan. The Evo's traditional rival, the Subaru Impreza WRX STi, also fared well. Having an engine similar to the previous STi model meant that outfits such as SYMS, Secret Sport and Fujitsubo were able to have many tuning parts ready for the show.

Between these two feuding models, however, the Evo X had the greater presence at the show. The official Mistubishi Motors booth had 10 Evo X cars with different levels of tuning on display. The rally examples took centrestage. And just like last year, the Mitsubishi race queens were tops.

Motorsports were the dominant theme at most of the other official booths too. From Japan GT racing and Japan N1 racing to the World Rally Championship, Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Nissan and Mitsubishi showed off their latest developments. Lexus made its maiden appearance, displaying a newly developed racing concept based on the IS F - its recently launched BMW M3 challenger.

The spirit of the Auto Salon was aptly captured with new song and dance items from Japan's best race queens. Striking provocative poses on stage, they whipped the mostly male crowd into a frenzy of furious photo-taking with myriad digital cameras sporting lenses of all sizes and lengths. The prettiest models were at the Honda booth, the most frenetic at the Mistubishi booth - and the sexiest on the Hankook tyre stand.

Dressed-up cars and aerodynamic customisation were a big part of the Auto Salon. Toyota partnered TRD and Modellista to show off the latest options for newly launched models such as the Toyota Mark X Zio and the Toyota Rumion.

Ralliart options and DAMD-prepped cars dominated the Mitsubishi line-up. Over at Mazda, the recently introduced Mazda2, Mazda6 and RX-8 Type RS face-lift sported trendy makeovers, Mazdaspeed enhancements and a heavy dose of design from Kenstyle.

Honda's in-house styling experts from Modulo presented three styling variants for the recently launched Honda Jazz/Fit. Specialised Honda tuner Mugen also introduced an extreme makeover of its Mugen Civic Type RR and the Jazz/Fit F154sc supercharged concept.

With more new models from Toyota, Nissan and Honda due for introduction this year, the next Auto Salon at the start of 2009 should be even more interesting. Already there are rumours of Nissan bringing out a 520 PS GT-R V-spec in October 2008.

As Nissan makes a comeback with this recently resurrected legend, Toyota is expected to respond with the upcoming Supra, Honda with a new NS-X and Mitsubishi with the new GTO. Sports car enthusiasts should be waiting excitedly for next January.