I’m sure that the phrase More Collage Excess Prelude by First Molding will be identified as being written by AI if you pass it through an AI checker! These random words aren’t as random as you might think!
First Molding company
The company in question is called First Molding. No, that’s not a spelling error, it’s the American spelling of the word moulding. The name has been derived from the company’s origins.
The company was founded by racing driver and engineer Motoharu Ando and is located in the Mie Prefecture. Ando was employed by the Dome company in 1977 as a body craftsman and worked on the Dome Zero, TOM’s Corolla Turbo (G5)/TOM’s Celica Turbo (G5) and the 1979 Dome-Zero RL Le Mans car. He became independent from Dome in 1980 and founded his own company First Molding. The main focus of First Moulding was to develop race cars using his knowledge of aerodynamics.
First all-carbon Formula 3 chassis
One such race was the Japan’s first all-carbon Formula 3 chassis built in 1984. First Molding named this the Collage III. Another project was building a solar-powered car called Taiyo Mushi. You may think solar-powered cars are from the past two decades, but Ando already built one in 1990!
Street aero-parts
One of the fundamentals Ando understood was that you can’t solely depend on a single revenue stream. This meant that First Molding also started building aero parts for street use. Leveraging their knowledge of aerodynamics, their parts are considered highly effective. First Molding is still in business to the present day and has 3 employees.
The More Collage brand
More Collage, as the name implies, continues on the Collage name. It’s unclear if the More Collage Prelude aeroparts in the 1988 advertisement are, just like the Collage III, made of carbon. The ad mentions the parts are finished in a grey gel coating, which is hard to scratch. What we can verify is that the current More Collage parts are all made of carbon. However, the current More Collage lineup consists of karting parts. It seems like First Molding stopped producing street-focussed parts under the More Collage brand.
On their (partly defunct) website, they still offer street-focussed parts. Take for instance this carbon aero bonnet or their front lips. From the pictures, you can see they apply their design to almost any Japanese performance car!
When I search for First Molding More Collage I do find many many many Croooober and Up Garage parts pages and all of them have sold. This means there is definitely a big aftermarket demand for these parts. I also found companies like Nengun Performance and RHDJapan are still selling their areo-parts.
Conclusion
I have been enlightened once more. I wasn’t familiar with First Molding’s rich history and only seen their products left and right. Only because I spotted an old magazine advertisement with whacky headlines, I got interested in the company behind these parts.
The Excess body on the Honda Prelude seems to be excessive. It widens the entire body with at least 30 millimetres (one inch) on either side! You really have to reach inside the body panels to open the door! The front fender features gills that look like they extract hot air from the engine bay. The door and rear quarter panel seem to have a (fake) air intake.
In case you are curious about what the advertisement says, it’s not that interesting. It announces the new “Excess” lineup and mentions the pricing. For completeness, here’s the Google translation (yes it can now output images!) of the ad:
Source of the advertisement scan: Ossanauto
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