Hello, 2026!

Without going into details, I'll just say that I cannot describe how happy I am that 2025 is behind me and that I survived it. For the first time in a long, long time, I can say I'm actually happy about what's happening and that I'm excited for what's to come in 2026. Despite that, the year didn't exactly start off smoothly. So far my phone died on me so I needed to replace it, a couple important inventory shipments were delayed by the holidays and New Year, the supply for one of my main maintenance products has vanished, and, as my wife likes to remind me… I'm still overweight. That's okay, though - I'm working through all of those little obstacles, so I’ve got my chin up and still feeling good about the year to come.

Some Updates

One piece of bad news carrying over from last year is that my cabin filter supplier hasn't been able to give me any updates on when they'll be available again. Usually I'm able to get restocked in about a week if I sell out but now I'm not sure when (or even if) I'll be able to continue with my current supplier. Unfortunately, that means I'll need to cancel any pending orders for them so the shipments waiting for them can finally get sent out. I'm sorry for the delays that's caused. It's very unusual for these to be delayed for so long so I'm thinking they may be getting discontinued entirely. I'm already looking for other options, but we'll see what happens.

Another delay was the lenses for our Redpants Corner Markers. Long story short, there were some issues that prevented us from getting more made, so we sold out of them despite having a few pending orders. Everything was eventually resolved and the lenses just arrived yesterday. I've been doing final assembly and quality control, so they'll be shipping in the next couple days.

By the way, if you haven’t seen them, I’ve completely redesigned both the front corner markers and rear corner markers to not only replace the factory ones, but improve them both structurally and cosmetically. Rather than the plastic pegs and speed nuts of the OEM corner markers, Redpants corner markers use stainless steel nuts and bolts, making them incredibly strong and eliminating a major failure point of the OEM units. Plus, the Redpants versions are lower-profile and are dark smoked instead of mismatched orange and red, making them far better looking as well.

A great bit of news is that Redpants Oil Catch Cans are coming soon! We're being told we'll get the prototypes for testing around the end of this coming week. So long as the prototypes check out and pass my testing, I'll be opening up pre-orders. The pricing of the catch cans will be going up compared to what they used to be due to increase costs, but I'm still keeping the price down as much as possible. I started selling these things about a decade ago, so cost increases and inflationary affects are to be expected and hopefully don’t come as a surprise. If I updated the pricing based on inflation alone, then they'd be be over $470, so the price increase could be much worse! I'll have more updates [hopefully] soon and will give a lot more information when I open up pre-orders. As usual, the pre-order discount will end when the product starts shipping.

Tokyo Auto Salon is currently going on and I went to it yesterday, but didn’t do any filming. I took some pics that I’ll be posting on my Redpants and Redpants Unzipped Instagram accounts, so make sure you check those out if you want to see some random cars and stuff. I’ve got a group of friends in town for TAS and I’m running around with them quite a bit, so please forgive any slow responses or sparse posts or whatever else I usually do that people actually notice. We’ll be doing some shots of my car at some point while they’re here, so I’ll be able to share some cool pics of it sometime soon. Which reminds me… I really need to update the Build page for my V8 Vantage, I’m sure it’s pretty out of date, especially since it’s still grey and supercharged on that page, but I ditched the supercharger and wrapped the car red a couple years ago!

Another thing I’ll need to update on my car’s Build page is that soon I’ll be moving on from my beloved Wilwood brake rotors. I’ve been a huge fan of these for a long time because of how incredibly well they’ve held up over several years, tens of thousands of miles, and a bunch of track days. I was going to order a rebuild kit to get them refreshed (plus made a DIY Guide and video showing how to do it yourself), but was told Wilwood discontinued their brake rotors for the V8 Vantage. I’m really disappointed because I loved my Wilwood rotors so much but at least I can swap over to the 2-piece rotors from VelocityAP, which are available in my Online Store). VelocityAP’s rotors are made by Girodisc in the USA, so there aren’t any import duties for those of you in the US to worry about! And, as an added bonus, they also make more sizes than Wilwood made so they fit more cars than just the early DB9 and V8 Vantage.

Unzipped Club

I've had Redpants Unzipped sitting on the sidelines for a long (long!) time and haven't really done much with it. I wanted to use it for things like travel videos, but only published a few of those despite doing tons of filming over the years. Now that I've got my tours available here in Japan, I figured I'd use it for that. So, I created the Unzipped Club!

As of right now, the Unzipped Club is just a way to show some additional appreciation for my Guided Driving Tours clients. Anyone that does a Guided Driving Tour is automatically enrolled in the Unzipped Club, which gives them a 5% discount on all products and services from Redpants Japan. Membership lasts as long as I have the Unzipped Club and doesn’t need to be renewed. As I get things going, I’ll try to add some additional benefits, but for now it’s just an additional little perk that’s free for people that use my tour services here in Japan.

Redpants 合同会社 ("Redpants Japan") is a distinct and separate legal entity registered in Yokohama, Japan. The Unzipped Club and its benefits do not transfer to Redpants, LLC ("Redpants USA").

Keep Current

Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and turn on notifications so you know when I put out a new video about Aston Martins, parts, products, and DIY information.

My second YouTube channel is for Redpants Unzipped. It focuses on events and travel in Japan and elsewhere. (I swear I’ll be making content for it at some point…)

I hate social media so I’m rarely on it, but I have been making an effort to post more often on my Redpants and Redpants Unzipped accounts on Instagram.

If you want to get in touch, email me or use my Contact page (they both go to the same email address). If you message me on a Redpants social media page, I may not see it. If you try to message me on a personal page, it definitely won’t be seen.

If you use the Contact page, please make sure your email address is correct, or I won’t be able to answer you. Even if it’s correct, sometimes I can’t answer regardless because of the email system (Spectrum for some reason doesn’t like to deliver emails, so if you use them, chances are you’re haven’t gotten any emails I’ve sent to you).

I notify people when I publish Blog Posts by sending out a Newsletter. If you’re not subscribed to my Newsletter, you can do so here:

Okay, that’s it for now! Make sure you’re subscribed to my Newsletter and follow me on Instagram so you know when I have news or updates, especially those of you that have been waiting for my catch cans to return!