Remembering Japanese cars from the past

Month: May 2008 (Page 2 of 2)

Carina A6 entering the Paris-Dakar in 1982 and 1983

As you can see in the catalogue of S57-6 (June 1982) the Carina A6 featured in the Paris-Dakar rally. According to the Carina page on the Japanese Wikipedia it featured in 1981 and 1982. However I could not find any reference that they actually did attend in 1981, especially not on this list. I did find a Toyota Starlet attending Paris-Dakar.
Carina in 1983 Paris-Dakar

I did find that Masaru Kubota and Masahiro Uchida joined Paris-Dakar in 1982 and 1983 with a Carina, and Kubota was driving the Starlet in 1981. They became 34th in 1982 but did not finish 1983.
Carina in 1982 Paris-Dakar
They entered as a private team (no factory backup) in the normal unmodified class, so their Carina was almost bone stock!!

Perhaps the Japanese Wikipedia page is mistaken about the years, maybe the conversion from Japanese years was done wrongly or maybe they traveled to Paris before 1st of January and of course counted it as 1981. We’ll never know.

Reading: Train man (Densha Otoko)

I’m currently reading Densha Otoko (Train man) novel.
Train man novel

The book originated inside a thread on 2Channel which is a forum in Japan. This thread was meant for single men on the forum and the writer, later on called Densha Otoko (which mean train man, however Otoko is actually worse than Otaku), wrote that he saved some women on the train from a drunk man who was herassing them. He received two thank you gifts from the women, from which one of them was sent by a young girl. He actually meets the girl again and has dinner with her and that’s the actual start of a long story of “coming to age” for an otaku.

I must say the book is very readable if you are used to read forums, and lucky enough I’m quite an expert in that. ^_^

I do find some translations very annoying, like for instance otaku gets translated into “techie” or “geek” which does not cover it at all. Ah well, you can’t have everything and lucky enough I already watched the J-Drama.

TA63 Carina GT-TR badge

Just won this Carina GT-TR badge today on http://auctions.yahoo.co.jp:
TA63 Carina GT-TR badge

It’s not meant as badge-tuning, but rather keeping it for the future: when the engine (and transmission) will be swapped and it should be badged as a GT instead of DX. 😉

Oh, and I realized lately what most probably is the height difference is between the GT-T and GT-TR and the GT and GT-R: R spec cars had bigger wheels (kouki spec had 15 inch instead of 14 inch) so the height of the car increased as well!

Exhaust gasket repaired

Exhaust gasket got repaired last week. However it still leaks a tiny bit: the 4-2 header (made from cast iron) is bent a bit due to extensive heat and not completely pressing the gasket anymore.

Also the 2-1 pipe has a small hole in it, so I’m currently sourcing one to pass the MOT, which is due within two months already.

Anyone got two spare tires for me so I can pass that problem as well?

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