Remembering Japanese cars from the past

Tag: skyline r31 (Page 1 of 3)

Manga Car Spotting – Subaru Rex Combi 4WD – Nissan Skyline GTS-R R31 – You’re Under Arrest part 6

Manga Cars

What do a Subaru Rex Combi 4WD, Nissan Skyline GTS-R R31 and a 1989 RUF CTR 3.4 have in common? They are all featured in today’s You’re Under Arrest manga! Yes it’s another Manga Car Spotting video and we will continue the You’re Under Arrest series with this sixth manga by Dark Horse. It will be a longer video today as we will have to cover 15 cars and two mystery cars.
Manga Car Spotting - You're Under Arrest manga 6 of 8

You’re Under Arrest by Kosuke Fujishima

The young petrolhead Kosuke Fujishima started out as an editor and assistant of, back then not so famous, Tatsuya Egawa mangaka. This inspired him to create his own manga and the first successful manga series drawn by him was You’re Under Arrest! (逮捕しちゃうぞ) which revolves around a Tokyo police station in the business district Sumida. The two protagonists are two female police offices called Natsumi Tsujimoto and Miyuki Kobayakawa and both of them are petrolheads. Natsuki is the more blunt one who catches thiefs, thugs and tramps singlehanded while Miyuki is the more intelligent one who loves tinkering with cars, engines and motorcylces.

In today’s manga we will spot more than 15 cars and various motorcycles. The Honda Today police special is the main car as the duo patrols the Sumida area in this car. The Honda Today is no longer bone stock and is specially tuned to keep up with the sports cars owned by the businessmen of Sumida. Some examples of these cars are the Nissan Skyline GTS-R R31, Mazda Savanna RX-7 FC3S and RUF CTR 3.4 than can be spotted in this manga. Also a bit more luxurious cars like a Toyota Mark II Grande GX71 can be spotted. Or even the high performance pocket rocket Subaru Rex Combi 4WD!

Initially created as a spin-off of You’re Under Arrest! manga, Ah! My Goddess surpassed it in fame. Belldandy turned up in one of the manga of You’re Under Arrest and this inspired it’s creator Kosuke Fujishima to create the Ah! My Goddess manga. In this a goddess, Belldandy, meets a lowly student Keiichi Morrisato and this series ran from 1988 till 2014. I have also created a Manga Car Spotting episode for this series some time ago. As Ah! My Goddess surpassed You’re Under Arrest! in popularity, the final manga of You’re Under Arrest was released in 1992.
Toyota Liteace XL-7 AWD

You can find the video and the high resolution scans of the panels containing manga cars below: Continue reading

Games: Over Drivin’ Nissan Skyline Memorial

Back in the 80s I played was a game called Test Drive that allowed you to drive a Ferrari Testarossa, Lamborghini Countach, Lotus Esprit, Porsche 911 and the Chevrolet Corvette C4 (the order is my pick order from 1987). Shortly afterwards it was was succeeded by Test Drive 2 which only had the Ferrari F40, Lamborghini Diablo and the Porsche 959 and Test Drive 3 followed quickly. Then it became silent for a while as the company who created Test Drive created a fantastic game called Stunts. The only game to be considered a successor in the years after was The Need For Speed by Electronic Arts. It basically had the same feeling as Test Drive 1 including the police persuits and Test Drive 2 and featured again a set of “affordable cars” including the Toyota Supra JZA80, the Acura/Honda NSX and the Mazda RX-7 FD.
Over Drivin' Nissan Skyline Memorial
This game got really high scores from the magazines and became an instant bestseller and successors were made in big quantities. The NFS series also sold in Japan as the Over Drivin’ series. Of course the game quickly adapted to the Japanese taste and in 1996 the Over Drivin’ Nissan GT-R was released which included Nissan-only cars (more on this one in a later post). This series also included a special edition called Over Drivin’ Skyline Memorial which basically is the same as the original The Need For Speed game but this time it contained the full Nissan Skyline range up till 1997:

  • Nissan Skyline GT S50-B
  • Nissan Skyline 2000 GT-R PGC10
  • Nissan Skyline 2000 GT-R KPGC110
  • Nissan Skyline 2000 GT-EX KHGC211
  • Nissan Skyline RS Turbo C KDR30
  • Nissan Skyline GTS-X HR31
  • Nissan Skyline GT-R BNR32
  • Nissan Skyline GT-R BNR32
  • Nissan R390

I remember playing this game a lot around 2001 or 2002 on my emulator (I did not own a NTSC capable Playstation) and had great fun with it!

The nice thing is that earlier this week IKnowSkyline posted all the video footage of all Skylines in the game in one single video:

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Friday Video: The very first Best Motoring video!

Back in December 1987 the very first issue of Best Motoring video became available. The video was a monthly magazine containing not only car news and reviews but also extensive how-to’s on subjects of mastering cornering or drifting. KaKo posted this video in four separate parts:
Best Motoring first video: Mitsubishi HSR Concept
The first video covers the Nissan MID-4 II, Toyota FXV-Ⅱ and Mitsubishi HSR concept cars. Followed by a short video (in sepia) about the Tokyo Motor Show from the 50s till 80s including the 27th motorshow that just happened days before the release of the video. And last part of the first video covers an extensive test between various cars including the new (second generation) CR-X Si and the Nissan Skyline GTS-X R31.

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