Remembering Japanese cars from the past

Tag: Skyline (Page 1 of 2)

Carina Sightings: Carina AA63 Sedan on Suzuka

Yesterday I found this video of an AA63 sedan racing on Suzuka circuit (west course). The engine is probably almost bone stock with a few small modifications like an open airfilter.

He does a quite good run but then runs into some slower (probably pit out) Hakosuka Skylines and then gets passed by a very quick 280ZX. Quite fun to see him trying to chase the 280ZX for some time but then he gets engine trouble.

You can hear around 4:12 some metal sound in the engine note and the driver probably broke something in the engine. Also in the comments it states that the engine broke, but it doesn’t say exactly what broke. He then tails the Ken-meri and another Hakosuka Skyline and when he enters the pit lane he immediately leaves the track.

Skylines are not ugly!

Remember what I wrote almost half a year ago? I wrote something about that Skylines are ugly.

About two weeks ago apparently someone from the R31 Skylineclub in Australia read my rambling and posted it on the forum. You can read in the comments what people think of me now. ;)

Round taillights on this beautifully lowered Nissan Skyline R31
Round taillights on this beautifully lowered Nissan Skyline R31

Anyway, I got an email from James pointing out that not all R31s got round taillights and that the Australian built R31s got the RB30E engine. Now we’re talking potential here! As he writes that the RB20, RB25 and RB26 heads fit on it a lot of people must put the RB25DET or RB26DETT head on the RB30 block.

Round taillights on Nissan Skyline R31 GTS Silhouette
Round taillights on Nissan Skyline R31 GTS Silhouette

I found an article on Wikipedia about this RB30+other RB head and read there are basically the same problems as with the 7AGE: the block is not capable of revving above 7500 rpm and is less strong as the other RB blocks. It may not deliver as much power as the RB25DET but it sure promises to deliver a lot more torque than this engine! Tommy Kaira’s M30 did make use of such engine, but mated it to a RB20DE head. This engine produced 294Nm torque opposed to the 255Nm of the RB25DE, so imagine what the potential torque would be of a RB30DET. ;)

Compare the two noses of the Nissan Skyline R31
Compare the two noses of the Nissan Skyline R31

In this picture you can compare the two noses of the Skyline R31. On the left you see a series 1 or 2 R31 and on the right you see a series 3 R31 (looks the same as in Japan). If you’re interested in all the differences:look here at r32skylineclub.com.

Well, it’s not that I’m all of a sudden going to write that what I thought was ugly half a year ago is now all of a sudden beautiful. In contrary: I still have the same opinion about the R31 and R33 4 door sedans in that posting… I do have a bit different feelings towards the R31 van: it a car with a lot of potential if you put a series 3 front on it, a bit like the famous Stagea with R34 nose swap.

I do love the R31, honestly I do! But what I don’t like is the series 1 and 2 headlights… But that is, of course, my personal opinion and you may or may not share that with me. Sorry if you feel offended by that… ;)

Keiichi Tsuchiya learns cops how to drift

Just found this video on Crunchyroll about Keiichi Tsuchiya who instructs a couple of cops how to drift:
Keiichi Tsuchiya instructs cops how to drift
Keiichi Tsuchiya learns cops how to drift

Also Ken Nomura (Nomuken) features in this video and gives his best shot at a Toyota Crown policecar. He fails (possibly on purpose) and Keiichi takes over the attempt with a 4 door R34 Skyline and he succeeds in drifting it.

The video itself is quite funny to watch, but most probably all setup beforehand since it is a Hot Version video after all. Unfortunately Crunchyroll does not support embedding of videos, so you will have to visit Crunchyroll itself to view the video:
[Keiichi Tsuchiya instructs cops how to drift]

Motoharu Kurosawa reunited with a Hakosuka Skyline on Fuji Speedway

Jalopnik posted an item about a Hakosuka Skyline racing one lap on Fuji Speedway. Little did they know about the driver nor his history with the Hakosuka. :(

The driver is Motoharu “gan-san” Kurosawa who is a regular on Best motoring. Motoharu Kurosawa has a long racing career, but most of his career he was a factory driver for Nissan and Honda. So of course he raced the Hakosuka during its glory years!

Here you can see the (narrated) Best Motoring video of him being reunited with the Hakosuka on Fuji Speedway:

I also found old footage of him doing the same, but then back in 1970, so about 38 years before the video above:

In this second video he’s clearly doing a show run for television, so he’s not going flat out. Also note that the road of Fuji Speedway used to be much bumpier than nowadays!

WTF: Nissan Skyline’s mini: Langley

I really had a WTF here: I saw this ad by the same poster as a Carina ad. It is about the Skyline’s Mini, also called the Langley:
Nissan Skyline’s mini ad on Youtube

Further investigation gave me this video:

Wikipedia redirected me upon Nissan Langley to the Nissan Pulsar page and there it was: The Nissan Langley, from 1980, was a more upmarket Pulsar.

Basically what Nissan did was give better looks to the FWD Pulsar, slap some round taillights on it and call it the Nissan Skyline’s mini to attract even more buyers! Sounds to me like the same if Toyota would have sold the 3 door Sprinter Trueno as the mini Celica XX in Japan.

Surprise by the previous car owner

I think we all have bought a car in the past which held really nice surprises. For instance my good old trusty Trueno had a really nice surprise of a thick layer of bitumen to cover a really badly rusted spot. Or my new TA60 Carina had the really nice surprise of having retro tires mounted in 1983 under the car and only to be replaced in 2008 when I mounted the Celica Supra rims. Or the Mitsubishi I once owned had the original instruction manual which was illustrated with manga. ;)

Well, I think we all had these happy or unhappy surprises in the past… But I don’t think you can match up with the nice surprise Nori Yaro had when he bought his Nissan Skyline GTS-t!

First of all: his Skyline featured a period Kenwood double-din tape radio which was non functioning. He tried to fit another one, but he did not have the right connector for that so he fixed up the old Kenwood:
Double din Kenwood tape radio
Double Din Kenwood tape radio

Then he discovered there was a forgotten tape inside the Kenwood:
Surprise: Hello Kitty tape
Surprise: Hello Kitty tape inside!

Who would like to hear Hello Kitty when driving in a Nissan Skyline GTS-t with a mechanical diff, coilovers and sitting in a bucket seat?? I can only come up with the answer that the previous owner must have been a women drifter! ;)

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