Remembering Japanese cars from the past
I found this video earlier this week on Sideways.cz:
The main attractions are of course the red S15, but you can see some other cars like an AA63, two hachis and some RPS13s in this video.
This video is shot on the Meihan kart track which is apparently a very popular track for Carina GT-Rs!
This week we don’t feature a popular bosozoku car, but a rare bosozoku car! We thought that featuring popular bosozoku cars each week would get a bit boring after a while so we want to alternate between popular and rare from now on. ;)
This week we have a rare bosozoku styled Toyota Corona RT132:
Rare Bosozoku styled Corona RT132 coupe
Big fender flares, deep dish wheels and an oil cooler on this baby! Would the number 55 refer to an old Super Silhouette racer?
Rare Bosozoku styled Corona RT132 coupe
You may ask yourself how do I know it is a RT132? Quite simple: this Corona features the DOHC logo in the grille. The only engine with DOHC the Corona was delivered with is the 18R, so it can only be the RT132. Unless the owner rebadged the grille of course!
This car is the facelifted coupe version, which in my opinion is the best looking Corona T130.
Factory stock photos of the Toyota Corona coupe
The Corona T120/T130 was the successor of the Corona T100/T110. The T120/T130 got a new floorpan and got an increased 25mm in wheelbase. The bizarre thing is that the successor of the T120/T130, the T140, decreased 25mm in wheelbase!
The Corona was placed against the Honda Accord, Mazda Capella, Nissan Bluebird and Toyota’s own Carina/Camry. The Corona itself was, compared to the Carina and Camry, the more upmarket car offering much more luxury and options than the Camry and Carina.
Almost factory stock Toyota Corona RT132 coupe
The Corona T130 got a large variety in engines and gearboxes, but the main engines in Japan were the 12T-U, 13T-U, 3T-U, 18R-GEU and the 21R-U.
I did see a TT132 (3T-U) for sale some time ago and thought about getting that car instead of my own, but personally I do like the styling of my Carina a bit better. However the Bosozoku styled example is more tempting than that 4 door Corona TT132 I saw back then…
I read on the Impulse blog that they are going to attend for the first time the Optionland Exciting Car Showdown on 4th and 5th of April 2009.
Optionland Exciting Car Showdown is indeed organized by Option Video and is a yearly carshow held in the first weekend of April in Nagoya:
Daijiro Inada and Tsuchiya opening the 2008 Optionland showdown
I immediately went to the Optionland Showdown page and looked through the pictures of 2008 and I surely did find a lot of great looking cars:
Great looking Trueno GT (2 door) from icode
Super clean Levin with widened fenders
And of course this N2 Levin AE86:
Beautiful N2 Levin AE86
Also this nicely tuned Nissan Crew, probably with a highly tuned RB26DETT engine:
Tuned Nissan Crew with RB26DETT
The Nissan Crew is the counterpart of the Toyota Comfort GT-Z, however it has got a bit more
And what about classic racers like this Corolla Levin TE27?
Corolla Levin TE27 racer
And an almost classic Nissan Skyline R30 tuned for speed:
Zenki Nissan Skyline R30
Its setup looks a bit similar to a well known DR30 racer.
The Impulse hachis are in my opinion a great addition to the Optionland Exciting Car Showdown! If 2008 was already that good I can’t wait till 4th of April to see this years showdown!
I saw this trailer of Drift Tengoku yesterday:
I was really amazed that drifting with an automatic is that easy!
Basically the technique behind drifting is very possible with an automatic: by limiting the automatic to go a gear up it will always keep the gearbox in the same gear (unless your revs go under something like 3000rpm) so the automatic becomes a bit manual this way. The only trouble is to prevent hitting Drive or Reverse accidentally but as you can see in this video they use a lock to prevent you from doing that.
Of course there are some techniques which are not possible: for instance a drift at high speed doing a clutch kick or controlling the drift with the clutch while going sideways. But who cares if you can’t Manji that easy with an automatic!
So there is still hope for my Carina! However… I do need some extra power first and I only have a 3 speed automatic, so shifting between 2nd and 3rd may be a bit far from each other. Think I’ll stick to the original plan then. ;)
I still can’t let go the Honda City so I was browsing some blogs and videos about the Honda City and came across this nice video:
You can see some early 80s action on the track in the wet!
During the take off you can see a yellow pace car at 22 seconds and 34 which looks very much like a Carina Coupe. Its front lights are square, rear lights are long and wide and its boot has a tiny flat spot. So I think this pace car must be a Carina A6 Coupe.
To keep up with these small Honda City turbos it most probably must have been the TA63 with the 3T-GTE engine. The 4AGE would not be quick enough to follow them: a City turbo racing spec did the 1/4 mile in 13.5 seconds!
As a bonus, another start of a Honda City race and this time it is really spectacular:
I just happened to stumble upon this nice video of all pre 1984 Japanese police cars:
I think the people loving the Seibu Keisatsu regulars at Japanese Nostalgic Car blog will recognize a lot of the cars in this video.
I did spot a lot of Crows, Glorias and Cedrics. But also rare cars like the Ford Mustang Mach 1 and a 240Z and a 300ZX highway chasers!
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