Month: June 2009 (Page 5 of 5)

Hilarious: how would you know your friends are dorks?

June 5, 2009 / banpei / 1 Comment

Suppose you own and drive a black and white panda painted Toyota Sprinter Trueno, just like this example:

Perfect Initial D Sprinter Trueno AE86 replica
How would you know then that your friends are a bunch of dorks as well?

Simple: they all own moviecar replicas as well!

All your friends driving movie cars as well!

I’m still missing a few cars in this lineup: a red Charger (the General Lee), a white VW Beetle (Herbie), a Ford Gran Torino (Starsky and Hutch) and a 1974 Dodge Monaco with police package (The Bluesmobile), so you definitely need to make more friends!

Found through Jalopnik

Rare Bosozoku cars: Nissan Cedric 230

June 4, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

This week we feature the Nissan Cedric (and Gloria) 230. In contrary of the Cedric/Gloria 330 it is a rare bosozoku car and we had a very hard time to find more than one picture!

Some time ago we featured a video of it already:

This full version shows everything about this great Cedric: it is spacious, it looks bad, got a great horn and this hardtop version doesn’t have a B pilar!

We even managed to find a picture of this beauty:

#23 Bosozoku style Nissan Cedric 230
You see, it even got the stance right!

Compared to that this kyusha styled Cedric suddenly doesn’t look that stunning anymore:

Kyusha styled Nissan Cedric 230

The Cedric and Gloria 230 did share the same floorpan and body, but in contrary of the 330 they did not share the same face: they still had their individual front ends. Only starting with the 330 Nissan finally merged the two cars fully!

Factory stock Nissan Cedric 230

Both cars were featuring several L series inline 4 and inline 6 engines, so the L20, L24 and L26 were all available.

Factory stock Nissan Cedric 230

The Nissan Cedric/Gloria 230 is a rare sight at the bosozoku meetings and we do have an idea why. First reason:

Many 70s and 80s Japanese police series used/abused the Nissan Cedrics and Glorias to make spectacular car chases. It was not uncommon to wreck up to 15 or 20 cars per chase! And the biggest problem was that the Cedric and Gloria were mostly used as policecars, so they were wrecked in masses!

Second reason: the image of a policecar is not really appealing to a bosozoku!
And the third reason: rust! There are not many Cedrics and Glorias left.

Personally I do prefer the Cedric/Gloria 330 over the 230 and that’s probably just like every bosozoku boss would!

[I posted this article earlier this week on bosozokustyle.com]

Carina Sightings: Carina TA62 Coupe in Czech republic

June 3, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

Today 86ers.org posted about the Czech duo Franz & Tonda. Franz & Tonda have a nice garage full of old JDM tin, like a Corolla TE71, a (almost deteriorated) AE86, a 280ZX, a Toyota MR2, a widebody Mitsubishi Starion and a TA62 Carina Coupe! :)

Carina Coupe TA62 owned by Franz & Tonda

It turns out to be a familiar Carina for me: Franz already visited AEU86 in the past!

Carina Coupe TA62 owned by Franz & Tonda

From the pictures the Carina still looks very nice, but if I understood Franz correctly the bottom is very very rusted and the interior is not too wel either. I really hope Franz and Tonda have time to restore the TA62 and stop its deterioration!

Carina Coupe TA62 owned by Franz & Tonda

As you can see from the stance of the rear wheels the TA62 has the same live axle as the TA60 (and the AE86) and does not feature the IRS as found on the TA63 or AA63 (Japanese GT models). Nevertheless it would look pretty wild with some deep dish Hayashi Streets on it! :)

Single carb 3T engine

From the pictures of the engine I can see it has a single carburetor so it is featuring the 1.8 3T. Basically the same engine as the 2T in my Carina, but then with 0.2 liter more displacement than mine. Also a 3TC has a dual carb setup, so that difference is easy to spot. ;)

If you are curious to the other cars of their collection, you can find them here:
86ers visit to Franz and Tonda

32 year old vintage racing videos

June 2, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

One of the blogs I started following recently found these really great vintage racing videos shot at 29th of may 1977 at Tsubaka. That means they are 32 years + 4 days old and contain a huge amount of classic JDM tin doing laps on Tsubaka.

First of all this impressive TS cup:

A lot of good dogfights can be seen in this video! Next to the ubiquitous Nissan Sunny B310s you can spot several first generation Honda Civics, a Mazda RX3 Familia and I also spotted a Corolla TE37 among them!

The next video is the T-EX cup:

This cup contains about the same cars as the TS cup, but then all the drivers are amateurs. Also the cars are a bit less exciting: a Familia racing in that cup clearly isn’t a RX3 but a 808 Familia. Same probably applies to the ubiquitous Sunnys, Publicas and Corollas racing this cup. This video is the most fun to watch: driving on cheap tires makes them skid around the corners!

Last video is the womens race:

Too bad only four female drivers were competing, otherwise it would have been much more fun to watch! Now it is basically two chicks fighting and the other two coming up from behind…

I found the videos at Beeoneoneoh’s blog. If you liked these videos you probably also like his blog! :)

Month: June 2009 (Page 5 of 5)

Hilarious: how would you know your friends are dorks?

Rare Bosozoku cars: Nissan Cedric 230

Carina Sightings: Carina TA62 Coupe in Czech republic

32 year old vintage racing videos

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