Remembering Japanese cars from the past

Month: May 2011 (Page 4 of 5)

JAF2011: First impression and a purple beams AE86!


The first impressions on the Japans Autosport Festival were that there were waaaaaay too many Skylines in the Netherlands. I think I saw more than 100 R32/R33/R34s and most of them were riced out. On the other hand there were some really nice examples as well!

What was most interesting was this purple hachi I spotted three and a half years ago in someones garage without an engine in it.
Purple Corolla Levin AE86 with 3S-GE Beams blacktop
Purple Corolla Levin AE86 with 3S-GE Beams blacktop

The owner sold me his 15 inch Celica-Supra rims and just casually told me he owned a couple of Celicas, a Starlet EP70 with a 3SGTE in it and an AE86 as well. So of course I got very interested to see the AE86 and the Starlet. The AE86 looked already as great as the photo above but only lacked its engine…

Shortyly before the JAF the project finally met its end and its 4AGE made way for a different engine. At first the owner planned a 1JZ-swap, but changed his plans and went for a 3SGE Beams blacktop mated to a W58 supra gearbox by a JDM 1S Carina bellhousing!

As you can see the 3SGE blacktop is a tight fit for the AE86:
Purple Corolla Levin AE86 with 3S-GE Beams blacktop
Purple Corolla Levin AE86 with 3S-GE Beams blacktop

He told me he had to modify the bellhousing because the starter engine was on the wrong side, so he tool the bellhousing of the 4A and had the starter position welded on the other side. You can’t tell unless you look up close and look really well. Very nice to see such a project getting a good ending!

The funny thing was that I would have expected it to be a very loud engine but he used a bone stock muffler of a Hyundai Scoupe and it just sounded like a stock 4AGE! So literally you have a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing!

More pictures of the festival will follow when I’ve developed the films from my camera. :)

Visual Museum Skyline DVD

Shortly before Mr. Itirou Makoto Sakurai passed away (January 17th 2011) a DVD by Visual Museum appeared with an interview with him. The DVD covers the second (S54B), third (PGC10) and fourth (KPGC110) generations of Skylines. It could very well have been his last interview.

Just have a look at the trailer:

The music, short skirted female silhouette and montage: it all feels a bit 90s to me… Nevertheless a very promising DVD!

SF Bay area: went to a drift event (part 3)


Last week I posted up black and white photos of the drift exhibition at Infineon Raceway and this week I’ll share the only “okay” photos from the color film I used.

You can hardly make out the Lexus GS300 on this picture:
Infineon drift exhibition: Lexus GS300
Infineon drift exhibition: Lexus GS300

I think the exposure is alright but the duration was just a tad too long. Limitations of the camera obviously show here: my Zenit only supports 1/30th till 1/500th of a second and alternatively you will have to do it yourself with the “bulb” selection.

Also this photo with lots of light trails worked out fine:
Infineon drift exhibition: light trails
Infineon drift exhibition: light trails

Would have been better if I would have brought along a tripod and took a picture from above. Of course there is always a next time to do so. ;)

Last but not least: at the end three Corolla GT-S AE86s were doing a tandem drift and you can still make out the trailing 2 door coupe:
Infineon drift exhibition: hachis in a tandem drift
Infineon drift exhibition: hachis in a tandem drift

As I said in the previous posting: with a flashlight I could have frozen the image a bit more but I’m actually quite content with the result!

Now tomorrow I’ll be heading to the Dutch JAF (Japans Auto Festival) held at Zandvoort so I’m curious what kind of pictures that will bring. If you want to meet up, just send me an email and otherwise you can recognize me by looking for an tall Asian looking guy with long hair and a vintage camera around his neck. ;)

Drift video: Suzumebachi attack! (part 2)


Half a year ago I already featured another Suzumebachi attack! post, also with videos by JRotaro and ae86lan. Difference is that this time they have been shot from the inside of one of the hachis:

At first only two hachis make their drifts on the Mount Fuji drift course (next to the Fuji International Speedway) but slowly more and more hachis join in.

Here is another video with 10 minutes of those suzumebachi hornets going sideways: Continue reading

Japanese rustoseums (part twentythree)

Part twenty three??? Yeah I kind of forgot to post this, so I skipped one a few weeks ago. ;)

This Nissan Silvia CPS311 project shows you that not all rustoseums end up as a piece of crumbled oxidized iron!


Amazing what they eventually did with the car. However I do wonder how much of that original CSP311 was used in the restored one!

Direct link to video: NISSAN Silvia CSP311

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 Banpei.net

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑