Month: October 2015 (Page 2 of 2)

Hilarious: Nissan Leaf smokes a Nissan 180SX!

October 12, 2015 / banpei / 0 Comments

I have no idea how realistic this new Nissan Leaf commercial is, but I suspect in real life the Leaf would never beat a highly tuned Nissan 180SX RPS13 with a UR-Style body kit on the drag strip:

Acceleration of the earlier Leafs is rated on 0-100km/h (0-60mph) at 9.9 seconds and the 180SX officially did 7.5 seconds with the CA18DET. The SR20DET probably did better than that and various sources mention around 6.8 seconds. Since Nissan does not mention licensing the insane mode from Tesla I suspect this commercial is highly exaggerated.

See the results yourselves:

So what could have made the Leaf win here then? Well there are a couple of viable options:

The 2016 Nissan Leaf will get Ludicrous mode
The driver of the Nissan 180SX flunked his run
The 180SX is a 20 year old car now and never had its turbo serviced
The surface of the drag strip was wet and the 180SX features no traction control
Nissan fakes the Leaf winning

Now you decide which one it is. ;)

Direct link to video: 2015 ニッサン新型リーフ予告CM（AZE0）NISSAN LEAF

Mitsubishi Galant double round headlights

JDM Trivia: Mitsubishi Galant Σ and Nissan Gazelle crossover?

October 10, 2015 / banpei / 0 Comments

While browsing for photos of a non-disclosed car model (coming up) I stumbled upon a photo of a Mitsubishi Galant Σ (sigma) on Minkara that looked a bit odd:

The shape was right, but those headlights and grille really look the same as the Nissan Gazelle S110 units!

So I double checked with a Gazelle S110 I featured a long time ago:

The corner lights are different, but this is a kouki (late) model and the zenki (early) model did feature full orange corner lights. Apart from that it does look very similar!

And this is the common Mitsubishi Galant Σ we all are familiar with: Continue reading

Commercial Time: Sharknose Toyota Chaser JZX100

October 9, 2015 / banpei / 0 Comments

The car in the photo below isn’t a Toyota Chaser JZX100, but a Toyota Mark II JZX100. Almost the same thing you might think…

Well it is not but it was the only photo I could find of a JZX100 kaido racer and I actually might have tricked you to come here and read this by doing so. The whole thing is, everyone nowadays associates the sharknose term with kaido racers and their modified bodywork and I’m also debit on making that term popular with the bosozoku style blog.

Anyway, the ad I found on Youtube is a whole different sharknose Toyota Chaser JZX100 than a modified front end. Watch for your selves: Continue reading

Down on the Street: wrapped Toyota FJ Cruiser

October 4, 2015 / banpei / 0 Comments

When I spotted a Toyota FJ Cruiser in the centre of Amsterdam I immediately thought of Mr. Regular‘s review of the FJ Cruiser. I think it was his most intellectual review so far and he starts yakking about simulation and simulacra.

The general idea is that the Toyota FJ Cruiser is the car that was made as an hommage to the original short wheelbase Land Cruiser but kind of failed as it turned out to be a suburban beast. I kind of agree and disagree on his view: the FJ Cruiser *could* be also used properly in offroad conditions but as it has ordinary tires mounted it generally sucks at that.

Long story short, watch the video below: Continue reading

Carina Sightings: Toyota Carina GT-R AA63 on wide steel rims

October 3, 2015 / banpei / 0 Comments

I stumbled upon this awesome red Toyota Carina GT-R AA63 on widened steel rims with stretched tires:

One of the differences between the Carina GT and GT-R was the lack of alloys, or better: cool looking steel rims that were too narrow (5.5J I think).

This GT-R swapped its alloys for the GT items instead:

I keep forgetting that when widened the steel rims also look awesome.
Also notice the flashlight creating a white pinstripe suggestion in the first photo. Perhaps I should do a similar black pinstripe to my Carina? A cool and simple touch that makes the car look way nicer!

Via Minkara

WTF: Toyota AE86 trash!

October 2, 2015 / banpei / 0 Comments

After hoarding AE86 parts for over 20 years AE86Lan decided he needed a clean up his garage:

An entire kei-truck is loaded with various AE86 parts like T50 transmissions, complete subframes, complete 4AGE engine blocks, valve covers, cams, camgear covers and many smaller bits and pieces. What a bloody waste: I think many of the AE86 enthusiasts could probably have used some of it…

See the video below: Continue reading