Remembering Japanese cars from the past

Picture tag: liteace m30 (Page 3 of 5)

Commerical time: This is DeTomasso Turbo!!

Back in the 80s most Japanese car manufacturers were creating hot turbo-ed (pronounced as Tarbo) city cars: Honda had the Honda City Turbo, Nissan had the Nissan March Turbo, Toyota had the Corsa Turboand if you didn’t have a turbo you had at least a Twin Cam (pronounced as Shweencam) engine like Suzuki did.

Daihatsu always was a master in creating small cars, so naturally they joined the turbo race with their own Charade Turbo. But when that wasn’t appealing enough they joined forces with Innocenti DeTomasso and created the Daihatsu DeTomasso Turbo:

Basically the car is the same as the normal Charade Turbo, but it has a better tuned engine, restyled to match the looks of the Innocenti Turbo DeTomaso. The Innocenti Turbo DeTomaso is a remodelled Mini by Bertone built by Innocenti with a tuned Daihatsu engine by DeTomasso and the Daihatsu Charade DeTomasso Turbo is a Charade with that very same engine. Can you still follow it? Neither did I at first… :D

Ebay treasures: Toyota Starlet KP61 V8 racecar


Now this is a real treasure: a Toyota Starlet KP61 Silhouette racecar for only a mere 3999 euro!
Starlet KP61 Racer V8
Starlet KP61 Racer V8

As you can see the bugeye Starlet got a lot of plastic surgery: widened (group 5?) fenders, a huge front air dam, an insanely big wing on the hatch and a dogbone Escort grille.

On the side profile you can still make out the cars original silhouette:
Starlet KP61 Racer V8
Starlet KP61 Racer V8

So it could very well be a Silhouette Racer! :D

Starlet KP61 Racer V8
Starlet KP61 Racer V8

Looking at all the options included, apart from the (way too small) Minilite wheels, I’d say it is a pretty good deal:
– 4.2 V8
– roll cage
– fully adjustable suspension
– AP racing calipers
– Aluminum bucket seat
Now the big question remains: what engine would be hiding under that little bonnet?

Found at [B.M.S. @ Marktplaats]

Video: 1972 TS-a Touring Car race @ Fuji Speedway


I found a couple of old 70s videos of the Gran Prix Touring Car races at Fuji International Speedway of which this 1972 race is one of the best!

It starts off with showing the thorough process of inspections and approvals on a Toyota Corolla Levin TE27 and a Toyota Sprinter Trueno TE27 in the first part:

Funny to see the whole parkinglot is full of the cars that are going to race at the track!

In the second part the race actually starts and several accidents happen:

Especially the one on the straight around 2:00 looks very spectacular. Marshals running across the track, pushing and pulling the two cars from the track. Sounds very very dangerous…
Also the crash at 6:42 looks dangerous. The upcoming racecars harldy take distance. What if someone would have been trapped in there? And even worse, at 7:38 they use it as a new apex!

In the third part the fierce battle continues:

And ends in an all Toyota Podium: two Celica’s and a Corolla Levin TE27 make it to the podium!

Apart from that an impressive list of cars that attended: Toyota Sprinter Trueno TE27, Corolla Levin TE27, Celica TA22, Nissan Cherry X-1R, Nissan Sunny B110 and a Mazda RX-3.

Found at [Hotcakemix00 @ Youtube]

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