Remembering Japanese cars from the past
Even though the HACHiRoCK festival 2008 was only 9 months ago the upcoming HACHiRoCK has already been sold out!
HACHiRoCK festival September 13th 2009
250 entries were allowed to the premises of the HACHiRoCK 2009 edition and they already reached this number of entries! :)
Also several AE86 related companies like Impulse, Run Free and Tech-Arts already confirmed they will be there with exhibitions. Can’t wait till see the pictures of this event on the 14th of September! :)
Maybe a bit of a shameless repost, but I really liked the discovery by Beeoneoneoh of a large Japanese Nissan Bluebird 510 blog.
They feature every aspect of the 510 ownership. From the nice and classy lineup pictures:
The men of 510: Nissan Bluebird 510 blog
To the funny bosozoku style pictures:
Funny bosozoku style Bluebird 510
To the cute pictures:
Awwww, how cute: a 510 couple!
I’d say check out their blog:
510????
It was inevitable: one of the Silvias had to feature sooner or later! This week we feature the Nissan Silvia S110, the car that became famous through Kazuyoshi Hoshino during the Super Silhouette Formula till the cars appearance changed to the newer Silvia S12 bodyshape. This car inspired many Silvia S110 owners to convert it into a Grancha style lookalike!
This one is a very very accurate copy of that S110:
immitation of Hoshino’s Grancha Silvia Turbo
And this one a bit less accurate:
Less acurate immitation of Hoshino’s Grancha Silvia Turbo
And it is even not the hatchback!
Less acurate immitation of Hoshino’s Grancha Silvia Turbo
And this pimped out shakotan styled Silvia S110 doesn’t look too good either:
shakotan styled Nissan Gazelle S110
But that’s a matter of taste of course… ;)
Factory stock Nissan Gazelle S110
The predecessor of the Nissan S110 was the ill fated S10: a “traditional” looking sports coupe with a not too hot engine. It was a big failure in Japan and got easily outsold by the Toyota Celica (and the Carina hardtop coupe) and Mazda RX5/RX3. Nissan decided to make the S110 the best car ever! Nissan saw the immense popularity of the rotary Mazdas and thought a rotary engine would be the solution. They forgot that Mazda already had 15 years of experience in rotary engines and Nissan’s attempt was a big failure: it proved to be very unreliable. Nissan decided to release the car with the new Z engine instead to get the production started.
Factory stock Nissan Gazelle S110
There are actually two cars with the S110 chassis number: the Gazelle and the Silvia. The Gazelle had a rectangular grille, just as high as the headlights, while the Silvia has a slightly narrowed grille. The Gazelle/Silvia were produced that all Nissan dealerships could carry the S110. The Gazelle was only sold in Japanes and Australia while the Silvia got exported to Europe and the US (as the 200sx).
The Z engine featured a 1.8, 2.0 and 2.2 liter displacement. The S110 really got its excitement after the introduction of the FJ20E with its facelifted RS model: the DOHC 4 valve EFI 2 liter engine produced 150HP. It featured a big port with dual valve springs and a wide angle bucket on shim valvetrain (only found on the Nissan S20 engine before) and was essentially a blueprint for the later RB and CA engines!
Factory stock Nissan Gazelle S110
The interior was basically an incarnation on the space age designed interior of the Silvia S10. It had a wide console stretching over the transmission tunnel. The material was, like every other late 70s/early 80s car, basic plastic in a two tone scheme.
Outside Japan the Nissan Silvia S110 also had a strong rallying following: a UK company called Blydenstein created a homologated version of the DatsunNissan Silvia S110 with a FJ24 engine: basically a FJ20E with increased displacement and a carburetor stuck on it. It dominated the British rally scene in the early 80s till it was outlawed by the Group B regulations.
Nissan 240RS: Nissan Silvia S110 with FJ24
In march 1983 the Silvia S110 got succeeded by the Nissan S12 in Japan. It wasn’t until 1984 that the S12 was available in other countries.
I understand why the Nissan Silvia/Gazelle S110 is a very popular bosozoku style car: everyone wants to share a bit of that Hoshino spirit! Even though I prefer the later S12 styling more, I think the car itself is a very beautifully styled sports coupe! I would drive one any day! :)
[I posted this article earlier this week on Bosozokustyle.com]
Imagine this: you are the founder of a very big video Magazine about drifting, you created your own drifting challenge, organize several big car shows, know most tuners and drifters in the world, but there is one problem: you can’t drift!
In this video he just smashes the whole rear end of his drift missile Silvia S13 in the sidewall and manages to eat some dust after going too wide in an easy corner.
Ah well, I probably wouldn’t do any better than him in the D1SL (and not even in any other event!) and besides that: I still have the most respect for the man who done it all!
I found some old videos of Karl Skewes (Garage Dori) drifting a Carina Coupe AA60 in the D1NZ. I presume the car either once started out as an AA60 or a TA60 and got converted to a smallport 4AGE. The car itself has a solid axle (upgraded with hilux diff) so that part was not upgraded to IRS.
As you can see the Carina has great cornering abilities:
And it is powerful enough to manji on the straight:
And in this video it looks like his Carina is an easy car to drift:
Now if only my Carina would do that this easy! :o
I also found some nice pics on the Garage Dori website:
Karl Skewes’s Toyota Carina AA60 with Hosinos at the rear!
Looks like a very tough car to me with those matte black Work Equips at the front and the Hoshinos at the rear!
Karl Skewes drifting with his Toyota Carina AA60
From what I understood was that back then Karl’s number one car was an orange AE70 (he used that in D1NZ 2005 round 3) but for some reason he used the AA60 for the fourth round. He still managed to get 8th with the Carina during that fourth round! :)
Have a look at this 1978 Mazda Capella ad:
At first, I didn’t really notice, but this Japanese advertisement for the Mazda Capella is shot on the German Autobahn in the late 70s with a German License plate. By passing the BMW 3 series it looks like Mazda is saying they build a better autobahn stürmer than the BMW 3 series. However, this second generation Capella did not feature a Wankel engine like the Capella 616-based RX-2 did. It would really have been a slap in the face if it did have the Wankel engine: the German invention made to perfection by Japanese engineers and sold with a Japanese hardtop coupe as an autobahn stürmer. IMO a missed opportunity…
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