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Optionland Exciting Car Showdown 2009

March 9, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

I read on the Impulse blog that they are going to attend for the first time the Optionland Exciting Car Showdown on 4th and 5th of April 2009.
Optionland Exciting Car Showdown is indeed organized by Option Video and is a yearly carshow held in the first weekend of April in Nagoya:

Daijiro Inada and Tsuchiya opening the 2008 Optionland showdown

I immediately went to the Optionland Showdown page and looked through the pictures of 2008 and I surely did find a lot of great looking cars:

Great looking Trueno GT (2 door) from icode

Super clean Levin with widened fenders

And of course this N2 Levin AE86:

Beautiful N2 Levin AE86

Also this nicely tuned Nissan Crew, probably with a highly tuned RB26DETT engine:

Tuned Nissan Crew with RB26DETT
The Nissan Crew is the counterpart of the Toyota Comfort GT-Z, however it has got a bit more

And what about classic racers like this Corolla Levin TE27?

Corolla Levin TE27 racer

And an almost classic Nissan Skyline R30 tuned for speed:

Zenki Nissan Skyline R30
Its setup looks a bit similar to a well known DR30 racer.

The Impulse hachis are in my opinion a great addition to the Optionland Exciting Car Showdown! If 2008 was already that good I can’t wait till 4th of April to see this years showdown!

Drifting with automatic gearbox?

March 7, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

I saw this trailer of Drift Tengoku yesterday:

I was really amazed that drifting with an automatic is that easy!

Basically the technique behind drifting is very possible with an automatic: by limiting the automatic to go a gear up it will always keep the gearbox in the same gear (unless your revs go under something like 3000rpm) so the automatic becomes a bit manual this way. The only trouble is to prevent hitting Drive or Reverse accidentally but as you can see in this video they use a lock to prevent you from doing that.

Of course there are some techniques which are not possible: for instance a drift at high speed doing a clutch kick or controlling the drift with the clutch while going sideways. But who cares if you can’t Manji that easy with an automatic!

So there is still hope for my Carina! However… I do need some extra power first and I only have a 3 speed automatic, so shifting between 2nd and 3rd may be a bit far from each other. Think I’ll stick to the original plan then. ;)

Carina Sightings: Carina A6 Coupe pace car

March 6, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

I still can’t let go the Honda City so I was browsing some blogs and videos about the Honda City and came across this nice video:

You can see some early 80s action on the track in the wet!
During the take off you can see a yellow pace car at 22 seconds and 34 which looks very much like a Carina Coupe. Its front lights are square, rear lights are long and wide and its boot has a tiny flat spot. So I think this pace car must be a Carina A6 Coupe.

To keep up with these small Honda City turbos it most probably must have been the TA63 with the 3T-GTE engine. The 4AGE would not be quick enough to follow them: a City turbo racing spec did the 1/4 mile in 13.5 seconds!

As a bonus, another start of a Honda City race and this time it is really spectacular:

Old school Japanese police cars

March 5, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

I just happened to stumble upon this nice video of all pre 1984 Japanese police cars:

I think the people loving the Seibu Keisatsu regulars at Japanese Nostalgic Car blog will recognize a lot of the cars in this video.

I did spot a lot of Crows, Glorias and Cedrics. But also rare cars like the Ford Mustang Mach 1 and a 240Z and a 300ZX highway chasers!

Popular Bosozoku cars: Mazda Cosmo RX5

March 3, 2009 / banpei / 1 Comment

To stay with the 70s styling this week I will highlight the Mazda Cosmo RX5:

Bosozoku style Mazda (sexy) Cosmo RX5
Just like last weeks Mark II X3/X4 and the Gloria/Cedric C330 I did two weeks ago the Mazda Cosmo RX5 has a very distinct bodystyle and can easily be spotted between all cars on Bosozoku meetings.

What happened? Boso got shot?
The bodyshape of the Mazda Cosmo RX5 has some lines which make it look mean. The Cosmo RX5 lines really resemble Mazda’s design linup of that era: all American styling! I think this also reflects in the modifications made on this car, especially with the car in the picture above. Wild wild west yanky style!

Nicely styled bosozoku Mazda Cosmo RX5
The weird thing is that I actually couldn’t find any non Bosozoku styled Mazda Cosmo RX5. No Shakotan or Kyusha styled cars, only the bad ass modified bosozoku cars… Big wide fenders, oil coolers sticking out of the grille, big ducktail spoilers and exhausts high in the air: I’ve seen it all!

Factory stock Mazda Cosmo RX5
Factory stock Mazda Cosmo AP RX5
The Mazda RX5 was the successor of the first Mazda Cosmo and not the Mazda RX4. The RX4 was the wankel engined Luce, while the Luce is more a luxurious sedan with a wankel engine the Cosmo is the more sporty car. The car was called Mazda Cosmo AP in Japan while outside Japan it sold as the Mazda RX5. In some countries is was sold as the Mazda 121 featuring a 1.8 liter SOHC piston engine.

Factory stock Mazda Cosmo RX5
Factory stock Mazda Cosmo AP RX5
The Mazda Cosmo featured the 12A or the 13B engine in Japan, while overseas all Mazda RX5s featured the 13B. The reason for this decision was because overseas meant America. Americans, of course, favored larger displacements back then. The 13B was basically a widened 12A engine which caused the displacement to increase to 1308cc. That’s a 15% increase in displacement on a Wankel engine!

The 13B was a big improvement above the 12A because it was designed for high performance and low emissions at the same time. AP stood for Anti-Pollution and this designation was adapted on all Japanese Cosmos.

Mazda Cosmo warning system
Even though the Mazda Cosmo AP RX5 was the more sportier car it did feature a lot of luxury which could only be found in the high end Luce. Take for instance this warning system: it checked the functioning of several systems in the car. Nowadays it may sound as trivial with all new cars already featuring satellite navigation but back then it was unlike anything seen so far!

I really love the styling of the Cosmo AP! Too bad this car only sold in Europe as the Mazda 121 with the piston engine… :(

[I posted this article earlier today on Bosozokustyle.com]

Honda City and Motocompo study in 2001: the Honda e-DAX

March 2, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

I couldn’t let go the combination of the Honda City and the Motocompo, so I did some searching upon the topic of foldable motorized bikes and found this:

The Motocompo successor: the Honda e-DAX
The e-DAX was a prototype shown at the Tokyo Motor Show 2001 as a foldable bike for the Honda Bulldog prototype. What a coincidence that the Honda City Turbo II was nicknamed the Bulldog (it really looked like one!) and the Motocompo’s bigger brother was called the Dax in Europe.

Honda Bulldog and e-DAX on Tokyo Motor Show 2001
The e-DAX only weighted 25kg and could easily be folded into a compact package. The e-DAX has unfolded the same dimensions as the Motocompo but was rougly twice as small when folded. Also the weight was only half of the Motocompo. I really wonder why Honda never actually tried to sell the e-DAX…

If you want to know more about the e-DAX or the Bulldog:
[Honda World e-DAX exhibition]
[e-DAX on Tokyo Motor Show 2001]

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