Remembering Japanese cars from the past
Just some plain weirdness: Google Images stopped indexing my images some time ago and I’ve already tried several things to improve this. Up so far I did not succeed…
I did just notice that most of the image tags of the images indexed were all done with double-quotes instead of the current single quote I’m using… Perhaps that’s the answer why! So, let’s see in a couple of days if the indexed images are better! :)
I found this rare old footage from Video Option (????????) some time ago at the same person who posted the 1991 380HP levin.
It is footage from 1989 or 1990, so this must be one of the very first Video Option coverages!
Not that it is actually very interesting apart from the 10 seconds featuring Keiichi Tsuchiya and a brand new Skyline GT-R R32. It only shows some underground drag races and of course the Skyline wins.
Everybody remembers Macau GP 1990 of the clash between Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher. A race which showed what both drivers were capable of back then and later in their careers.
For those who don’t know the story in a nutshell:
Mika Hakkinen, a famous Formula 3 driver back then, already won first leg of the Macau GP 1990 and needed to get second in the second leg of the race. He started okay, but an unknown Formula 3 driver called Michael Schumacher was just a bit quicker and drove in front of Mika Hakkinen.
Hakkinen could not pass Schumacher and Schumacher could not shake off Hakkinen. Hakkinen remained where he was during the whole race since he only needed to get second. Schumacher could not win this race by getting first. Schumacher left open a gap in the last round and Hakkinen fell for the trap: Schumacher closed the gap and hit Hakkinen’s nose of the car. The car crashed into the wall and Hakkinen just lost the race by getting too eager to get first. If you want to see this happen, watch this:
Schumacher vs Hakkinen at the Macau GP 1990.
Of course with the knowledge of the Formula 1 races we now know that this is Schumachers trademark: compare this incident with Damon Hill’s and Jaques Villeneuve’s incidents with Schumacher. ;)
Anyway, what not many people know is that in that very same race someone else crashed into the wall as well: Keiichi Tsuchiya.
Tsuchiya was racing one time only for team Takasu Clinic with the Ralt RT34 chassis (Mugen-Honda), the predecessor of the chassis he was going to use through his 1991 Formula 3 season with Team 5Zigen.
He was 12th in the race and was making progress to climb up.
Here you can see the track layout:
Just when he was overtaking at the streight before Lisboa bend, the car in front drove its own line without seeing him passing. He gets pushed into the guardrail and exit Keiichi.
Found this on HR Blog yesterday:
Waltzing hachi rokus in Ireland!!!
I think it is a very memorable achievement! I already think dancing an AE86 is wicked, but revving the Emperor Waltz by Johann Strauss is simply amazing!!
Again I had a tough one after last weeks Mr. T raps and Jozin z Bazin, but again I managed to find another gem! :)
This week I found Den Harrow when searching material for the Italo Disco vs Early demoscene posting. I remember Den Harrow from my youth and back then I thought some of his songs were great!
One of my favorites was Future Brain (great clip!)
Well, boy was I wrong. I just heard “A Taste Of Love” on Last.fm and immediately thought it was great stuff for the hilarious section.
When looking at this and reading the Wikipedia page about Den Harrow I found this small quote:
Revealing the Truth
After years of continued fame and popularity, the fans of Den Harrow were faced with an unbelievable news, it was revealed both by the frontman of Den Harrow Stefano Zandri and the producers that they had been hiding the truth from their millions of fans. It was disclosed that Stefano Zandri did not actually sing his own songs; he was essentially a character who lip-synched to vocals produced by a number of other Italo singers.
No shit? He didn’t sing that himself? Amazing nobody ever noticed! It’s soooo obvious if you look at that live perfomance! And the alternating voices between the songs and years?
Something that would be a nice thing is that if Den Harrow jumped from the Italo disco bandwagon on to the Eurobeat bandwagon during the early 90s instead of persisting that he learned to sing and still performes 100% the same song over and over again…
The sad thing is that he nowadays claims he leaned to sing and still sings Future Brain with the same voice as 23 years ago!
The AE86 driven by Mike van der Raadt was one of the cars used in the Dutch Corolla Cup. The Dutch Corolla Cup started out as a one brand only racing cup. All cars should be equal to each other and could only be modified under restrictions. This allowed drivers to show their skills more than the tuners could do with time and money. It made the cup very competitive and fun to watch. Of course, due to the equality of the cars, a lot of banging was done and not many of the cars survived.
Here you can see some pictures of the Dutch Corolla Cup in action:
When the Dutch Corolla Cup entered its second generation of Rollas it received a different engine as well: the 4AGE of the AE86 instead of the 2T-G of the TE71. With this new engine it became again the field of time and money. The more money put into the team, the better the outcome. Then in 1986, also probably due to the obsoletion of RWD Toyota cars, the new Starlet took over and the races were only driven with the new FWD Starlets.
Of course the teams and drivers still used their Corollas in different cups and races, like for instance the ETCC, BTTC or endurance races.
The AE86 driven by Mike van der Raadt was a very competitive car in the Dutch Corolla Cup and not only in the Corolla Cup, but also later on in the Super Touring Class (nowadays referred as Group A). Theo Koks said in his last interview that there were only two really big competitors: the AE86 driven by Mike van der Raadt and the VW Sirocco of the director of Zandvoort.
As you can see in the picture below the Corolla was competing in the Super Touring class:
And it claims that the Corolla GT put the lap record of Zandvoort back into Dutch hands. IMO that is a bit impossible: Formula one just disappeared from Zandvoort back then and atleast those cars should be much much faster than this Corolla GT. Perhaps the lap record was set for the Super Touring class.
Back to the Corolla Cup: there are most probably still some other Corolla Cup or endurance racecars out there. I know for instance that the AE86 driven by Jasper Spaan stared its life as an endurance racer. It is RHD, non-European from origin and had a diff cooler in its axle. It was stored for 16 or 17 years when he bought it. Maybe this car was used in one of the endurance races on Spa as well.
I did find a bunch of pictures of Toyota Corollas (AE86) on Spa Francorchamps here, but no pictures of Jasper’s car. Anyone got more pictures of the old endurance races on Spa Francorchamps?
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