Tag: keiichi tsuchiya (Page 3 of 5)

Video: Trueno and Levin N2 cup in 1985

May 31, 2010 / banpei / 2 Comments

I’ve been watching Youtube user Rocketpencil for some time now. He is already quite known for uploading old racing footage from the 80s and 90s!

He just uploaded one of the best videos so far: a 15 lap Corolla Levin/Sprinter Trueno N2 cup race on Fuji International Speedway in 1985!

This second round of the Corolla/Sprinter cup does not show Keiichi Tsuchya and I have no idea if he actually drove this cup. I do know he drove the AE86 in the All Japan Touring Car championship, so there is a big possibility that he actually drove this race as well. At least he doesn’t show up in the top 5…

Female reporter in a Nissan R810V at 1986 JSPC

May 29, 2010 / banpei / 0 Comments

We all saw the video of Itsuki’s voice actor screaming his lungs out when Keiichi Tsuchya takes him on a drift ride. Well, how about this female reporter riding along with Haruto Yanagida in the Nissan R810V shortly before the 1986 JSPC?

She literally screams her lungs out after the first two corners and bursts into tears when the lap is over… Poor girl…

I must say I probably would not like to trade places with her. The Nissan R810V was based upon the Lola T810 chassis and was powered by a high performance tuned Nissan VG30ET V6 engine. There were no official power outputs of this car, but its IMSA brother had an power output of 641hp and only a weight of 860kg! Imagine driving launched from 90km/h to 300km/h in a few seconds on a wet Fuji Speedway straight: I would probably scream as well. :o

Keiichi Tsuchiya pre freshman series touge video (early 80s)

April 1, 2010 / banpei / 2 Comments

Do you remember this picture of the Drift King?

Two Keiichi Tsuchiyas?
I posted that picture of Keiichi Tsuchiya in his younger years half a year ago. Back then I judged from his glasses that it shot was before he did the Pluspy video and now I got proof of that! A new rogue video of Keiichi drifing in the early 80s emerged where he drifts several cars (including a Corolla TE37, Sunny B210 and a Skyline C110!) on his home touge and he does wear the very same glasses:

Keiichi Tsuchiya rogue video
Unfortunately the user who posted it on Youtube did not allow the video to be embedded, so you will have to do with the screenshot above. To watch the video go here:
Keiichi Tsuchiya drifting touges before his freshman series

Video: Trueno – Sexy Cruising In Europe

March 23, 2010 / banpei / 0 Comments

Yesterday I already posted the Levin video that was posted on HR Blog earlier this week. I promised a follow up, so here it is: the Toyota Sprinter Trueno variant of the same video! D.O posted this additional video on AEU86.

Rally drivers Per Eklund and Klaus Fritzinger drive the Sprinter on the Nurburgring, Zandvoort and Spa again (only the order is a bit different).

This video is even better than the Levin video: the Trueno video shows even more sideways action than the Levin video. Who said Keiichi Tsuchiya and Initial D were the ones to popularize drifting? I think it rather was Toyota with this video! It is a beautiful sight how the panda red Trueno and white Levin do a tandem drift on Spa Francorchamps!

I also spotted a Carina on Spa Francorchamps at @5:41 where Fritzinger talks about the zenki Sprinter Trueno performance. At first I thought he was holding the zenki Trueno catalogue, but when I double checked I found out that pictures of this trip were used in that catalogue, so that wasn’t possible… What was he holding then?

To complete the whole video, the Sexy Sprinter song at the end makes you feel you are back in the 80s again. The echoes of the squealing tires make me want to watch Shuto Trials again! :P

Only the choice for the title of the video is a bit weird IMO. Nowadays it would definitely have a very different meaning. :D

Video Option covering drifting in 1992

December 21, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

A long long time ago drifting was not a popular sport and Keiichi Tsuchiya wasn’t in every Video Option, Hot Version or Drift Tengoku episode you could find! Even covering the drift scene was quite rare! However in those early days Video Option was actually one of the few to cover that scene at all!

The following video from 1992 covers the street drifting, organized drifting and even a few of the “bloopers”:

Amazing! Nobody would even think about using a Nissan Skyline GC110 for drifting nowadays! They are simply worth too much and they are almost as rare as a KPGC10 nowadays! Imagine what people will think in 15 years of us using Skyline R32s and Toyota AE86es for drifing! ;)

What Keiichi Tsuchiya did do was being a judge in drift competitions! This second part covers the Fukuoka National Racing competition:

Amazing! Keiichi Tsuchiya was, just like Daijiro Inada, young back then! :D

It is funny to see him freak out on a Nissan Silvia S13 locking up the rear wheels with the handbrake and drift through the corner at 20 km/h! Imagine that the current slowmotion replays of the D1GP have quicker cornering than that! :D

Of course I do understand that back then the skill mattered more than entry speed. Looking at the result of that match the AE86 did win fair and square!

Hilarious: Keiichi owns Daijiro

September 11, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

During the Tokyo Drift exhibition in Odaiba Keiichi Tsuchiya drives a mazda FC3S convertible with Daijiro Inada riding shotgun. Tsuchiya loses control over the mazda (that hardly ever happens!) and crashes into the tirewall:

If you look closely in the slowmotion replay you can see Keiichi braces himself against the impact while Daijiro (not wearing a seatbelt) didn’t see it coming and is squashed like a fly against the front window. ?????