Remembering Japanese cars from the past
This must be the best dad in the world: taking his daughter to school in a white Nissan Skyline GT-R BNR32! School runs were never this short and fun unless your dad owns a Skyline GT-R!
Being a dad myself, I can certainly relate to this choice! Noice!
Via Rainy Touge Club
Aiden Millward has done a ton of videos about racing and I love his storytime videos. It harks back to those good old days and Aiden can tell these stories with that little extra cherry on top. Most of his storytime videos are about Formula One or Le Mans 24 Hours as those are the most covered motorsport in this world. However, earlier this week, I was pleased to see him covering the story of Godzilla. The R32. How it earned its name. How it outclassed everything else.
Not to spoil too much of this story, but the Nissan Skyline R32 didn’t earn its nickname in Japan. It earned this name in the Australian Touring Car Championship (ATTC) over the period of 1989-1992 when it dominated the Supercars (group A) racing series.
You can find the video below:
Continue reading
The Shuto Kosoku Trials (also known as Megalopolis Expressway Trials) is one of the best Japanese car related movie series from the late 1980s until the late 1990s. Unsurprisingly they closely collaborated together with Keiichi Tsuchiya to make the racing action more realistic. This video that I found is a VHS tape transfer of the making of the stunts used in Shuto Kosuku Trial 5: the Final Battle. This movie was shot in 1992 and you see this reflected in the use of a brand new red Mazda RX-7 FD! It’s also amazing to see how much care is taken into making these stunts!
What do a Subaru R-2 SS, a Toyota Sports 800, a Honda Motocompo and a Honda Today have in common? They are all driven by the police in You’re Under Arrest! And what do they use them for? Naturally to chase down fast cars like Toyota Supra A70s and Nissan Skyline GT-Rs in the early 90s! In this video I’ll spot all the cars and some motorcycles in the first four parts of this Dark Horse publication.
You’re Under Arrest was one of the original series the young Kosuke Fujishima started to draw. As he was obsesses with cars and motorcycles this naturally became part of the manga series. The series revolve around the fictional Bokuto Police Station in Sumida, Tokyo. The two protagonists are the female police officers Natsumi Tsujimoto and Miyuki Kobayakawa who share a healthy petrolhead mentality. Natsumi prefers motorbikes over cars and is the more physical of the duo. Miyuki on the other hand loves cars and loves to wrench on them whenever she can. She is also the brains of the duo.
In this manga various (in)famous cars and motorbikes can be spotted. The duo drives around in a Honda Today police special, which has been blessed by Miyuki’s wrenching skills and can easily keep up with Toyota Supras and Lancia Delta Integrales. Another frequent visitor is the foldable Honda Motocompo that resides in the trunk of the Honda Today for, whatever reason possible, Natsuki to chase some bad guys downtown Tokyo. Also the Subaru R-2 SS mentioned in the introduction plays a big role on one of the story: the owner of the Subaru R-2 SS gets this car nicked and Natsuki ends up buying it. That just screams for a motorcycle engine swap!
The Ah! My Goddess manga may have made Kosuke Fujishima (world) famous, but it’s origins lie within the You’re Under Arrest manga. In one episode Natsuki and Miyuki encounter a goddess and this story inspired Kosuke Fujishima to create the Ah! My Goddess manga where the goddess Belldandy meets the student Keiichi Morrisato. I have also created a Manga Car Spotting episode for this series some time ago.
You can find the video and the high resolution scans of the panels containing manga cars below: Continue reading
Ever wondered which cars are featured in Initial D? And perhaps also wondered which model, make and type these manga cars are? In this third episode of Manga car spotting, I’ll be spotting cars in the first book of Initial D! This first book is the US version of the Manga by Tokyopop and covers chapters 1 to 10 of the Japanese Manga.
I don’t think Initial D needs an introduction: it’s the classic racing manga / racing anime series that gained huge popularity during the mid 1990s in Japan and mid 2000s outside Japan. The manga itself contains many layers of depth and isn’t just about cars, but also about (family) relationships and harsh training by commitment and determination. These first 10 chapters are mostly the introductory of the characters and the setting, so not a lot of action will happen. Still it was fun to do!
You can find the video and the high resolution scans of the panels containing manga cars below:
Continue readingI could stare for hours to this Nissan RB26DETT cutaway drawing and still not see every detail in it!
The black valve cover on this Nissan RB26DETT uncovers this engine as a R32 or R33 type and as the cutaway drawings got out of fashion in the 90s the drawing is probably made around the launch of the BNR32 in 1989.
The Nissan RB26DETT is/was one of the most awesome engines that Nissan made. The engine is an cast iron block with aluminum head, has 24 valves with double overhead cam, a parallel twin-turbo setup and six individual throttle bodies. Even though the initial power was “only” 280ps (276hp) the engine is able to output more than 1 megawatt (1,340 hp) after heavy modifications. I would say it is a good successor of the Nissan S20
Drawing via Autospeed
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