Remembering Japanese cars from the past

Tag: subaru (Page 2 of 2)

DOTS: Subaru Justy J12 4WD SLII

Another DOTS from my vacation in Hungary: I drove through a small town with a junkyard and spotted a tuned Corolla with big foglights up front. I wanted to take some pictures of the Corolla but it was an EE80 model, too far away and half hidden behind other vehicles. Then I spotted this faded Subaru Justy (aka Subaru Rex in Japan) next to the fence:
Subaru Justy J12 4WD SLII
Subaru Justy J12 4WD SLII

I already saw that the Justy was an 4WD model. The 4WD is very rare in Holland: there is absolutely no use for 4WD unless you are a farmer. But then again: which farmer wants to drive around in a Justy??

Subaru Justy J12 4WD SLII
Subaru Justy J12 4WD SLII

Back home I found out it is the Justy J12 4WD SLII version. Basically it means it is powered by the superior 1.2 liter 3-cylinder engine. In 1988 the 4WD Justy on the Mk1 was introduced in Europe and the Justy got facelifted to a rounder model in 1989. This means this car can only be an 1988 or early 1989 model then.

3 door Subaru Justy J12 4WD SLII
3 door Subaru Justy J12 4WD SLII

The 4WD models were only in 2 door trim (not very logical IMO) and this one is no exception. 😉

I could not take more pictures than this: there was a big trench next to the fence, so either the view would be blocked by the car next to it, or I would be standing inside the trench.

I also failed shooting the first picture of the car: I had been playing with the whitebalance of the camera the day before and forgot to switch back to normal mode. Back home I saw how that turned out:
Subaru Justy on drugs!
Subaru Justy on drugs!

Now the paint even looks more faded! 🙂

Maybe someone can turn this car into a small drifter? The car is a full time 4WD with a LSD on the rear axle, so only cutting the front axles would transform this Kei-car into a Kei drift car! Or maybe someone wants to turn this beautiful rare Japanese car into a rat look? The paint has already faded and it already has a rack on its roof! 😉

Rumor: Toyota Subaru 086A may feature two different body styles

I really found this exciting news by 7Tune.com: the Subaru/Toyota 086a compact sports car is rumored to have two different bodystyles based upon the Legacy floorpan. There are two styles: a very sleek look (Celica T230 lookalike?) and a more serious boxy version.
Toyota Subaru 086a sports car bodystyles
Toyota Subaru 086a sports car bodystyles

Why is this exciting news? Well, quite simple: the Toyota AE86 already featured two bodystyles! There was the more sporty Sprinter Trueno with the popuplights and the more serious Corolla Levin and both shared the same monocoque and bodystyle after the nose. This to improve the reuse of parts between the two cars. This caused a lot Levins to feature Trueno taillights and vice versa.

Then there was the Nissan S13 platform which did the same trick as well but differentiated between the two cars by creating a sporty hatchback and a sleek coupe for touring. After a short period people started to do swaps between the two different cars, mostly because of damaged frontends, and most of these swaps involved a Silvia S13 front to be mounted on a RPS13 180SX and creating the Sil80. The opposite of this was called the OneIva but was a bit more rare because it involved a bit more work. (I know: in the US the OneIva came rolling out of the factory, but it is Japan I’m referring to…) Nowadays we also see a lot of Silvia S15 fronts mounted on S13s and S14s as well.

Nissan Stagea C34/R34 hybrid
Nissan Stagea C34/R34 hybrid

Also the Nissan Skyline GTR (R34/R35) front gets mounted on several cars, like the Stagea. Also let’s not forget the Bee*R R324 and R334 bodykits which allow you to mount a R34 on a R32 and R33. 😀

So, what will these two cars sharing the same 086a monocoque bring to us? Hopefully we’ll see the hybrid bodystyles soon enough! 🙂

Picture of the 086a bodystyles belongs to 7Tune.com and you can find it here: 086a rumors on 7Tune.com

Successor of the Hachi Roku in the fridge

Well it’s the big news of today anyway and I already put it on the AEU86 twitter, so why not place it here again:
Toyota and Subaru have announced that, due to the financial crisis, they postponed their joint development of a small FR coupe (also known as the successor of the Toyota Corolla AE86) till at least 2012 while the originial plan was they would start with building late 2011.

Reason for this can be sought in the shrinking market for cars in Japan. The market has been shrinking for years now due to reliability of cars, but it became worse because of the financial crisis.

My gut feeling is that it will probably be postponed till 2013, but of course this does not mean it will never meet the market at all. At least it should temper the expectations of the car since it was over-hyped anyway.

This is how the car probably would look like:
Toyota and Subaru AE86 successor postponed till 2012
Artist impression of what the small FR coupe should look like

Original source:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aCU1OZuheIys&refer=japan

I found the news already copied here (in order of time):
http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/blog/2008/12/22/rwd-toyobaru-on-hold-nsx-dead/
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/22/report-toyobaru-delayed-until-2012-or-later/
http://speedhunters.com/archive/2008/12/23/news-gt-gt-toyota-subaru-fr-project-delayed-until-2012.aspx

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