Remembering Japanese cars from the past
It is one of these things: a car manufacturer likes to boast their car is used as the official marshall car at a very well known circuit. Back in the 90s Honda did not make an exception by promoting the Honda CRX as the official Suzuka marshall car:
Honda added a bodykit and a set of Work Meisters.
But it gets even better when you actually find a photo taken up close in 19941992:
Found at: Minkara
Just a random picture I encountered browsing this week: a Honda City Turbo II at the Suzuka Circuit collection hall!
It reminds me of some Youtube movie I posted a long time ago about a Honda City Turbo cup race but the video has been removed now. If only I could watch it again and search for the car above…
Anyone seen a Honda City Turbo cup race posted on Youtube lately? :P
Via Minkara
Rocketpencil posted some new racing videos on Youtube including this 1984 Suzuka 1000km endurance race! These endurance races were always the main event for the so called Granchan races (Grand Championship) where a lot of mixed groups were racing at the same event. The Super Silhouette (Group 5) races were mostly a (short) prequel to the main event.
In this video you can see some of the Super Silhouette cars at 0:46, the Nissan Silvia Turbo and a Mazda RX7.
During the main event you can also see a few cars from a different group riding along: some Nissan Sunny B210s, Toyota Corolla Levin AE86s, Honda Civics, Mazda RX7s, a Toyota Starlet KP61, a Honda Ballade CRX and a Honda Prelude SN!
My heart jumped last wednesday when Alexi Smith from Nori Yaro posted this white toyota Carina GT-R AA63 drifting on a wet Suzuka:
White Carina AA63 by Nori Yaro
Did he know wednesdays is always my Carina Sighting day? Did he do that on purpose? Can’t he post up a wallpaper version of that picture? :P
Anyway, head over to Nori Yaro for more pictures of this white beauty:
white Carina GT-R AA63 at Nori Yaro
One of the people I’m following on Youtube, uncrowdedmonarch, posted this video of a typically 60s race at Suzuka Circuit and I think it’s the 1964 Japanese Grand Prix:
The second race is Touring Class V where the Prince Skylines easily won from their competion (Hino Contessa 900, Nissan Bluebird 410) and took al first six places!
Looking at the results of the first race (skip to 6:42) this must have been the legendary second Japanese Grand Prix (held on 2nd and 3rd of May 1964) in which the new Prince Skyline S54 2000GTs lost to a single (privately entered) Porsche 904 in the GT-II class! Even though the Skylines took consecutively 2nd to 6th place blowing away the competition (MG-Bs and Isuzu Bellet) this loss was so humiliating that Dr. Sakuri of Prince Motors initiated a project to create the ultimate racecar to defeat the Porsche the next time. This grudge still lives on in the battle between Nissan and Porsche for the fastest lap times around the Nürburgring. This learned Nissan what the best place is to humiliate someone: its home turf! ;)
The project resulted in the amazing legendary Prince R380. The next time Prince and Porsche met (1966 Japanese Grand Prix) the R380 proved to be worthy to its maker: Prince defeated the Porsche 906 by taking first and second place!
Yesterday I found this video of an AA63 sedan racing on Suzuka circuit (west course). The engine is probably almost bone stock with a few small modifications like an open airfilter.
He does a quite good run but then runs into some slower (probably pit out) Hakosuka Skylines and then gets passed by a very quick 280ZX. Quite fun to see him trying to chase the 280ZX for some time but then he gets engine trouble.
You can hear around 4:12 some metal sound in the engine note and the driver probably broke something in the engine. Also in the comments it states that the engine broke, but it doesn’t say exactly what broke. He then tails the Ken-meri and another Hakosuka Skyline and when he enters the pit lane he immediately leaves the track.
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