Tag: video option (Page 1 of 2)

Top Gear missed it’s chance with the Toyota Comfort GT-Z!

July 8, 2013 / banpei / 0 Comments

Today I watched the second episode of the new Top Gear season (season 20 already!) where Hammond organized a Taxi race. In this race he featured taxis from various countries like Russia, India, South Africa but for some reason he left out Japan. Now this is a missed chance as Japan would have an adequate contentder:

Okay, the supercharged 3S-FE may not be the most powerful of the whole bunch, but with its tweaked suspension it probably would have beaten the competition in half a lap… Or could it be that they were actually frightened?

See the full video of the Comfort GT-Z here: Continue reading

Motoharu Kurosawa tests the Leopard F31 for Video Option

Video Option: Motoharu Kurosawa tests the Leopard F31

September 24, 2012 / banpei / 0 Comments

Long before Keiichi Tsuchiya earned his stripes in racing Motoharu Kurosawa dominated the Japanese GP in his hakosuka Skyline GT-R. The same happened with reviewing cars for Video Option magazine: long before we became familiar with Keiichi pushing any Japanese sports/racing/tuned car to the limit on a touge run Motoharu Kurosawa was doing the same:

Looking at this September 1988 review of the Nissan Leopard F31 it becomes clear a lot has changed in the past 24 years, for instance the tests that mattered: Continue reading

WTF: Is the Stig driving a Mitsubishi Cyborg?

November 3, 2011 / banpei / 1 Comment

Just watched this road test of the Mitsubishi Cyborg C50 (aka the Mitsubishi Colt) by Video Option and it is a bit weird to see the Stig driving for a different automotive video magazine!

And yes I know: I do have a weakness for this Colt model as it was the first car I bought. 😉

Hilarious: Nomuken teaches pronunciation

October 29, 2010 / banpei / 1 Comment

I took this small clip from the Video Option Drift Heaven vol. 15 where Nomuken teaches his pupil how to pronounce L.S.D. (Limited Slip Differential). All I can make of it is Ludesocksedaiski.

Now how would you pronounce that? 😛

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! 😀

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! 😀

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!

Culture shock: Smokey Nagata and his Nissan Skyline V35 GTR

May 27, 2009 / banpei / 2 Comments

Some people may know Kazuhiko “Smokey” Nagata from his wild stunt at the British M1 almost a decade ago. Well, his looks are still the same: he still looks like he just walked out of 1991. 😀

I found this video about him and his Top Secret ~~GT-R R35~~ Skyline V35, I guess fall 2008, and the contrast between him (1991) and the ~~GT-R (2008)~~ Skyline V35 (2005) is enormous! Have a look at almost 15 years of culture shock:

I really think he does amazing things! It is a 720hp V8 powered GT-R. He tuned a VQ30DETT to 720hp, while during the Super GT series (JGTC) that engine only had an output of 480hp, so that’s an enormous increase in power!

According to Smokey Nagata the car itself does 330km/h, but when he takes it out on the German autobahn it even gets as fast as 343km/h! That’s insane! Ah well, he may look a bit dull but atleast his life isn’t. 😉

Edit: I found an English translation of the last part of the video:
Kazuhiko+%22SMOKY%22+Nagata+on+the+Autobahn