Remembering Japanese cars from the past
Owning a Nissan Skyline DR30 once means you will remember the car forever, or like Minkara user Winter Strawberry driving them with his family for over 30 years!
It all started with buying a brand new red tekkamen Nissan Skyline RS two door hardtop coupe in 1983.
Which was a few years later (around 1988) followed up with a two door white Nissan Skyline RS Turbo C hardtop coule to also haul his kids: Continue reading
The video displaying this Nissan Skyline GT-R KPGC10 cutaway model was made by Daniel O’Grady from Wasabi Cars and I must say it looks awesome!
Its builder, Mr Junji Sawada, created something way cooler than an ordinary cutaway drawing: a cutaway scale model in 1/24 size and it is based upon a standard Tamiya model. You can see through most of the parts and if you look through the trunklid (or bootlid) you can see the special GT-R fueltank and spare wheel. The last two parts have been handcrafted as they were not part of the original.
Look for more details in the video below:
Continue readingLately the Toyota Starlet EP71 is making its comeback to the streets fast! Gone are all the wellfare moms who drove the Starlet P7 for years without maintenance. Gone are all the grandpas and grandmas who drove the Starlet P7 and wrote down every liter of fuel consumed in a small booklet. Gone are all the 18 year old new driver girls who drove the Starlet P7 because it was the only affordable car.
Welcome to all enthusiasts that want to buy a (almost) classic car with go-kart experience on a shoestring budget! And I see more and more of them lately.
Yes, if you would like to buy an affordable classic this is definitely the car to buy. You can mod it without major cost involved as shock and spring upgrades, tires, aftermarket exhaust and engine upgrades are cheap for this car: Continue reading
What JNC is so ugly that it is cute? That was basically JNC’s last weeks question of the week. I’d say anything that leaves the Mitsuoka factory. I’m reposting my comment because I think it is an answer that I have that deserves a bit more length than I gave it in the comment. Also don’t take this posting too seriously: I’m ranting more than reasoning down below. ;)
Mitsuoka started their car company by producing the Shuttle 50, passed on its technology to the BUBU 50 and by then things still were fine. It started to go downhill once Mitsuoka built a Mercedes-Benz SSK and Porsche 356 lookalike cars using the underpinnings of existing cars.
Both cars were received quite well and to illustrate how well they did their job, can you see the difference between a Porsche 356 and the Bubu 356 below?
I have to look at least thrice to notice tiny little differences… So there is nothing wrong (yet) with these almost perfect replicas. However these two cars initiated the shift in focus towards retro styled cars.
From then onwards Mitsuoka became a carrozzeria that built retro-lookalike cars based upon an existing chassis (mostly Nissan and Honda). This would not have been bad at all if they did things like Nissan did with the Pikes cars (Be/Figaro/Pao/S-Cargo). Mitsuoka chose instead for the baroque way and created hideous cars in the 90s like the Le-Seyde (S13 meets Cruella de Vil), Ryoga (Primera P11 meets Jaguar XK120) and best (or worst) of all the Viewt (March K11 meets Jaguar Mark 2).
Continue reading
In 1982 and 1983 Masahiro Uchida and Masaru Kubota joined the Paris-Dakar rally in a Toyota Carina ST A60. The year after they chose a different beast: a Toyota Corolla Levin AE86 coupe. And they stuck to that formula the next two years as well.
I have no idea who is posing next to the AE86, but surely that is neither Masahiro Uchida nor Masaru Kubota.
This is a zenki Levin, so it is not the same as the kouki the team used in their famous 1986 video.
Now there are a couple of things odd in this photo: first of all the exhaust is modified in a way that became fashionable in the mid 90s on Opel Calibras and Volkswagen Golfs. Probably they tilted the exhaust tip upwards to prevent it hitting rocks and bumps.
Second of all the rear axle appears if it is IRS and leaning on the stack of tires. Could it be they converted the live axle to IRS to increase ride height? I watched the 1986 video two times in a row but could not see a similar modification on the kouki Levin AE86 they used in 1986…
Via: Forum-Auto
This is by far the best plastic toddler car I have seen so far, the blue Calsonic Skyline R34:
I wish I could have given one of these Calsonic Skyline R34s to my son instead of that horrid Smoby toddler car he got from one of my aunts. What is cooler than having your son imitate the Japanese Grand Touring Championship (JGTC) in your living room? By far one of the greatest treasures to keep in your family album!
This photo was shot by the guy who runs the Restive Horse blog on Minkara and this a gift for his son’s first birthday. You can really see he receives the R34 with great pleasure!
Found at Restive Horse
(BTW: anyone familiar what an Honolulu BBQ is?)
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