Remembering Japanese cars from the past
Speedhunters already made a posting about it yesterday, but today and tomorrow is the D1GP final.Daigo Saito, Youichi Imamura and Ken Nomura will be fighting for the title of 2008.
Have a look at this funny poster they made:
I think originally Keiichi Tsuchiya thought the pre-last frame was the craziest. ;)
In this final Takahiro Ueno will use his Toyota Soarer for the last time. Sad to see such an icon go. Feels a bit the same as when Katsuhiro Ueo left the AE86 platform. :(
I found this rare old footage from Video Option (????????) some time ago at the same person who posted the 1991 380HP levin.
It is footage from 1989 or 1990, so this must be one of the very first Video Option coverages!
Not that it is actually very interesting apart from the 10 seconds featuring Keiichi Tsuchiya and a brand new Skyline GT-R R32. It only shows some underground drag races and of course the Skyline wins.
Everybody remembers Macau GP 1990 of the clash between Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher. A race which showed what both drivers were capable of back then and later in their careers.
For those who don’t know the story in a nutshell:
Mika Hakkinen, a famous Formula 3 driver back then, already won first leg of the Macau GP 1990 and needed to get second in the second leg of the race. He started okay, but an unknown Formula 3 driver called Michael Schumacher was just a bit quicker and drove in front of Mika Hakkinen.
Hakkinen could not pass Schumacher and Schumacher could not shake off Hakkinen. Hakkinen remained where he was during the whole race since he only needed to get second. Schumacher could not win this race by getting first. Schumacher left open a gap in the last round and Hakkinen fell for the trap: Schumacher closed the gap and hit Hakkinen’s nose of the car. The car crashed into the wall and Hakkinen just lost the race by getting too eager to get first. If you want to see this happen, watch this:
Schumacher vs Hakkinen at the Macau GP 1990.
Of course with the knowledge of the Formula 1 races we now know that this is Schumachers trademark: compare this incident with Damon Hill’s and Jaques Villeneuve’s incidents with Schumacher. ;)
Anyway, what not many people know is that in that very same race someone else crashed into the wall as well: Keiichi Tsuchiya.
Tsuchiya was racing one time only for team Takasu Clinic with the Ralt RT34 chassis (Mugen-Honda), the predecessor of the chassis he was going to use through his 1991 Formula 3 season with Team 5Zigen.
He was 12th in the race and was making progress to climb up.
Here you can see the track layout:
Just when he was overtaking at the streight before Lisboa bend, the car in front drove its own line without seeing him passing. He gets pushed into the guardrail and exit Keiichi.
A few days ago HachiRoku.com.au blogged about Keiichi Tsuchiya’s hachi buildup. It was probably shot somewhere in the late 90s/early 2000s. (2023 edit: it was 2002!) I didn’t want you to miss this video (in case you didn’t read it yet at HR):
You can see Tsuchiya really pushed the car before! Structural damage, cracks in the front towers and the seat bracket ripped loose! All is repaired and the car is repainted in it’s original white color. And what stroke me most was that his hachi suffered from rust on exactly the same spots as mine used to have.
I posted this video a few days back on AEU86, but in my opinion the video is misunderstood.
2 Toyota AE86s vs Nissan R34:
In this video featuring Keiichi Tsuchiya and Manabu Orido taking on a “nerd” in a Nissan Skyline GTR-34. Ofcourse the two hachis win and making the piss out of the GTR. Often this is directly translated into the Hachi still being capable of beating other cars.
In my opinion this interpretation is wrong. First of all the two hachis have been modified a lot (165hp and 200hp) and drive against a bone stock GTR. Don’t forget Keiichi had over 15 years of experience with the hachi-roku when that video was shot. He modified his 165hp hachi to the max, giving him the optimal advantage.
Then both Keiichi and Orido are very experienced AE86 drivers and know the car pretty well. This against a total inexperienced GTR driver is like stealing candy from a baby. To illustrate how experienced Keiichi is: Orido can’t even pass him with a 35hp difference. Then take in mind how Keiichi drove with a R32 in the past and draw your conclusion: the driver of the R34 just sucks.
In my opinion this is also the conclusion of the video in Japanese. The “nerd” boasting about his R34 and Keiichi and Orido showing him that even if you pick the fastest car you’re nothing without skill
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