Tag: toyota ae86 (Page 5 of 8)

Alternative Automotive Site of the Year Award

November 4, 2010 / banpei / 2 Comments

It is the end of the year and I see lots of sites being nominated for a Website of the year award. Personally I don’t really care about these kind of things since most sites that are nominated are too far off my own personal taste. Take for instance the Dutch nominees for “Automotive website of the year”:
Oldtimer Nederland – Basically a static page where you can find parts and repairmen, but anything Asian or Japanese is not included
Onderdelen zoeker – Find second hand automotive parts. Anything older than 20 years can not be found
Autoscout 24 – Find and buy second hand cars
Autotrack – Find and buy second hand cars (didn’t we cover that already?)
Autotrader – Find and buy second hand cars (another one?)
Marktplaats Auto – Find and buy second hand cars (yet another one?)
Gebruikte Auto – Find and buy second hand cars (come on guys!)
Autoweek – Website of the largest Dutch automotive magazine
etc. etc.

As you can see, not really my cup of tea between those nominees and, as I see it, not really exciting sites and definitely most of them are old fashioned sites that are not following trends. The same goes for the nominees in the UK (with the exception of Pistonheads being nominated) and in several other countries. Don’t these guys have any clue what is going on in the world??

So I thought: why not nominate a bunch of automotive sites by the community and have an alternative automotive site of the year award (ASS-YA in short :P ) handed out to any site that has been nominated and voted as best.

Nomination is quite simple and consists of three basic rules:
1. The site/blog/community needs to be automotive related
2. You can’t nominate your own site/blog/community
3. When you nominate a site/blog/community you have to state the reason why you think it should be nominated.

You can send in a nomination by sending me a short email complying to the rules above before the 15th of November. You can send it to: banpei [at] banpei.net with the subject nominee Alternative Awards and I’ll take care of it. ;)

And because a blog post is nothing without pictures or video, here is a completely unrelated video:

Onboard video of a 4A-GZE powered hachi! :9

If you got distracted by this video: don’t forget to send in your nomination!!!

JAF 2010 pics and new blogroll

September 7, 2010 / banpei / 1 Comment

Some time ago I posted a racing spec Supra MA71 spotted by on the Dutch highways. Since then I’m following his blog where he already posted a Honda Civic tribute and about Initial D. Yesterday he posted about his visit to the Japanese Autosport Festival at the TT circuit in Assen with 100+ pictures!

These are my two favorite pictures of the JAF 2010:
Einnebs AE86 at JAF 2010 Assen (NL)
Einneb’s AE86 at JAF 2010 Assen (NL)

Lexus GS300 at JAF 2010 Assen (NL)

And tp give you an overview of what I missed this weekend:

JAF 2010 Assen (NL)
On one side I really regret not going there, but on the other side I’m happy I stayed at home since my son’s tonsils were removed last Friday and he was really suffering from it.

Commerical time: Yes, be pop with your Corsa!

September 6, 2010 / banpei / 1 Comment

When I saw this commercial my first thought was that the title was wrong: it looks like a zenki AE86 Sprinter Trueno front end in the first seconds, but then I saw the rear… Oh my… That resembled the third generation Daihatsu Charade!

Yes, be pop with your Corsa! Or Tercel for the non-Japanese residents!

This third generation Corsa featured a 3E-TELU powered GP Turbo model that was clearly marketed as a little sister of the Trueno. In power it actually may have been (almost) equal to the AE86, but it drivetrain was unfortunate in the 80s FF fashion… Otherwise it may have been a candidate to be the Starlet KP61 sucessor!

Count the hachis (hachi roku day at Fuji Speedway)

August 9, 2010 / banpei / 2 Comments

This video shows what the average hachi roku enthusiast will drool over: 4:25 minutes non-stop hachi action on hachi-roku-day at Fuji Speedway!

Anyone actually able to count them all? I lost track at a certain moment and my guess is somewhere near 30!

Direct link to video: ８６走富士ショート

DOTS: Toyota AE86, Mitsubishi Evo minus One and Ronal Teddybears

April 11, 2010 / banpei / 0 Comments

I was looking at old (digital) photographs I took years ago and actually found out I was already shooting DOTS from 2003 onwards! Take for instance this Mitsubishi Lancer:

Down on the Street: Mitsubishi Lancer Evo minus One
Yes, that is indeed an Evo wing on its tail. However the Lancer itself dates before the whole Lancer Evo lineup, so I guess this is a Lancer Evo minus One! :D

Everyone on the interwebs already saw pictures of the Ronal teddybear rims, but did you actually see one IRL?

Down on the Street: Ronal Bear rims on a Mazda 121
I did spot these Ronal Teddybears in 2005 and took a picture with my phonecam (even crappier than my crapcam!) to inspire my brother… Well he refused to even think about putting teddybears under his 121! :D

To prove you can actually spot really nice cars in the wild:

Down on the Street: Toyota Corolla AE86
I chased down this AE86 when I had a day off and I was just on my way to buy a Canon EOS 350D digicam in my own AE86. The owner drove quite quickly during rush hour but I managed to follow him through traffic. Finally had a word with him and the guy didn’t even know what kind of car he was driving. His brother sold him the car and if I was interested I could buy it from him. So having a lot of money burning in my pocket I was really tempted to buy it…

It ended that the guy wanted too much money: apparently chasing someone in traffic is not a good basis for negotiations over the price of a car. I ended up buying the EOS 350D instead and still don’t regret buying the camera over this hachi. ;)

AE86 Crash test

June 11, 2009 / banpei / 3 Comments

Cannabolic (user on AEU86) found this video on Youtube showing a sideways impact on a Toyota AE86:

It is a bit hard to see, but the car is a LHD zenki Trueno 2 door coupe. I assume that it is a USDM Corolla SR5 since it has black bumpers. Not much is left of the position the driver is supposed to be in, so side impact on this speed is not recommendable! What did I drive up to two years ago? A silver 4AGE converted US SR5 2 door coupe! Damn! That’s exactly the same car!

What about its source? Maybe it was a promotion video for OMP roll cages? More likely it is an original 80s US crash test before the car is allowed to be sold on the market? That leave us the question why a sideways impact on high speed is part of this test?

Of course: they could also have wanted to find out if the car was safe enough for its main purpose 20 years later: going sideways! Clearly going that way leaves a lot less crushable area than going in a straight line. ;)