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Posted
Nov 18 2008, 11:01 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 14 comment(s)
Time for a little more Nissan goodness from the archive as I post up a few of the track-tuned Skyline GT-R's I've spotted at Tsukuba Circuit over the past year. There is no place where a GT-R is more at home than running around a track like Tsukuba. It is surely one of the best places in Japan to see tuned GT-R's at their best. The car has stood the test of time and even the oldest BNR32 GT-R models are still found in abundance at Japan's racing circuits. Nearly seven years after they disappeared from the market, the original RB26-powered GT-R is still one of the quintessential Japanese performance cars....
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Posted
Nov 12 2008, 09:23 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 21 comment(s)
4-door sedans are favored by drifters all around the world, and they are especially big here in Japan where Toyota's JZX cars are favorites among both pro an grassroots drifters. Nissan's primary contribution to the drift world might be the Silvia and 180SX, but they also offer plenty of turbocharged four door sedans that can be bought on the cheap and built into some pretty radical drift machines. I wanted to take a quick look at a few of Nissan's coolest four-door drift cars here. For example, how about the R32 Skyline sedan pictured above as it drifts the wet course at Honjo Circuit?...
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Posted
Nov 11 2008, 06:10 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 4 comment(s)
On our trip to the UK earlier this year, I came face to face with a big pink monster. Get any ideas of fuzzy dinosaurs out of your head - I'm talking about a pink R33 Skyline drag monster from Sumo Power, in the UK. This car is very well known in the UK - it's gotten features inked from all the big magazines out there; this R33 has been stirring up quite a bit of attention from its performance numbers and overall impact! The vehicle is a 1994 Nissan Skyline GTR, which was imported from Japan...
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Posted
Nov 11 2008, 08:51 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 3 comment(s)
When I visited the East Car shop in Toride earlier this fall, I planned to shoot one of their finished projects and as soon as I arrived, this white Hakosuka Skyline jumped right out at me. The Hakosuka is one of the quintessential vintage Japanese cars and a perfect fit for our Nissan month. Like I stated in the previous story about East Car, the shop's specialty is restoration, so this is obviously isn't the fastest Hakosuka around, but it's a great example a top quality traditional restoration with a few tasteful modifications thrown in for good measure. ...
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Posted
Nov 06 2008, 10:49 AM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 12 comment(s)
I'm an avid reader of multiple restoration and build up threads on several different forums on the World wide web. I really like it when a user is willing to share his precious metal and documents his build. This Hakosuka you see was bought in Japan and imported to Sydney Australia it is being restored by one of the moderators on the Japanese Nostalgic Car forum. The way he documents his build is really impressive and on top of that he does almost everything himself. You can log on to his thread...
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Posted
Nov 06 2008, 01:56 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 7 comment(s)
I was originally planning on running this story last month, but since old school Nissans play a pretty big role here, I figured I would save it until Nissan month. Earlier this fall, I took a trip down to Toride City here in Ibaraki Prefecture where I had made arrangements to visit a classic car dealer and restoration shop called East Car. Although I have seen plenty of cool vintage Nissans at events here in Japan, I was pretty excited to check out the facilities at East Car and get a deeper look at the world of Japanese classic cars. We were greeted by the manager Akihiko-san who kindly took some time from his day to show us around and talk a little bit about the shop and what they do....
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Posted
Nov 03 2008, 10:02 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 15 comment(s)
Over the course of the next month you are going to be bombarded with Nissan material from all corners of the globe, and seeing as how I'm based in Japan, I figured I'd do a quick little "tribute" of sorts to Nissans in their homeland. From the earliest models to the newest Fairlady Z and GT-R, fixed up Nissans are all over the place here. Whether you are talking about a circuit-tuned Nissan March compact car, a VIP Nissan President, a time attack GT-R, or a 180SX drift car, you...
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Posted
Oct 14 2008, 02:48 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 16 comment(s)
Thanks to one of my blogging buddies at Alien2nrs who lives in Finland we can see some of the cars that were present during the X-Treme Car Show in Helsinki. The Skyline R32 in the opening picture is his car. It was build by Bee*R in Japan and is one of a few cars outside Japan that wears the original bodykit. The graphics aren't there to please everybody but you gotta make your sponsors proud. The Event organizer X-Treme is an organization that hosts various car related events in Finland and...
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Posted
Oct 07 2008, 04:19 AM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 7 comment(s)
When I was looking for some photo's of The Athens Tuning Show I came across a topic on the Driftworks forum, one of the posters there posted a nice collection of photo's of the event. The Athens Tuning Show is the biggest car event in Greece, it's a mix between new cars from manufacturers and tuners from Europe. Together with the indoor show they also have a action arena outside where you can see drifters and some other special acts. This year, same as last year, Team Orange made an appearance...
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Posted
Sep 25 2008, 04:25 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 9 comment(s)
I spent the afternoon yesterday shooting a couple of upcoming features at a nearby classic car dealer and restoration shop called East Car. Visiting a shop is always a fun thing to do, and I found plenty of cool stuff at East Car that I can't wait to post. For now ,I just wanted to throw up this quick shot of the impressive sight that greets you when arrive at the shop. Can you identify all the cars in the photo?...
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Posted
Sep 11 2008, 04:47 AM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 10 comment(s)
The KPGC10 is one of my all time favorite cars. The car is the true first GT-R and is almost 40 years old. When looking at the engine bay of the car in the picture it looks like it just came from the factory. It features some very cool parts like the individual throttle bodies and the exhaust manifold. The S20 engine belongs to the original KPGC10 and is a six cylinder engine with 160hp in standard form. With the help of the ITB's and the other bits I think this car will have around 200hp. These...
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Posted
Aug 29 2008, 06:14 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 11 comment(s)
Any fan of Japanese cars should be familiar with the Nissan Stagea. The first generation Stagea is known for being the closest you can get to having a Skyline GT-R station wagon and Autech even produced a limited edition RB26-powered Stagea known as the 260RS. In the early 2000's when the Skyline switched to the new drastically different V35 chassis, the Stagea evolved along with it to become the M35 chassis. It is essentially a wagon version of the V35 Skyline or Infiniti G35. It is pretty uncommon to see fixed up M35 Stageas, so when I came across this one while browsing Minkara, I knew that I had to post it up here....
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Posted
Aug 15 2008, 06:53 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 4 comment(s)
When the R34 Skyline chassis was replaced with the all new V35 chassis near the beginning of the decade, it marked a dramatic change in the Skyline lineage. Gone were the turbocharged inline six engines of the past, and in its place was Nissan's new VQ series V6 engines. Although the newer Skylines have sold fairly well in Japan, they still haven't reached the popularity of the older models as far as tuning goes.To be honest, I haven't really learned to love the V35 coupes, but I am quite fond of the sedans....
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Posted
Aug 13 2008, 10:15 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 8 comment(s)
The JDM Allstars is an invitational only event where the best drifters from Europe battle it out for top honors. Round two was held on a parking lot in front of Wembley stadium in London. To me it has the same feeling as the D1GP Odaiba event in Tokyo where the background consists of the landmark Fuji TV building. The track was laid out on the parking lot and build with 275 tonnes of concrete barriers. During the event some drivers found out the hard way and crashed their cars into the concrete walls...
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Posted
Aug 06 2008, 12:45 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 16 comment(s)
Throughout the next month I will be doing a number of "101" posts about different aspects of Japanese car culture and I don't think there is a better place to start than with the classic car scene in Japan. After all, the Japanese tuning culture that is so popular around the world would not exist without these nostalgic machines. While it has only been in the past few years that vintage Japanese cars have gained mainstream popularity outside of Japan, most of these cars have held legend status in their homeland for a while now....
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Posted
Jul 29 2008, 12:32 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 11 comment(s)
The Nissan Skyline R32 is a car that has a large following from car enthusiasts around the world. It was the first Skyline that had the iconic RB26 engine fitted. In no time all the major tuners in Japan jumped on this car and started making aftermarket parts for it. The R32 started its life back in 1989 and it it is still a car that is very much sought after by people around the world. These days there are enough import companies that can help you in finding a nice and clean example straight from...
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Posted
Jul 24 2008, 05:00 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 10 comment(s)
It's time to finish up our week-long look at the cars of the various international drift series as we examine some of the cars from the European Drift Championship. Before working on Speedhunters, I had only a vague knowledge of the EDC, but I have been learning more and more about the series and its cars over the past few months and have been quite impressed with what I have seen. While you won't find quite the variety of cars that you see in the US Formula D series, the EDC has plenty of top quality cars and they seem to be getting better and better......
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Posted
Jul 22 2008, 07:30 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 8 comment(s)
By now you must have seen my fellow Speedhunter Mike Garrett's posting on " The Cars of the D1 Grand Prix ." I thought I'd continue this theme, with photos of the cars in the Formula Drift Championship series. Here are the Top 16 cars (in order, based on the rankings on the Formula D website) in Formula Drift, as well as some other cars that I just thought were interesting! Starting with car number one, we can't forget Tanner Foust and his AEM/Rockstar Z33 350Z (above). He won...
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Posted
Jul 16 2008, 02:30 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 13 comment(s)
By popular demand I decided to upload another gallery of photos from the JCCA Summer Meeting event at Tsukuba. I don't think any more commentary is needed from me. Just enjoy the sights of vintage machines under the hot summer sun....
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Posted
Jul 15 2008, 05:00 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 10 comment(s)
This is drifting month right? That is why I decided to open up the second part of JCCA Tsukuba Summer Meeting coverage with a photo of a Hakosuka Skyline doing a sideways dirt drop during the free track time at the event. While most of the drivers were content with gripping the course, the driver of this car was out to demonstrate his drifting skills much to the enjoyment to the fans sitting in the stands near the first hairpin. I have to say that it was one of the coolest things I have seen since...
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