I’ve always been fascinated with the love our antipodean friends seem to have for the rotary engine. It’s not so much a passing interest, oh no, they’ve developed quite the affliction with the buzzing Wankel. Our first trip to Australia in 2010 is where we got our initial exposure of all things rotary, when we [...]
What is it that makes a properly done drift car so cool? Take a look at the pink metalflake-covered Toyota Mark II pictured above and it becomes easy to figure out. Of course, this isn’t just any Mark II – this is the iconic Team Magician JZX110, one of the most recognizable drift cars in [...]
Style is a funny thing, but more so is the speed at how people judge various interpretations of it. I think Nagano Koubou serves as the perfect example here, in particular the pink Onevia I posted last month following a quick tour of the little Kansai-based bodyshop. Over the last few years Masayoshi Nagano has been [...]
As human beings, we’re constantly learning, questioning and gaining new knowledge of the things that we’re passionate about. For me, and no doubt you as well if you’re reading these words, that means every day I’m excited to learn more about car culture. Just over a week ago, Paddy and myself flew to Sweden’s capital, [...]
As we head into Formula Drift’s 10th year of competition, it’s staggering to think about how far American professional drifting has come in that time. What started out as a strange new form of motorsport bred on the tracks and roads of Japan has become an entirely new animal. Pro drifting in 2013 is bigger, [...]
Can you believe it’s already April again? While I associate April first with my Speedhunters anniversary, for drift fans it means something much more exciting – the official start to the Formula D season. Long Beach is round one on the calendar and brings with it many highly anticipated build debuts. Today we’ll take a [...]
There are certain projects that are best left for a while before exploring, and the HKS 86 Racing Performer is one of them. Much like every 86/BRZ/FR-S/GT86 demo car around the world, it has all been put together in an impressively short space of time if you consider that the ZN6 and its Subaru counterpart [...]
Last week during the Speedhunters celebration of Americana, I featured a beautiful 1949 Mercury lead sled that cruises the streets of Japan. Kondo-san’s Merc is a completely authentic take on the classic American custom, and a perfect example of American car culture spread abroad. Today, I’d like to follow that up with a completely different, [...]
Here is an interesting scenario. If money was no object and you had hookups to the biggest names in the tuning industry, how would you build up your car? What parts would you pick to put together the ultimate street car, in this case an S15 Silvia? We’ve seen our fair share of S-chassis over [...]
When faced with the need to stand out, a true challenge in any forms of motorsports, it’s pretty safe to say that RS-R have taken the correct path. With a need to replace their successful, yet ageing JZA80 Supra, for this year’s Formula D Asia championship, they ended up doing things a little differently. It [...]
If there’s a fine line between genius and insanity, when it comes to building cars, New Zealander Carl Thompson walks that line. Need proof? Then look at his latest creation, because this built-to-drift Lexus GS300, is both brilliant and at the same time borderline crazy. If you’re social media savvy then there’s a pretty good [...]
Choosing Speedhunters feature cars is not an easy thing to do. At a glance it might sound pretty straightforward, but there are always certain things we consider when looking at potential feature machines. In our travels we see lots of cars we like. and cars that all of us would be happy to have sitting our own garages – but a feature car should go beyond that. It’s not necessarily a physical quality we look for, but a certain extra appeal that makes a car stand out.
The Mazda Miata is a car that’s many things to many people. For some it’s a daily driver – an open aired way to enjoy the daily commute. Others keep their Miatas locked in the garage awaiting the weekend and a scenic backroad journey. Some people don’t even drive their cars on the street, using [...]
This is one car I have been hanging on to for a while now. Shot back at Gatebil in July, very late at night as the midnight sun approached, it remains one of the most memorable drift cars from the event. Why? Well how can I put it; let’s just say that a lot of [...]
This white R35 GT-R is probably one of the most easily recognized Japanese demo cars of 2012, a car that over the years has been displayed at Tokyo Auto Salon through its, very ambitious, development process. This was supposed to become Ken Nomura’s next D1 Grand Prix drift machine, a beast capable of unleashing a [...]
