Magic. That’s what the mid to late ’90s were in the Japanese tuning scene. While we can’t complain of the automotive awesomeness that continues to come out of Japan today, the ‘golden era’ as it’s commonly referred, was something truly special.
The Japanese manufacturers were churning out a ton of cool, fun and sometimes weird and wonderful turbocharged cars, and people just couldn’t get enough of it. Local tuners took full advantage of the performance oriented buzz too, pushing boundaries in a way that to this day still seems impressive.
At the center of it all was Hironao Yokomaku and his team at Veilside. The Tsukuba-based aero specialist put its name on the map rather quickly, showing up to tuner events that Option and other Japanese tuning magazines organised with the most uniquely styled cars. Veilside’s designs weren’t for everyone, that’s for sure, but more often than not its demo machines were backed up with massively tuned engines. Such is the case with my personal favourite car from Veilside’s history books – the BNR32 Skyline GT-R R-1.
This was a Skyline built for outright speed; primarily drag racing and the 0-300 km/h trials that Inada-san and Option once held at the long gone Yatabe high speed oval track. Of all the cars that Yokomaku-san put under the knife, this was by far the cleanest and most simply styled of the bunch; beautifully focused and impossibly intimidating.
Lift the bonnet and you are presented with well over 1000hp of RB26 goodness. Yokomaku preferred to focus on the rev-happy nature of the RB and stuck to its (almost) stock 2.6L capacity, making it rev to 9000+rpm to take full advantage of high-mounted HKS GT3540 turbos. The built engine was force-fed that massive and continuous volume of intake charge through a JUN plenum and a giant Veilside single throttle body, while six 1800cc/min injectors supplied the fuel. All of the engine’s might was transferred to the front and rear axles via an OS Giken quad-plate clutch and an HKS air-shifted 5-speed sequential transmission.
The Veilside R-1 goes down in the history books as the quickest car to compete in Option’s 0-300 km/h events, setting the 13.72-second record as you can see in the video above. At this point the RB was actually running HKS GT3037S turbos, so less power, as well as street-legal radial Nitto tyres. When Veilside shipped the car to the US for a drag competition the turbos were changed out again, and the street rubber swapped for Goodyear Eagle drag slicks mounted on 15-inch RAYS Volk Racing TE37s, as seen in this image set.
The car did well Stateside, setting a fastest quarter mile ET time of 8.450-seconds with a bit of a bog off the line. Just when they had figured out their start and the car was prepped for a 7-second run, the air shifter didn’t engage third gear and the attempt failed. The Veilside R-1 never ran again.
Dino Dalle Carbonare
Instagram: speedhunters_dino
dino@speedhunters.com
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Brutal
The days of the Japanese Bubble Economy were fantastic for car enthusiasts. You'd pick up copies of Options Magazine and it would be packed with full-color, high gloss images of tricked out Skylines, GTOs, Supras, all with one-off widebody kits, extensive turbo upgrades, suspensions, long before the Fast & Furious days.
Fucking awesome
SO GOOD THANK YOU DINO
Can anyone else not click the links or the video?
is that oil cap a mini turbo?
This takes me back to the Turbo Magazine days. You haven't missed a step since then, congrats.
Also, we're living in the golden era of tuning right now. There are street-driven GTR's doing 7's, full-weight cars doing 8's.
Simply P But those are R35's with well over 1200HP, back in the day, 1200HP was a big deal, plus there's no style to the current drag cars, Veilside made their cars look good and perform well on the strip
It's sad to see the decline of Veilside and any other tuning company.
So good, so many memories. Will have to stop here next time Dino!
so villanous
I think that's some of the cleanest looking aero that Veilside ever made. Does Endless-R or Quarter Mile ( Quarter mile is from the old JDM insider videos) still build drag cars Dino?
@Nick They do, drag has all but died down but there are still people that do it
StephenJMasters Yeah, let me check if it's still open first...
JacksonMiller1 Truly is...
Simply P Ah the good old days! Loved Turbo so much!
JakWhite Sure is lol
Fortytwo Works fine my side!
Bro5 My pleasure. I guess someone out there might want to see the Supra?
I remember once writing an article about Yatabe for my blog. It was really hard to find info about this car. Shame really, cause it's one of the most impressive Skylines ever!
That humongous Veislide 90mm throttlebody! Too bad that outright speed is fading away from Japan, I liked that era.
Sad story, bring back the good old days.
LukeCollins They won't come back, but best we can do it move forward while still remembering
Yes please!
Lol it's kinda badass that they broke it right before it laid down even more impressive numbers.
This was one of the first videos i saw back then of jdm machinery, man that was awesome!
speedhunters_dino LukeCollins Like the golden age of literally anything, it just means that we need to search harder for the good stuff now (think hiphop).
Imagine what will happen in the world of EV's if and when people embrace them. It could become very fun. Idk
Simply P I agree 99% except for that these streetcars have zero character. The GTR is just so nondescript and dare I say it... old at this point. Where's the flood of cool, accessible, performance? You have to look so hard for 'cool' these days.
johnbezt speedhunters_dino LukeCollins fuck ev... make more corn.
Sure they can come back, do more Veilside stories and less about Rocket Bunny... please.
shame too see these beats not being used, they are just begging to be raced again
I miss the days of Japan making good cars. =(
@ReliableEthanol johnbezt speedhunters_dino LukeCollins torque tho
This is another good article of the legendary age and origins of JDM culture that most of this generation are unaware of. Please make more of these, I really enjoyed this and the Jun GTR one. Perhaps there's a way to hunt down former vehicles of the gentlemens racing club that dominated the Wangan at Midnight.
Thanks for another Interesting article Dino, Any chance you ever took photos of the JUN Hyper Lemon Impreza? That has to be one of the coolest street GD Imprezas out there
From what I understand, it's difficult at best to find concrete info on the group as a whole, their cars, and the owners of them; and a lot is pretty much just speculation. A lot of the members went underground after the group has to disband and basically swore themselves to secrecy after their huge accident with the Bosozoku. It's be almost impossible to find someone who's willing to talk about anything having to do with Team Mid Night.
im still on the hunt for Executive Sport Veilside kit for the Jzz30!
Well I think it's mostly/partly about getting the Japanese youth into the automotive scene with the same zest and passion for cars as their elders have/had.
I wonder where have the famous Veilside Combat R32 owned by one member of the Mid Night team went to. Sold off or scrapped?
FairozAzami Which car? The widebody?
@mikesymmetry Sure have!
speedhunters_dino Bro5 My first thought when seeing this article was "Don't forget the Supra!" I remember seeing both cars in Max Power magazine back in the '90s, before the mag turned into a softcore pr0n publication. Yes, it was that long ago.
Great Article Dino! I've been researching this car for the past couple of years, ever since I brought a 1:12 Model kit of it. Really hard to find good photos / info on it. Yours are definitely the best! Quite surprising that Veilside have all but folded considering how much they where featured in the Fast & furious movies. There latest designs arnt that great, although neither were the 90s ones.
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sounded like 2nd gear hit the high boost lol