Some cool footage of a variety of Nissans and Toyotas drifting up and down winding mountain roads in Japan. Seeing the big four door sedans like the Toyota Crown smoking their tyres while gracefully arcing through a bend is pretty impressive:
This is a very cool and unique version of one of the most popular hot rod bases out there, an early 1930s Ford roadster. While looking fairly 'normal' from outside sitting on the salt flats at Bonneville, a closer inspection under the hood reveals a very unusual power-plant for an old hot rod; a 600hp turbocharged Nissan RB20 motor, the same as my Cefiro. Bonus points to the owner for thinking outside the box, although some traditional hot rodders might not be huge fans of sticking a newer Japanese engine into an old American hot rod: http://www.speedhunters.com/2013/10/hot-robbing-rb20-motor-174mph/
Recovering a rolled vehicle with a tow truck and winch cables isn't as easy as it looks, as this unfortunate operator discovered when putting this Mazda hatch back onto four wheels. The car would have almost certainly been a write-off anyway, but still: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBxSntGGm8U
Some in-car footage from Beau Yates' AE86 Toyota of the big drift crash at WTAC: http://youtu.be/ZH0xl8X4Ewk
A preview clip for what looks to be a very interesting documentary movie based around the history and drivers of Formula 1 racing: http://youtu.be/ZHlK2HCh12U
Again, apologies for the blog being very quiet lately. After getting married, moving house a couple of times and settling in without a proper internet connection, it's been difficult to make many posts!
I recently visited the oncology doctor about my blood and CT scan tests, to make sure there were no more cancer cells remaining after the surgery. There's a swollen lymph node I need to keep an eye on, but as it stands I'm cancer free now! Which is great news, and obviously a big weight off my mind.
My portfolio website isn't too far away now, so keep an eye out for that in the next month or two!
In the meantime, I'll be making more regular posts on the blog, starting with continued coverage of the Adelaide All Japan Day from a few months ago. I'm not certain, but it's pretty likely I had a cancerous tumour growing at this point...I just didn't know it yet.
If you missed the first two posts with photos from the 2012 Adelaide All Japan Day, you can see them here:
There were quite a few tidy JZX100 Toyota Chasers in attendance, including this neat and subtle silver example.
A little more rough around the edges, this bee coloured Toyota KE70 Corolla still got attention with the slammed ride height and dished rims with flared arches.
This earlier model Nissan 180SX was looking nice with a tasteful kit and rim choice.
This more recent Type X definitely looked tough.
There were a few smaller cars, like this Mazda MX-5...
...as well as a Suzuki Jimny with a decent lift and big tyres, the ride height in stark contrast to the ground-hugging black S13 Silvia in the background.
White on white is always a good look.
This Mazda RX2 Capella was stunning inside and out, with superb attention to detail obvious from a quick look at the interior, engine bay and body work.
This Toyota Cressida looks pretty tame from the outside...
...but they certainly didn't come out of the factory with this going on in the engine bay!
It was at this point that the owner of a new Ferrari 458 Italia decided to give his car some stick, showing all the Japanese cars what an Italian thoroughbred can do. With a very low tolerance for speeding around lots of people and kids, one of the police officers took off in pursuit, catching him a little further up the road.
After dropping some friends at the airport, he was given the choice of returning to the AJD show for a fairly generously low speeding ticket, or go elsewhere and have his Ferrari impounded for hooning.
The police officer took him aside for a bit of a chat about times and places for such things, giving All Japan Day attendees a chance to admire the new prancing horse model. The yellow and black rims looked a bit odd to me, but they're a very aggressive looking bit of machinery.
He was cruising with another friend who also owned a 458, this one wearing the more traditional Ferrari red paintwork, which got plenty of looks amongst the much cheaper Japanese cars.
I liked the look of this S15, with some subtle body additions like a small roof spoiler and duck-tail spoiler.
At the other end of the spectrum was this race-spec Mazda S6 RX7, with an enormous rear wing that wouldn't look out of place on a plane.
Just for comparison, here's a normal one. Despite the original shape being nearly 20 years old, the Series 6-8 RX7 models still don't look dated in my opinion. Compared to Australian models of a similar vintage, say a Holden VN Commodore, they have aged very well indeed.
This JZX100 Chaser would have been in the running for the Most Stickers award, but the 180SX in the first post, covered chassis to roof in stickers, was well ahead of anyone else for sheer numbers.
With adjustable airbag suspension, this Datsun lowrider ute was literally sitting on the ground, garnering plenty of attention from spectators and police alike.
The original 1965 Nissan Silvia CSP311 is a beautifully designed bit of gear, with nicely balanced curves and lines. Only 554 were ever made, so they're a very rare sight, especially on Australian roads. Take a look at a standard Nissan S13 Silvia in two-tone brown in particular, and it's clear that the aesthetics of the next few generations of the Silvia lineup took a big backseat in comparison. You can read more about Silvia heritage here if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Silvia.
While the S14 was ok style-wise, it was rather bland. Only with the most recent S15 model did the sleek and attractive curved lines come back into play, albeit a few decades later. Tastefully modified S13s and S14s can look awesome, and I really like the look of some, but as a standard model from the showroom, they really aren't much to look at.
With a distinctively different engine sound to the Jap stuff, this mean 1969 Dodge Charger R/T caught my attention as it rumbled past, a big block V8 lurking under the deep black bonnet.
This Nissan Cefiro looked quite striking in a vivid green hue, for some reason parked away from the actual show itself.
Many of the 80s Toyotas can look quite cool with a decent set of rims and a few inches taken out of the ride height, as this Toyota Cressida shows.
This 1977 RA28 Toyota Celica is far from standard, as you may be able to tell from the tough stance and intercooler hiding behind the grille, and a little the worse for wear.
It's running a fully legal and engineered Nissan SR20 turbo engine, among countless other meticulous additions and modifications, and I actually shot this as a feature car for Zoom magazine a couple of years ago.
There was an unfortunate incident at the 2010 Mt. Alma hill-climb event, where the owner lost control on a tricky off-camber corner
near the finish, sliding into a bank to the side of the road, damaging
the front and rear. There's an in-car video of the crash below. Knowing how much time and effort it took to create such a beautiful car, it still makes me cringe and feel sad inside when I watch it.
The car is currently being rebuilt to come back
bigger and better than ever.
Well it's been a long time since I've made a post on the blog. Between the cancer surgery and getting married, I was rather busy with lots of other bits and pieces to do!
To kick things off again, here's the second set of images from the 2012 Adelaide All Japan Day. The first one is the most viewed post on my entire blog by a comfortable margin, so I'm sure these pictures will go down well too. Enjoy!
