Just for all you Seibu Keisatsu fans out there, here’s a follow-up to our earlier articles (here and here) on everyone’s favourite 70s Japanese TV cop show. We’ve found some older pics of the crazy modified cars that they used in the series, including interior shots of the criminal-catching gadgets!
Here’s RS-1, the first DR30 Skyline used in the show as shotgun-totin’ hero Sgt Daimon’s ride, with the following claimed performance figures (which are all made-up by the production company of course, the cars were mechanically standard!):
Acceleration：0→400m 13.5sec 0→100km／h 6.1sec
Top Speed：265km／h
Which was supplemented a few episodes later by RS-2 (which is mysteriously slower!):
Acceleration：0→400m 14.0sec 0→100km／h 5.9sec
Top Speed：260km／h
And then RS-3 (which looks a lot like RS-1) joined the team. In some scenes you see all 3 cars together.
But the grand-daddy was the original Machine-X used in the earlier series (no performance figures are quoted, but it’s powered by a 145ps L20ET SOHC turbo six):
A cool touch is that the interiors of the cars used in the show were, if anything even more decked out than the exteriors (and there’s obviously some sort of Nardi sponsorship going on). Here’s what Machine-X looks like inside:
RS-1, with PC keyboard, presumably so that you can browse forums while chasing crims:
RS-2, an admirably minimalist approach means passengers have somewhere to sit, and you can no longer browse forums while driving because the driver can no longer see the screen:
Back to chunky 80s-tech for RS-3!
More pics and info on the cars (and cast, props etc) at the awesome production company site HERE.
Aw, DR30, with pop up machine guns and internet browser, what more can you ask for. Life is good for Sgt Daimon
Nice find Kev. I just about pissed myself when I saw the gullwinged 280ZX in the videoclips. The driver had to use some Dukes Of Hazzard skillz to get into and out of that one!
Here’s a vid where you can see the cars parked up (sadly not driving)
LINK
Absolutly love this! Thanks!
Hey Guys your site is really great.
Since this is my first post here just wanted to say that first. 🙂
Now the question. It is a bit off topic. I would like to know the roots of Japanese obsession by Nardi Torino steering wheels. I’m sure you know about this also.
Ogi: that’s a good question.
Undoubtedly in Japan, Nardi has always been more popular than Momo, whereas in most western markets it’s the other way around. I don’t think that there’s any particular reason for this though. And if you were to ask why Momo is more popular in the USA or UK then that’s equally hard to answer.
As far as I know, Momo and Nardi are owned by the same company, so it’s quite possible that the parent company prevented the weaker brand in each market from trying to win sales from its sister company, and so the stronger brand got stronger over the years.