More Skyline importing news: our friends at Cobb Tuning have received one of the first privately owned R35 GT-Rs in the US. How? By importing their own, of course, and you know what that means: comical scans from the Japanese owner’s manual! This one is our fave. Apparently, it’s warning the owner not to uglify their new purchase with “aero” modifications like a giant spoiler or widebody kit. Take note, Kev (j/k, j/k)! To see more of the GT-R – and more scans – check out the Cobb Blog.
UPDATE: Autoblog picked up on this story and now the image is on a T-shirt. Such is the life of an internet meme.
In honor of Leap Year, here’s a car chase from a 1979 Japanese movie whose title translates as “The Man Who Stole the Sun.” It’s got a plot, but we haven’t seen it, so let’s just cut to the chase (haha).
The guy in the RX-7 (quite the hot new ride at the time) is a junior high school science teacher who breaks into a nuclear powerplant, steals a chunk of plutonium, and makes a homemade nuclear bomb to threaten the government. He’s pursued by a gruff cop in a brown Cosmo and a fleet of the typical inept patrol car drivers that love to crash into things and flip unnecessarily. So where’s the Leap Year tie-in to all of this? Oh, at about 0:58.
So we have a new member of our extended family to welcome. No, it’s not a wedding or newborn child. Even better. A couple of weeks ago, our mate Kev from grandJDM received a very special Valentine in the form of his newly purchased hakosuka Skyline! In case you didn’t know, Kev and Van have been working with us for the last few months on JNC magazine. Not since the ANZUS Treaty has there been a cross-continent collaboration of this magnitude! Sadly, because Kev’s new baby is literally on the other side of the planet, it’ll be a long time before we can see it in person. At least we can follow his exploits on his blog and he has plenty of time to get it ready for our visit. Congrats, Kev!
When we left Project Hako last, the carbs were in, the fuel system was all set up and we were ready to turn the key and see what happens. Of course when you do this, it’s a good idea to wait until a few friends can come over: one to hold the fire extinguisher, one to juggle the throttle to keep the car running, one to stand on the other side of the engine bay to keep an eye out for fuel leaks, and one last guy standing by with the ambulance on speed-dial.
Fresh from the wire, TORC’s 13th annual All Toyotafest is now open for registration. If you’ve got an old school ‘Yota (or even a new school one) that needs to be seen to be believed, head on over to their website to pour a 40 (dollars) for the show. Spaces are limited and there will be no registration at the door, so get in early on the action. The event goes down May 3 at Veterans Stadium at Long Beach City College. Scions and Lexi welcome!
Several readers have posted this nugget of awesomeness in our forums now, and with good reason. The Celica you see in the pic above is the end result of the most thorough, intense restoration we’ve ever seen for J-tin. It started life as a Group B rally car that competed in the Hong Kong-Beijing Rally of 1985 – when nearly all of that nation’s billion or so people were still riding bikes – enduring 2500 miles of dings and dents on unpaved terrain. Then it was left to rust for about 20 years.
At that point, most people would have written it off, but not the artisans at Makela Auto Tuning of Finland. By the looks of it, every body panel, seam, floorboard and frame rail was recreated from fresh steel. Metal is like putty to these people. We tried to comprehend the amount of effort and man-hours the restoration must have taken, but only reminded ourselves of grade school when we first learned about the concept of infinity. There’s really no point in even trying to describe it, so just check out their gallery. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, that’s over 300,000 words right there.
The best part is that as of January 2008, these mad Finns have begun work on a second Hong Kong-Beijing Rally Celica. If possible, this car looks to be in even worse condition that the first one, apparently composed of one part metal and 3 parts rust. This time, they’ve cut the car down to the bare frame and are doing nothing short of rebuilding it from scratch. It’s like the Bionic Woman, but with cars.
When we left things yesterday, the brakes were in good shape but the mastercyl needed rebuilding. The carbs had been sent off for refurbishing, but the setup that the car came with left something to be desired (apart from the fact that the carbs were leaking fuel!).
Say you want a blingy whip but an Escalade just doesn’t cut it in the cargo hauling department. Or perhaps it’s just a few acres short on chrome and a few millilumens short on lighting. What’s a ride pimper to do? Welcome to the Japanese phenomenon of dekotora, short for decoration truck. A new book, called simply Decotora, by photographer Masaru Tatsuki delves into the bright, chromey world of these gaudy customized lorries.
The trend began in northeastern fishing towns, where running near the sea and hauling fish pulled from said sea meant that salt water ate away the trucks faster than a shirtless David Hasselhoff masticating a hamburger. Drivers replaced the easily corroded panels with shiny stainless steel and a movement was born.
The stainless steel panels grew more and more ornate, but the dekatora didn’t hit it big until the 1975 film Torakku Yarou about a hard-driving dekotora pilot on the Tomei Expressway. The look spread like wildfire, getting exponentially garish with each iteration. Eventually, these trucks became show cars in their own right, with their own competitions and culture, which did not involve carrying fish at all. Truly grandiose dekotora even had a full blown love shack in the cargo hold, complete with furniture and chandeliers.
By the 90s, the popularity of the anime Gundam, about giant robots who battle in space, began to influence styling direction. Nowadays, however, a wave of nostalgia has caused the dekotora to return to the roots with retro-inspired machines. We can’t argue with that.
Where we left things last week were that I’d sent off the carbs to a specialist for rebuilding, and the wayward clutch was fixed. The carb guru estimated that it might take a week to re-do the Webers, so this left plenty of time for little jobs while the Hako was up on jackstands.
More Skyline importing news: our friends at Cobb Tuning have received one of the first privately owned R35 GT-Rs in the US. How? By importing their own, of course, and you know what that means: comical scans from the Japanese owner’s manual! This one is our fave. Apparently, it’s warning the owner not to uglify their new purchase with “aero” modifications like a giant spoiler or widebody kit. Take note, Kev (j/k, j/k)! To see more of the GT-R – and more scans – check out the Cobb Blog.
So we have a new member of our extended family to welcome. No, it’s not a wedding or newborn child. Even better. A couple of weeks ago, our mate Kev from 
Fresh from the wire, 
have begun work on a 
Say you want a blingy whip but an Escalade just doesn’t cut it in the cargo hauling department. Or perhaps it’s just a few acres short on chrome and a few millilumens short on lighting. What’s a ride pimper to do? Welcome to the Japanese phenomenon of dekotora, short for decoration truck. A new book, called simply Decotora, by photographer Masaru Tatsuki delves into the bright, chromey world of these gaudy customized lorries.
