I am 186cm, which is close to 6 feets, and one half inch, and while I fit in with no problems I do get what my wife calls 'coupe hair', which is kind of like the usual 'helmet hair' I get from riding my Maxam to work every day - except instead of being round-headed, I am flat-topped. I would guess there's perhaps another few cm headroom, but that would be it. A roadster with a Yoshimura curved top provides a little more again, but the top of the windscreen is already cutting your vision. The Coupe has a taller screen...
The seat in my car is on the rearward holes, and looking at its construction - it sits on the floor, with the skinniest of rails - you could get another 15 ~ 20 mm by removing the rails and bolting straight to the floor. I would guess 6' 3" would be too tight, even with the seat on the floor. Even I had to change steering wheel to a smaller diameter so my legs had some room. Today though, with a good friend we put the car on the lift of an acquaintance, and attacked the front torsion bar adjusters. First, loosing tightening nut (after soaking for weeks in rust-pene):
Then, using a medium monkey-wrench, roll over the torsion bar adjusters to their lowest setting (H1). I had thought them set on H4, but they were on H3, so the aggregate lowering was less than expected.
Some had suggested the removal of the lower arm would be necessary, but after a few loosing taps they rolled over with a moderate two-handed effort. Note Prinz and Hako Skyline front grille on garage wall. The car is at least 50mm lower at the front than previous, so sits a lot better. Compared to another car though, which has had its torsion bars reset a notch or two, it still rides high. But, running 175s, over the other car's 165, I might need this extra to clear the wheel arches. Rear struts to be replaced at some stage, so I might yet reset the front torsion bars then too.
Driving home, we stopped at another garage to deliver some parts and had a good look over a 400R GT-R, and talking to the owner of two 2000GTs. Which he had sold of course a few years ago - at the time he said, 'Cheaper than a new Celica.' If only, we all mused.... He did however have a glorious garage stuffed with all sorts of other nice stuff (3x S800 to start), and walls covered in photographs of his past and friends' cars. I grabbed a phone shot of one 2000GT parked in the same place as my Coupe above.
Coming home on the expressway at 100km/h or so, the car sat nice, and felt a little less floaty at speed. Possibly my imagination though. While I was enjoying the sound of a yellow Lamborghini sitting next to me in traffic, another yellow Lamborghini passed going the other direction.
Excuse crappy telephone photographs. The last few weekends have seen a little sitting in traffic, and me missing some music. There's only so much blipping the throttle you can do for entertainment. So the existing, space-filling, speaker-less radio (top) is going to go. Replaced with an integral speaker, one piece unit with an MP3 player input (bottom), no need to take up luggage space or footwell space with speakers - the S800 is really that small. Hopefully, the plain black style will not clash too much with the rest of the period interior (and a 8cm mono speaker sound not too bad). I'll install an old aircraft manual-wind clock, and cigarette lighter to charge telephone navi at the same time. See ya! Neko.
