So let’s take a break from the technical stuff. This post and the next will be light on words, heavy on pictures...
Recently when my
friend Kunal Arneja, (a Skyline R33 GT-R owner himself, and co-owner of the
Cars Over Everything Facebook page or "COE" as I refer to it) visited Japan from Canada, my schedule just happened to be free his second day in Japan. Naturally, we decided to make it a Nissan Skyline kind of day!
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Waiting for Thomas, showing various bits to Kunal |
First, I picked up Kunal and my friend Thomas at a Yokohama hotel. From there we set off under Tokyo Bay using the Aqua-Line to get to Sodegaura Forest Raceway, where they were having the annual Nissan Skyline Festival. It was my first time going, so I didn’t know what to expect.
When we arrived, I was directed to a huge gravel and dirt
parking lot. I thought I bottomed the car out on the bumpy dirt trail leading to it,
but luckily no damage at all. The parking lot though, was amazing, with Skylines from
all generations, shapes and sizes. As well as other more normal vehicles.
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After parking, and making sure no dust was on the paint,
we started wandering about.... |
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Skylines and Nissans from all years... |
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Of course our eyes were drawn to R33 GT-Rs |
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Oh lord, a "V-spec II"?? |
This should have been a warning to us... overdone 33s? But we then started seeing some nice ones:
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Kunal and I posing in front of this beautiful blue one |
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Here's a better shot of the same blue R33, courtesy of COE |
Obviously some other nice 33s in the lot too, such as:
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This purple beauty on R34 rims... |
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I've never seen these kinds of wheels before on a 33! |
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We found an American guy who owns this Hakosuka, so had to take a look inside... |
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Kunal and Thomas with an Autech 33 GTR, R31, R34 and Stagea
(never mind the next rows and rows of goodness!) |
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Lovely Autech 4 Door GT-R... I want one! (Eventually) |
A short walk then took us to the asphalted area near the pits, where we spotted some
more interesting cars:
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IMPUL R33-R (one of only 200 made) - front |
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IMPUL R33-R - rear |
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Not only was this ECR33 painted an interesting color... |
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but it had Z-tune style fenders...!!! |
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this R31 GTS-R was awesome though |
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This is a STREET LEGAL REPLICA of the real thing! |
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Yes, it certainly attracted attention! |
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Some huge rear over fenders... interesting rear spoiler |
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And in the tents, you could find Skyline and car related stuff, including rare mincars.. |
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Even K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Two Thousand) was there...
No Michael Knight to be seen, however |
And then we spotted two very interesting and memorable (in a bad way?) cars:
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Looks OK, right? |
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NO!!!! Why these pseudo Ferrari tail lights? |
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This one, I still have nightmares about:
Note creative use of silver door edge guard to protect lip spoiler...
Oh and also the fender mounted turn indicators
(usually popular with the over 60, Toyota Crown driving crowd...) |
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I almost fainted when I saw this... excessive stickers are one thing, but look closely... |
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WHY???? Not just the wiring, which lead to spoiler mounted rear facing LEDs,
but the crystals on the side plates... |
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The ultimate in car security, I guess....(but with crystal accents)?? |
We then heard the announcement, they were going to let a few cars drive on the racetrack, so we went to take a look:
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A nice lineup... |
But already a couple of hours had passed, and so we made an impromptu decision - rather than stay at Sodegaura for the rest of the day, why not let my car stretch its legs some more and visit some other places? And so we left for
Mine's, which is probably the least accessible by public transportation of all the Kanto area tuners...
Photos and write up in
Part 2!
4 comments:
Loving some of the ghastly additions such as the LED end caps and super diamond effect lock. I guess the lesson here is to know when to stop!
I think "STOP" is the operative word here.... lol
I know this post is like really old, but apparently the taillights on the red R34 is the same unit from the R390 and could be purchased from Nissan Prince Hamamatsu
Thanks Skid 34! Another bit of trivia - very interesting!!!
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