Automotive Documentation

Prince Amongst Parts

March 11, 2009

Having recently been told the correct manner in which to spell Prince (as in Prince Motor Company) in Japanese (a direct translation is evidently incorrect and yeilds very little results), I set about Yahoo! Auctions Japan, trying to find all manner of things.  As you can imagine, the pickings were indeed slim.  The majority of available or shown items were from that of the Second Generation (S50, 54, 57) or for the Gloria.  As I had been informed by a few Japanese contacts, finding parts and even seeing the first Generation Skylines is a rare thing.

To give you an idea of what I am up against, here’s a select few things that I did happen to stumble across, some priced well, others… not so much…

Prince G-series Gasket Set

Prince Gloria BLSI Gasket Set

Starting bid of ¥13500JPY is equal to $280NZD at current exchange rates.

YAJ Link: http://page12.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/p145115172

Seems a fairly reasonable price to me, given the age and the availability of such things.  Obviously with the costs of shipping added on post purchase it would likely be a sight more expensive again.  Perhaps too much so.  Shipping out of Japan for anything that isn’t a letter, is a costly affair.  However, there’s far more expensive parts to be had, follow me inside…

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Delivery from zeppan.jp!

February 13, 2009
Direct from Japan!

Direct from Japan!

After Orion kindly posted about the closure of zeppan, I jumped onto their website and ordered what I could in the slim selection that was left.  They arrived today, thankfully my boss is Japanese and she happily transferred the money into Takeshi’s account for me.  The whole process took no longer than a week, even with several back and forth emails to add more on and comfirm details.  It’s such a shame that zeppan.jp is closing up but I guess thems the breaks.

Anyway, here’s what I got;

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’80s turbo talk: Mazda B6T

January 29, 2009

Hands up if you, or someone you knew, ever owned a BFMR or BFMP Familia at some point. Now keep those hands up if you’ve ever blown a gearbox in one of ‘em before… just kidding.

it’s not hard to see how the humble Familia managed to garner a reputation over here as being the “Evo” of their day. when import laws were first relaxed in the early 1990s they were one of the most popular hi-po vehicles shipped to our shores directly out of Japan, purely due to their ubiquity and bang-for-buck value – at a time when most 2-litre turbo vehicles still remained the domain of rich middle-aged folks, the Familia with its smaller 1600cc B6T engine offered a sizeable chunk of the experience for comparatively little money. The fact that a locally-sold version (the Ford Laser) also shared the Familia’s mechanicals and drivetrain further added to its perpetuity.

BFMR

1985 BFMR Mazda Familia GT-X

And as the decade wore on, the natural rate of devaluation brought them within easy reach of many an 18-year-old amping for their first taste of performance car nirvana.

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The eternal idol(s)

January 7, 2009

if there’s one endearing thing about Japanese car culture, it’s that they never seem to forget the classics.

'80s Hero

Hachimaru Hero, vol. 1: Eternal Idol AE86

Hachimaru Hero by Geibunsha Publishing is one of the few Japanese automotive magazines to focus entirely on the cars of the ’80s. From beloved highway stompers such as the Fairlady 200ZR to the humble family wagon Civic Shuttle, a bewildering array of cult to cooking cars are covered in ten incredibly well-produced volumes.

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during the 1980s turbocharging craze, it seemed that every Japanese manufacturer ended up developing at least one forced-induction engine. A few of these were of the “gun” variety – boasting healthy power and big torque figures – and were ultimately slotted into highly-sought-after flagship models and top-shelf sportscars.

However for every legendary FJ20ET, G63B, 7M-GTE and 13B-Turbo pushed out to market, there existed an equal or greater number of lesser-known, lesser adored, more mundane cooking-spec engines which also happened to benefit from TEH POWAR OF BOOST. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the end result, the fruits of such labour were harnessed to power various Japanese iterations of the ’80s “hot hatch”, a market unto its own at the time.

one such example is Toyota’s 3E-TE engine.

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