Archive for January, 2009

Selection of Diecasts

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January 4, 2009
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Over the years, the availability and quality of die-cast cars has increased greatly, due to increased exposure via the Internet and tooling methods used.  It is now possible to cheaply attain high quality, highly accurate representations of a lot of cars, in particular classic Japanese ones.

A good demonstration of this in the 1:64-72 range is the TOMY Tomica “Limited”.  The accuracy and detail of these vehicles is usually quite high.

Tomica Limited Prince Skyline S54B

Tomica 'Limited' Prince Skyline S54B

If you’re interested in what’s currently available new in the “limited” range then visit the TOMY website;  Sadly, it’s all in Japanese so unless you can read it, you’re likely out of luck, translation tools will miss most of the site in that it’s mostly images as opposed to standard text, though with a bit of perseverance you should find your way around fairly well.

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: Automotive Die-casts

’80s turbo talk: Toyota 3E-TE

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January 3, 2009
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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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: Automotive Documentation, Automotive History

The Retro Place to Be in 2009

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January 3, 2009
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Fresh off the presses! (Internet presses)

Dates and location have just been announced for one of the best shows you could ever attend.  If you’re into retro cars and if you can only attend one event in the entirety of 2009 I would seriously suggest you go to this one;

Retro-Rides Gathering 2009

I made noises last year, as did a friend of mine, about attending this coming meeting though unfortunately due to a myriad of reasons it’s not looking likely for me… however with things going as they are with RR (only up!), I’m hoping I’ll be able to make the 2010 event instead.  There is still a slight chance of making ’09 for me but I’m not going to hold my breath.

For those of you who have the means and capabilties to attend this year, I say to you…

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: Events

Skyline History, Part 6.

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January 1, 2009
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Continued from “Skyline History, Part 5.”

So, in July of 1968, 11 years after the release of the ALSI-I 1st Generation Prince Skyline  the model took it’s new name of Nissan and despite still being under research and development of the Prince faction operating inside Nissan, the label on the car was to read ‘Nissan Skyline’ and with this, came a new chassis code.  This new Skyline was the ‘C10′.

3rd Generation, C10 Skyline

3rd Generation, C10 Skyline

Despite several cues being taken from the previous generation, one thing the C10 did lose was the famous round rear lamps.  However, it made up for this in other areas…

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: Automotive History

Happy 2009

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January 1, 2009
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Happy New Year to all our regular readers (yes, all three of you). Here’s a brief list of what entries are in store for the coming weeks:

.: ’80s turbo talk: Toyota 3E-TE
.: Import from Japan, part 1: the art of searching
.: Skyline history: part 6 (C10 series)

Finally, some Youtube bosozoku madness for your amusement, ranging in quality from mildly tame to outrageously horrid. Whatever you might think of boso, you should at least give these folks top marks for trying; check out the white and red chop-top Crown at about 2 minutes in… o_O

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJoMBp_F0jI&hl=en&fs=1]

: Automotive Documentation, Automotive History, Car Spotting
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