Archive for September, 2009

Max Power!

September 2, 2009

Daihatsu Max, that is.

So, as I used that creepy new twitter application to indicate earlier in the weekend I checked out a 1974 Daihatsu Max which was located in a town three quarters of an hour drive away.  It was a fine enough day and I’d spent a good while hacking at my C110 so it was a nice relaxing drive in the lazy jacked diseasel cruiser that is my D21 Terrano.

I had stumbled upon said Max on trademe.co.nz some days earlier, initially listed with no picture, after a day or so a picture had made it’s way on there but being it was what appeared to be a scanned an un-cropped photo it provided no aid in knowing what was what, other than the car was white and at one stage it had been parked on the grass.  Helpful?  You judge…

trademe image.

trademe.co.nz image, highest resolution

Having made vague arrangements to days previous and then having earlier to confirm location and residence I arrived at my destination mid afternoon and was ushered around the corner to find…  (more…)

Caution: may contain spoiler

September 1, 2009

Once upon a time there was this website called Yahoo! Auctions Japan, where items of much merriment and joy could be bought and sold amongst mortal men.

On this website there happened to be a DR30 Skyline ducktail spoiler for sale, of the kind made by a company known as JENESIS.

Dhoooo

And Ed saw this spoiler, and deemed it worthy of purchasing, because impulse buying is what he does best.

(more…)

Classic Skylines in the US

September 1, 2009

Further to the comment in my Skyline History series (Skyline History, Part 1.) which states;

“Despite common thought that the Skyline’s were never exported to America, one of the destinations for the ALSIE (the E designating it’s the Export variant) was in fact America.  Though as you could imagine in the mid to late 50’s, the US was quite happy with it’s own car industry and the some 600 cars they received were likely not well met.  (Though it has to be said, this is pure speculation on my part.  Given the size of American cars and the price of fuel at the time, I doubt there would be little regard for a smaller 1.9l, 4cyl car from Japan)”

So, contrary to popular opinion, the Skyline was in fact sold in the US and not just recently.

Though it was not under Nissan moniker (as most people know the Skyline) because of the period involved it was in “Prince Skyline” guise and from what I can find, it was only the first of the 1st Generation (LSI-1) that was sold, which in my opinion is quite possibly the classiest of all for the US (or anyone for that matter) to have been recipients of.

I can hear you all saying “Well, that’s all well and good to claim Michael.  But where’s your evidence, where’s your proof?!”  The reality is I don’t have much but what I do have should be enough for those state-side to perhaps investigate further on their own, should they wish to.

The first bit of such evidence is this snippet scanned from a book published in 1960 by Floyd Clymer called “Complete Catalog of Japanese Motor Vehicles” (cheers to Eddie for the clarification on that).;

If you're going to San Francisco...

If you're going to San Francisco...

A brief scan of the image shows the LSI in it’s Export form (broader side stripe with a slight downwards kick near the rear arch) which would go further to it being a line-up of exported cars, unfortunately I wasn’t alive in the 50′s or the 60′s so I can’t confirm that the background titled as the Port of Oakland in San Francisco, is infact that.  Though it would be strange for what appears to be a legitimate image/scan to be lying.

Further to that, are these shots taken of an LSI, appearing to slowly return to the earth; (more…)

I was browsing through the oldjapanesecar.com forums, who (like many car forums) have an ebay/auction site thread which is a good place to find things that you might have missed in your own trawling or alternatively wouldn’t have seen anyway because it’s from a country of origin different to your own.  I choked on several measures of hilarity when I stumbled upon this brilliant share by Australian OJC user, davehoos.

Toyota Corolla HE70

Toyota Corolla HE70

Oh yeah baby, this could be more of an Australian Japanese car if it tried.  Those of keen eye and knowledge will see the “kit” traces back to the mighty Holden Torana SL/R 5000.  That’s not all that’s Aussie about it though, “What does the ‘H’ in HE70 stand for?” I hear you ask.  Well… (more…)