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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The Citroen car club of New Zealand held it’s national rally a couple of months ago from the 23rd til the 26th of January. Based around Masterton the rally started with the ’75th Anniversary Traction tour’ ending it’s week long journey from Auckland.

Although quite a while ago, I’ve not really been able to set aside any time to write anything on this…

We went along on the Saturday for the Pride of ownership and Gymkhana event at Solway showgrounds, and in the Afternoon, a navigational trial which saw most of the cars cover around 110km around the Masterton area.

Most of the time when you go to car club days, there’s a massive turnout of newer models,  however, out of around 80 cars that were entered in the ‘pride of ownership’ portion of the first day, about 70 could be seen as ‘classic’ Cits. From BX’s, right back to Post War Tractions, and everything D, 2CV, and CX in between.

Here’s a few sample pictures from the pride of ownership display, the link to the rest is at the bottom of the entry.

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Thanks to retro-rides.org forums, I stumbled upon this project. Which I thought would be ideal to share with you people.  I’ll let the pictures and actual build thread speak for itself.  Here’s the teasers;

Take 1x Mini

Take 1x Mini

1x XE

1x XE

1x Rear Diff

1x Rear Diff

1x RWD Transmission

1x RWD Transmission

Mix together well, with sufficient engineering practices and you’re bound on a journey to hilarity and excitement…

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After a few pictures posted on oldschool.co.nz thanks to member thegreatestben, this mammoth epic effort of awesomeness was discovered;

M-power

M-power

PeeBee Motorsport appear to be making one HELL of an E30 track car.  With Twin Turbo BMW M5 V10 (I think?)  If you think the engine and manifolds are a work of art, here’s a few examples of the rest of it;

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Rarities on Auction

March 5, 2009

Quite often on trademe and other websites, cars of rare and amazing wonder pop up and are worthy of taking a gander at, at the very least.  Sometimes they’re worthy of slapping a bid on.  It’s often suprising how little people want for cars that aren’t that common.  Here’s some gems that are currently on trademe.co.nz.  Of course, there’s a million (not quite) more, you’re welcome to search for those yourself though.

Lola T165/70

Lola T165/70

Clicking on the photos will take you to the auction page for the specific car, the Lola is perhaps my favourite on there at the moment, just because it’s so unexpected.  Mind you, so is the next car…

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