Does anyone know anything about Tommy Kaira?
Discussion
PW said:
It also turns out online translation from Japanese is a bit inaccurate and slightly racist: apparently Tommy Kaira tuned cars from the likes of Nissan, Subaru, and Sea Bass.
Sea Bass It's always been the standard translation for Suzuki - no idea whether it's accurate or not though!
Risotto said:
PW said:
It also turns out online translation from Japanese is a bit inaccurate and slightly racist: apparently Tommy Kaira tuned cars from the likes of Nissan, Subaru, and Sea Bass.
Sea Bass It's always been the standard translation for Suzuki - no idea whether it's accurate or not though!
Seems to be....
Bit of a thread bump on this one but I thought some might be interested to know what I found out when I bought my ZZ-S from the guy that supplied the dashes originally. It had been sat in his collection and had 22 kilometers (13.5 miles) on the clock.
He told me that the ZZ-S was built over here, in Norwich by the guys that went on to build the Mosler. Previous to setting up Tommy Kaira, Mr Kaira (Yoshikazu Tomita and Kikuo Kaira were the founders) was a single seat racer and had always wanted a road car that gave him the same feeling he got when driving his single seater. This led him to design the ZZ-S. It has a Nissan SR20DE on racing bike carbs and is great fun to drive, if a bit tail happy (maybe the feeling he was trying to replicate was fear?) It's fairly well built too...what there is of it! Well designed too. The engine cover 'humps on the back unbolt revealing the real engine cover and bolts onto the roll hoop/screen as a makeshift roof!
Leading Edge then bought the rights to the ZZ-S but I think the price was still too high for it to catch on.
The ZZ-II only ever made it to prototype level under Tommy Kaira before they were bought out by Autobachs as far as I know. What they did with it I'm not sure.
I wont bore you any more but I hope this was of interest to someone!
He told me that the ZZ-S was built over here, in Norwich by the guys that went on to build the Mosler. Previous to setting up Tommy Kaira, Mr Kaira (Yoshikazu Tomita and Kikuo Kaira were the founders) was a single seat racer and had always wanted a road car that gave him the same feeling he got when driving his single seater. This led him to design the ZZ-S. It has a Nissan SR20DE on racing bike carbs and is great fun to drive, if a bit tail happy (maybe the feeling he was trying to replicate was fear?) It's fairly well built too...what there is of it! Well designed too. The engine cover 'humps on the back unbolt revealing the real engine cover and bolts onto the roll hoop/screen as a makeshift roof!
Leading Edge then bought the rights to the ZZ-S but I think the price was still too high for it to catch on.
The ZZ-II only ever made it to prototype level under Tommy Kaira before they were bought out by Autobachs as far as I know. What they did with it I'm not sure.
I wont bore you any more but I hope this was of interest to someone!
Just came across know anything about Tommy kaira zz made in Hingham norfolk April 1996-dec 1999 I was there start to finish have sales bouche photos programs Brighton speed runs along front plus one badge of car I will have to check to confirm how many made but 1st one got sent to Japan 4th July 1996 . Any questions only to happy to answer. Don
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff