JDM Goodness inside - Toyota Chaser
Discussion
Having finally purchased something I regard as interesting I thought it appropriate to start a progress thread!
Firstly, an introduction and history of sorts. I am a big time lurker on a number of forums and have spent the last few years doing a bit of drift photography in my spare time at my local track Lydden Hill, which until this year ran a monthly drift practice day where I met a number of now good friends. Being involved in this definitely got me more clued up in a number of rare and interesting cars which Japan kept only for themselves and a while ago I decided I would get one for myself in the future.
In the mean time, I had a small number of boring cars (Corolla 1.6, Focus 1.6 etc) and at some point during a Focus ST170.
Not much to say on this apart from agreeing with everything I have read since owning it! It was a thirsty beast and not very fast considering, but I did enjoy it and personally still really like the way the Mk1 Focus looks when compared to any of the later models.
Later on I needed a new car (1.6zetec focus with 165,000+ miles and an oil consumption problem drops a valve on me, big surprise!) but this time I wanted something a bit different. Having been thinking, I decided I wanted a barge - but something Japanese. This lead me to consider of course the veritable LS400 but this was discounted in favour of an early GS300 which I had a hankering for as my dad had one new growing up. Coincidentally just at the right moment up one popped, in even the same colour combination as I remembered (Maroon and Tan/Brown, I love it but noone else seems to!). And so off I was taken by one of my freinds to collect this fine beast.
I had the intention of making a cooler version of my dads car which required me fixing a number of problems that the standard car came with, namely ride height and wheels.
On the issue of ride height I tried the shoe test but it did not give me favourable results, as seen below.
These issues were remedied with a set of MeisterR coilovers and some old Work wheels from Japan in a 18x9.5J&11J (both ET25) stagger, fitted again with the help of my good friends. I also fitted some wind deflectors (which were made for a Toyota Aristo, the JDM version of this car which came optionally with the twin turbo 2JZ! and took me a few months to find and have shipped over from Japan) and a bunch of stickers which all together I think gave me the sort of VIP look I was going for.
This catches us up to the present day - I had decided last year that I would finally buy the typical "starter" driftcar (A BMW e36) and learn to drift with the people I had been photographing the last few years. Unfortunately this coincided with Lydden Hill shutting down their drift practice days - after what felt like the efforts of one determined local.
Seeing a whole thriving monthly event utterly wiped out was quite disheartening and given that it is now hours of driving to get to the nearest track that will allow drifting, I threw in the towel on that idea but started on a what I thought better one - I would use the money I had saved and was planning to spend drifting to buy myself one of those JDM oddities I had been so attracted to when I first attended some years ago.
The car I decided on is called a Toyota Chaser. Given Japans tendencies for wild rebadging and selling the same but slightly different car at "different" dealerships its a bit complicated to explain what a Chaser actually is but I will give it a go! The actual model of the car is a JZX100 (same idea as a BMW E36/E39 etc) but instead of there being one model of JZX100, there are three - the MKII (The Luxury one), the Chaser (The Sporty one) and the Cresta (the Other one??). These cars then also have their own trim levels, the top one of which on the Chaser is called "Tourer V". These cars have been called 4 door Supras before and in this trim it does sort of make sense. They come with a 1JZ-GTE engine which is a 2.5 litre Turbo, a manual gearbox and factory LSD. Everything is slightly scaled down from a supra (2.5l vs 3l) but otherwise I feel the essence is the same.
A friend of mine imported himself such a car at the end of last year and finally the stars arranged themselves and this week I purchased it from him and drove it back down the 500 miles from Fife, to my home in Kent. Its a Toyota Chaser Tourer V in facelift S2 spec (most importantly for me, it has cooler lights than the early cars).
Its full of little JDM touches and I'm really enjoying it!
Not sure where it goes from here but I will keep this thread updated with and progress, changes etc that occur and I hope to be attending a number of Sunday Services in the near future so it will be nice to get out and see people from here.
Firstly, an introduction and history of sorts. I am a big time lurker on a number of forums and have spent the last few years doing a bit of drift photography in my spare time at my local track Lydden Hill, which until this year ran a monthly drift practice day where I met a number of now good friends. Being involved in this definitely got me more clued up in a number of rare and interesting cars which Japan kept only for themselves and a while ago I decided I would get one for myself in the future.
In the mean time, I had a small number of boring cars (Corolla 1.6, Focus 1.6 etc) and at some point during a Focus ST170.
Not much to say on this apart from agreeing with everything I have read since owning it! It was a thirsty beast and not very fast considering, but I did enjoy it and personally still really like the way the Mk1 Focus looks when compared to any of the later models.
Later on I needed a new car (1.6zetec focus with 165,000+ miles and an oil consumption problem drops a valve on me, big surprise!) but this time I wanted something a bit different. Having been thinking, I decided I wanted a barge - but something Japanese. This lead me to consider of course the veritable LS400 but this was discounted in favour of an early GS300 which I had a hankering for as my dad had one new growing up. Coincidentally just at the right moment up one popped, in even the same colour combination as I remembered (Maroon and Tan/Brown, I love it but noone else seems to!). And so off I was taken by one of my freinds to collect this fine beast.
I had the intention of making a cooler version of my dads car which required me fixing a number of problems that the standard car came with, namely ride height and wheels.
On the issue of ride height I tried the shoe test but it did not give me favourable results, as seen below.
These issues were remedied with a set of MeisterR coilovers and some old Work wheels from Japan in a 18x9.5J&11J (both ET25) stagger, fitted again with the help of my good friends. I also fitted some wind deflectors (which were made for a Toyota Aristo, the JDM version of this car which came optionally with the twin turbo 2JZ! and took me a few months to find and have shipped over from Japan) and a bunch of stickers which all together I think gave me the sort of VIP look I was going for.
This catches us up to the present day - I had decided last year that I would finally buy the typical "starter" driftcar (A BMW e36) and learn to drift with the people I had been photographing the last few years. Unfortunately this coincided with Lydden Hill shutting down their drift practice days - after what felt like the efforts of one determined local.
Seeing a whole thriving monthly event utterly wiped out was quite disheartening and given that it is now hours of driving to get to the nearest track that will allow drifting, I threw in the towel on that idea but started on a what I thought better one - I would use the money I had saved and was planning to spend drifting to buy myself one of those JDM oddities I had been so attracted to when I first attended some years ago.
The car I decided on is called a Toyota Chaser. Given Japans tendencies for wild rebadging and selling the same but slightly different car at "different" dealerships its a bit complicated to explain what a Chaser actually is but I will give it a go! The actual model of the car is a JZX100 (same idea as a BMW E36/E39 etc) but instead of there being one model of JZX100, there are three - the MKII (The Luxury one), the Chaser (The Sporty one) and the Cresta (the Other one??). These cars then also have their own trim levels, the top one of which on the Chaser is called "Tourer V". These cars have been called 4 door Supras before and in this trim it does sort of make sense. They come with a 1JZ-GTE engine which is a 2.5 litre Turbo, a manual gearbox and factory LSD. Everything is slightly scaled down from a supra (2.5l vs 3l) but otherwise I feel the essence is the same.
A friend of mine imported himself such a car at the end of last year and finally the stars arranged themselves and this week I purchased it from him and drove it back down the 500 miles from Fife, to my home in Kent. Its a Toyota Chaser Tourer V in facelift S2 spec (most importantly for me, it has cooler lights than the early cars).
Its full of little JDM touches and I'm really enjoying it!
Not sure where it goes from here but I will keep this thread updated with and progress, changes etc that occur and I hope to be attending a number of Sunday Services in the near future so it will be nice to get out and see people from here.
).Yadizzle1 said:
That's niiiiiiiiice! Any interior pics?
The car needs a good tidy up inside as its been near a workshop where my friend works the last few months so that's one of the first things I'll be doing (this weekend most likely). Then maybe a good clean outside too and some proper photos taken!
As far as the interior goes, its got the two very colourful Recaros you can see there, a full set of what appears to be factory shagpile carpets and the quintessential double DIN Alpine stereo with some additional speakers (one on the front centre dash and a small Sub unit on the parcel shelf). Whilst the stereo is all in Japanese and the Sat Nav only covers Japan, it can play CD/DVDs, Music from an SD card and has its own Hard drive also which appears to be full of music. Certainly enough to keep me entertained so I wont be fitting a band expander or replacing it just yet.
Future plans do include a set of Defi Gauges and a boost controller to complete that late 90s/early 2000s Japan interior!
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