Japanese Metal
Discussion
Ive always liked (and had) Japanese motorbikes, mostly because they're inexpensive, plentiful and reliable. They seem to offer the fastest speed for your money, pound for pound its not really possible to go faster.
But with yet another dismal summer and my motorbike in pieces, my thoughts turn once again to 4 wheeled transport.
It seems the Japanese will give you a lot of speed for your money with cars as well, particularly their coupes from the late 80s and early 90s.
A quick browse through the adverts yielded a mk 3 1990 Supra manual 3.0 litre, one for £1500, one for £2000. a bit more digging found a zx300 for £2500, again a manual. One very nice looking zx300 for £4000.
Being performance cars I'm sure they will lead hard lives, and be quite thirsty, hard on tyres, clutch, brakes and japanese levels of bodywork might make them a bit prone to rot. And insurance companies seem to rub their hands together at the mention of japanese performance.
Any owners of 300zx or similar (rx7 looks nice too) that have any advice?
0-60 in 5.5 seconds for less than £5000 is very very tempting.
But with yet another dismal summer and my motorbike in pieces, my thoughts turn once again to 4 wheeled transport.
It seems the Japanese will give you a lot of speed for your money with cars as well, particularly their coupes from the late 80s and early 90s.
A quick browse through the adverts yielded a mk 3 1990 Supra manual 3.0 litre, one for £1500, one for £2000. a bit more digging found a zx300 for £2500, again a manual. One very nice looking zx300 for £4000.
Being performance cars I'm sure they will lead hard lives, and be quite thirsty, hard on tyres, clutch, brakes and japanese levels of bodywork might make them a bit prone to rot. And insurance companies seem to rub their hands together at the mention of japanese performance.
Any owners of 300zx or similar (rx7 looks nice too) that have any advice?
0-60 in 5.5 seconds for less than £5000 is very very tempting.
Back in the late last century (!) I worked with Redline Magazine on their "Gran Tourismo Live" article where we had a pile of this type of metal to play with, from Supra's (one with allegedly 750hp!), a couple of 300zx's, Skylines, Impreza's, a rowdy evil MR2 Turbo, and some <yawn> MX5's.
I drove pretty well everything on the day, and my impressions go like this:
Starting with my favourites on the day:
R32 Skyline - a fairly standard car, uprated to 430hp, a drivers car. Grin factor 10.
Impreza WRX (import) - modded with bigger brakes - uprated to 300hp - very front-wheel-drive-esque in terms of handling, with turn-in understeer, but sure footed, easy to drive.
Then....
Supra Turbo. It was an auto. And that was clearly destined for the US market. Sport mode was dreadful, it ruined the car, which was quite driveable otherwise. If you can find a manual one, it has to be better! IF it's orange with some dubious graphics, don't. Just don't.
300ZX Twin Turbo (Z32) - According to the specs they had a manual transmission with an auto option. I've personally never seen a manual, other than a Japanese import, or one that someone has converted themselves. The auto for the Z32 is woeful. It has no lockup facility, and it's sport mode is more dreadful than the Supra's. It didn't handle very well either - very much an American market car.
MR2 Turbo - this one was tweaked to something like 330hp. It had a throttle switch - on/off, and typical MK2 MR2 handling - evil. Evil evil evil. Under/over/everything steer. It had barrier magnet written all over it.
And finally....
MX5. No. Nearly fell to sleep. Though I will say this, it's not difficult - much more grip than power!
I drove pretty well everything on the day, and my impressions go like this:
Starting with my favourites on the day:
R32 Skyline - a fairly standard car, uprated to 430hp, a drivers car. Grin factor 10.
Impreza WRX (import) - modded with bigger brakes - uprated to 300hp - very front-wheel-drive-esque in terms of handling, with turn-in understeer, but sure footed, easy to drive.
Then....
Supra Turbo. It was an auto. And that was clearly destined for the US market. Sport mode was dreadful, it ruined the car, which was quite driveable otherwise. If you can find a manual one, it has to be better! IF it's orange with some dubious graphics, don't. Just don't.
300ZX Twin Turbo (Z32) - According to the specs they had a manual transmission with an auto option. I've personally never seen a manual, other than a Japanese import, or one that someone has converted themselves. The auto for the Z32 is woeful. It has no lockup facility, and it's sport mode is more dreadful than the Supra's. It didn't handle very well either - very much an American market car.
MR2 Turbo - this one was tweaked to something like 330hp. It had a throttle switch - on/off, and typical MK2 MR2 handling - evil. Evil evil evil. Under/over/everything steer. It had barrier magnet written all over it.
And finally....
MX5. No. Nearly fell to sleep. Though I will say this, it's not difficult - much more grip than power!
An r32 skyline would be my top choice too, but they are really expensive. Saw a beauty for £9000 on here... dream on. A scooby would be fun too but similar problem.
I test drove a 300zx admittedly with an auto gearbox. It does fly, but an auto just seems to defeat the purpose of a sports car.
See the Supra you're selling for your neighbour, is this it? http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1971478.htm
Pity its an automatic, otherwise I'd be very interested.
I test drove a 300zx admittedly with an auto gearbox. It does fly, but an auto just seems to defeat the purpose of a sports car.
See the Supra you're selling for your neighbour, is this it? http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1971478.htm
Pity its an automatic, otherwise I'd be very interested.
Nissan 200sx is pretty good value and comes standard 200hp. Easily get a lot more out of it. Mine is auto and the box isn't great but London life equals sitting in traffic and speed humps and it's my daily drive so I make do.
It's still great fun for a spirited weekend drive through some twisty roads. Just be careful in the wet as there's no t/c. Serious bang for buck imho.
It's still great fun for a spirited weekend drive through some twisty roads. Just be careful in the wet as there's no t/c. Serious bang for buck imho.
In response to the OP, don't just go on engine size, performance in a straight line is about power, torque, gearing and weight. For £5k for example, an E36 M3 will be way faster than anything mentioned here, certainly better to drive (normally aspirated) and you might be surprised at a lesser model like a 328i (£2k to £3k), especially with a few mods.
The real advantage of Japanese performance cars is that depreciation is not kind to them, they're far more reliable and cheaper to run than Western alternatives (which goes for any type of Japanese car, be it family car, hatchback or off roader), and a lot of them are turbocharged, which makes tuning for big power easy, but driveability suffers hugely in my experience (which is of tuned 200sxs and Celica GT4s; I prefer the standard versions of both).
One of the big problems is that many of them have been abused, so buy wisely.
The real advantage of Japanese performance cars is that depreciation is not kind to them, they're far more reliable and cheaper to run than Western alternatives (which goes for any type of Japanese car, be it family car, hatchback or off roader), and a lot of them are turbocharged, which makes tuning for big power easy, but driveability suffers hugely in my experience (which is of tuned 200sxs and Celica GT4s; I prefer the standard versions of both).
One of the big problems is that many of them have been abused, so buy wisely.
frosted said:
Amazing how 3-spoke alloys can ruin a gorgeous car!Gassing Station | General Gassing [Archive] | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff