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Posted
Nov 19 2009, 12:15 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 19 comment(s)
After spending a long weekend hanging out with Andy & Emily of Powervehicles.com up in Ebisu, I couldn't head back home before grabbing at least one picture of their JZS161. This is the car they use as their daily driver, and is one of the cleanest Aristo around. It has been dropped on 19-inch AEM TM-02 wheels thanks to a set of GP Sports G-Master suspension and sits nice and flush thanks to the flared rear arches and front Kazama Auto FRP fenders. The unique look comes from the full Kazama...
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Posted
Aug 25 2009, 03:00 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 27 comment(s)
It happens to us all sooner or later. You get slightly older, the family begins to grow and your days of terrorizing the streets with your tuned sports car are well and truly over. This is exactly the situation a customer of Revolfe found himself in, except he had no intention of going down the minivan route! As long as the car he chose was big and comfortable the wife would approve, so there was really only one choice to consider and that was the Aristo V300 Vertex. Propelled by the silky smooth...
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Posted
Jun 04 2009, 03:29 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 31 comment(s)
With this month being dedicated to luxury and exotic cars, you can expect to see a nice selection of VIP cars over the next few weeks here on Speedhunters. To get started, I thought I'd share a few of the cars done by a shop in Mie Prefecture called Garage Excellent. G-Excellent is all about the "dress up" style - whether its on traditional Japanese sedans, European luxury cars, or the always-popular minivans. Looking at some of G-Excellent's recent demo and customer cars, you can get a good feel for the current state of the dress up and VIP scene in Japan....
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Posted
Mar 27 2009, 03:21 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 8 comment(s)
Was taking a look through Manabu "MAX" Ordio's official blog this afternoon when I found this cool photo of the JZS161 Aristo that he will be drifting this year. From what I can gather, this is the same car that he used in Formula D last year, with a few changes. There's some new graphics repping Orido's long time friends at the Nihon Automobile College, a set of Weds wheels, and the new Ridox aero kit that was seen on his blue street car at TAS this year. This shot was taken earlier in the week as the car was undergoing some last minute prep for this weekend's D1GP opener at Ebisu Circuit....
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Posted
Mar 25 2009, 03:20 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 33 comment(s)
A few months back, the owner of this Aristo, Justin Wallace was faced with a bit of a dilemma. A Vancouver, Canada, law enforcement officer had decided that the wheel/tire setup on his VIP-style Aristo was "unsafe" and had the car towed away and issued with a vehicle inspection. 5 degrees of negative rear camber along with max stretched 275/30/19 tires on 19x12 Garson Deep Racing Ryugi rear wheels with a whopping -12 offset looked too radical for the police to cope with. So what was Justin...
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Posted
Mar 20 2009, 11:54 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 10 comment(s)
It takes serious commitment to start your photography shoot at 02:00 in the morning and wait for sunrise... but that is just what photographer Tomasz Wagner did to nail this shot.... Download the regular or wide screen editions in the Desktops area. Full feature to come... :R
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Posted
Mar 10 2009, 08:31 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 2 comment(s)
As I write this, I'm sitting on the floor of my furniture-less apartment taking a short break from the hustle and bustle of moving out. My posts this week will be a bit less frequent than usual, but I thought you might like this high res desktop wallpaper of the HKS JZS161 Aristo plus a few other HKS cars making cameo appearances in the background. Widescreen and standard versions are available now in the Desktops section.
Stay tuned for more interesting stories from my HKS visit soon.
OK, back to moving...
-Mike Garrett...
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Posted
Mar 05 2009, 07:46 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 21 comment(s)
As you probably gathered from the teaser photo I posted the other day, I recently took a trip to the famous headquarters and factory of HKS, which is located near the base of Mt. Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture. Japan's clogged highways made for a long drive out to Shizuoka from Tsukuba, but It was more than worth it to experience the home of what's probably Japan's biggest tuning company. I'll be posting more about my visit to the HQ itself later on, but right now I want talk about the the JZS161 Toyota Aristo drift car which was designed for HKS's favorite racing driver, Nobuteru Taniguchi....
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Posted
Feb 13 2009, 03:00 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 23 comment(s)
Sometimes there are just too many cars that we Speedhunters want to shoot, and we just don't have the time or budget to go visit them all. Such is the case with Barry Wong's JZS147 Aristo - I've known about it for quite some time now. I've been wanting to shoot this car ever since I first heard about it, but it lives all the way out in Hawaii! Since I knew I wanted to show Speedhunters readers this car, but wouldn't be able to fly out to Hawaii to shoot it, I just called up Barry...
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Posted
Feb 08 2009, 04:18 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 5 comment(s)
As cool as the JZS161 Toyota Aristo is, the car was always known more as a relaxed highway cruiser compared to it's athletic European counterparts like the BMW 5-series. Luckily though, the JZS161 shares a lot with cars like the Toyota Supra, and that means it has potential to be much more than just a luxury sedan. I've seen a few Aristos at the track, but none as serious as this example, which I spotted at Tsukuba last spring. This plush sedan is loaded with parts you'd normally see on an Evo or Impreza - vented carbon hood, big intercooler, light weight Volk CE28N wheels, and a huge GT wing. Under the hood is a single-turbine 2JZGTE that was powering the Aristo right past some of the more traditional sports cars on the track. ...
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Posted
Jan 10 2009, 07:45 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 18 comment(s)
Continuing on with Tokyo Auto Salon 2009 coverage, let's look at one of my personal favorites - tuned Toyota RWD sedans. Mark II, Chaser, Altezza, Aristo - they were all represented well at this year's Auto Salon. I didn't notice quite as many JZX cars as last year's show, but the ones on hand very impressive. Take a look at the 396 Motoring JZX100 Cresta, seen above in the Drift Tengoku booth. Intricate paint designs like this are getting more and more popular on tuner cars in Japan, and seemed to be one of the big things at TAS 2009....
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Posted
Nov 19 2008, 07:43 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 10 comment(s)
Over the past few weeks I have been on kind of a JZS616 Aristo kick, digging up everything I can about these sexy four-doors. I have found that it's not the VIP versions that impress me so much, but the traditionally tuned versions like this one from Impact Magic which was shown at Tokyo Auto Salon this year. To me, this car is perfection. Aggressive, but not ridiculous wheels (19" Advan RS's), mild body modifications and the 600+hp TD07-fed 2JZGTE make for a perfect street-tuned sedan that should be able to run away from nearly any car on the road....
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Posted
Aug 18 2008, 03:15 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 18 comment(s)
Yesterday, as we walked into the pits at the Honjo MSC event, we were all a little awestruck by the amazing drift cars at hand. One of the the most interesting cars we spotted there, however, was not even a drift car. When we saw this strange looking pink machine rolling through the pits, we were all thinking "What the hell is that?". Now I try to stay well versed in the different JDM models,but I still could not identify what exactly we were looking at. Besides the unique body, it also grabbed our attention with its pink paint, widened fenders, and aggressive VIP-like stance......
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Posted
Jul 03 2008, 04:48 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 16 comment(s)
Well it's official.
Former D1 star and current Super GT driver Manabu "Max" Orido will be be competing in the upcoming Formula D event at Las Vegas behind the wheel of the Project Mu/3T Motorsport/Yokohama Tire JZS161 Aristo. It's been a while since Orido has competed in pro drifting so it will be very interesting to see how he does against FD's finest during the much anticipated match at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on July 11-12......
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Posted
Jun 11 2008, 03:30 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 17 comment(s)
The Toyota Aristo or commonly known as the Lexus GS series is a very popular platform within the VIP scene. Companies like Junction Produce, Aimgain and Job Design still offer several body kits for this car. The car came with the indestructible 2JZ twin turbo engine (code JZS161) to give it the performance other cars didn't had......
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Posted
Jun 04 2008, 02:10 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 16 comment(s)
Man, this car was sure fun to drive! To be completely up front with you, I don't have a ton of photos of this car - because most of the time I spent with it, I decided to drive it rather than document it. The car you're looking at is a JZS161 (in the USA, it's a Lexus GS300 or GS400, depending on which engine it has) - a fairly common car to see in Southern California. Especially in the area where I live, I see a ton of VIP "work in progress" JZS161s, and even **sigh** some...
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Posted
May 23 2008, 11:47 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 8 comment(s)
While I love VIP style cars as much as the next guy, I think sometimes it can be a little boring seeing the same sort of builds over and over again. That is why I knew I had to share this JZS147 Toyota Aristo (first generation Lexus GS300 in the states) that I found on Japan's Minkara website. If you haven't heard of it, Minikara is like a Myspace for Japanese car owners. I can spend hours browsing the site and checking out people's cars. This particular car is owned by Minkara member...
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