Browse by Tags
Posted
Oct 30 2011, 09:30 PM
by
Charles Kha
with 30 comment(s)
The island country of Singapore is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Asia, but something it's not so famous for is its car culture. With incredibly high registration costs and strict regulations on vehicle modifications, you'd think Singaporean car enthusiasts would be few and far between. But you'd be wrong. In spite of car ownership costing up to five times more than in North America, Singapore's car scene is thriving. During my short visit, Speedhunters guest blogger...
More...
Posted
Feb 10 2011, 11:30 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 23 comment(s)
For this final post on the HKS Premium Day I want to take another look through the paddock, checking out some cars we haven't yet seen and dive into a little more detail of those we all know and love. Take the HKS Technical Factory R35 in the opening picture. It's one that particularly stood out due to its almost completely stock looks, but potent performance which allowed it to lap Fuji in 1'47"826 thanks to the use of special turbines HKS TF developed. It was great seeing some...
More...
Posted
Jan 23 2011, 11:00 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 21 comment(s)
Continuing on with our coverage of the Tokyo Auto Salon I thought it would be interesting to take a little look at some cool tuning parts that were on display, starting off with this JUN 4.2 liter stroker kit. It is still in the prototype stage at the moment but when released it will further boost the capabilities of the VR38, adding close to half a liter of extra capacity! For lovers of low-end torque this will no doubt be a must! Owners of older cars rejoice, the Enkei 92s may soon be back on sale...
More...
Posted
Nov 02 2010, 05:30 PM
by
Patrick McGrath
with 6 comment(s)
I was aimlessly stumbling around the vast highways of the interwebs earlier when I came across this video of the HKS GT-R GT800 on the HKS Europe website. It was only a few seconds into the video I noticed that someone had created closed captioned subtitles for the video, translating from the original Japanese to English. Enquiring with Masaya of HKS Europe, the video is the second of two videos that HKS Europe have subtitled to allow those of us who are unable to speak Japanese to still enjoy these videos. It's a great initiative by the HKS Europe team and I've been told it's only the beginning. Be sure to have CC switched on in the Youtube video frame to get the subtitles on screen.
-
Paddy McGrath
HKS Europe Media Section
More...
Posted
Oct 14 2010, 08:00 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 18 comment(s)
The little Honda CR-Z is definitely getting a lot of interest from tuners in Japan. On a recent visit to Tsukuba Circuit I stumbled upon a test session that Top Secret and HKS were having with their respective demo cars. It looked like they were all pretty much done when I got close enough to take some pictures but I did manage to find out a little bit of information. Smoky from Top Secret has boosted the little hybrid 1.5L engine with a Trust TD04H turbocharger, which at a very mild 0.4 bar can...
More...
Posted
Oct 11 2010, 07:00 AM
by
Charles Kha
with 40 comment(s)
Back in 2002 I witnessed a car that would leave a permanent impression on me. Drag racing was never really 'my thing', but seeing the famous HKS R33 GT-R in person changed all that. Not only was it the long-standing record holder as the fastest GT-R, but it also held the title as the quickest 4WD vehicle in the world. Countless drivers had tried to challenge HKS for the GT-R record, but for five years no one could come close to its 7.67sec run. There's an air of mystery that surrounds...
More...
Posted
Sep 28 2010, 05:35 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 30 comment(s)
HKS and Taniguchi have for years been a winning combination, setting records wherever they go. Time attack has always helped push the tuning envelope further, as extreme parts and modifications eventually trickle down and are able to be used on street applications. This is what will eventually happen with the R35 GT-R. HKS definitely have something up their sleeves as we all saw at the recent R's Meeting event. Once Taniguchi pitted after his second track session I went to take a closer look...
More...
Posted
Apr 23 2010, 03:22 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 43 comment(s)
What car would you drive if your profession was building race cars for others? If I named a few off the top of my head one of them would be the R34 Z-tune. The only problem is it isn't for sale, because only 20 were ever built. A dilemma for me perhaps, but not for Bene Janssen the owner of the car and driving force behind Japo Motorsport in Germany. He set out to build a replica Z-tune; to showcase his building skills, and to show his customers that not all Japanese cars have crappy plastic...
More...
Posted
Mar 02 2010, 09:15 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 24 comment(s)
For the true Skyline connoisseur there is one model that has for years been enjoying legendary status. It isn't the Nismo 400R or even the Z-tune but a car that was conceived well before these. Back in the early nineties HKS decided to do what RUF in Germany was doing with Porsches, and started to create a high-performance bespoke version of the BNR32, the Zero-R. The idea was to inject the tuning knowhow HKS had accumulated after years of tuning the RB26 and help the GT-R achieve its fullest...
More...
Posted
Dec 21 2009, 03:00 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 38 comment(s)
Following the post on the Z-tune I think there is one other Skyline GT-R we need to look at, an R34 that like the Nismo car was built to be the ultimate street going modified "R." When building the Driving Performer, HKS took a very different route to Nismo by creating something a little more extreme, at least in the engine department. The whole point of this project was to create a comfortable GT-R, a car that could be driven every day but at the same time have enough reserves of power...
More...
Posted
Oct 28 2009, 05:30 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 19 comment(s)
It was hard to pick a second D1 driver to do a small retrospective on, following the post on Ueo's career as a professional drifter. There are just so many great drivers in Japan to choose from, but after much deliberation it just had to be Nobuteru Taniguchi. Taniguchi is one driver I have great respect for, having managed to build a racing career with his own two hands, starting off in small one make racing sereis making it all the way to Super GT. In fact as I write this he is preparing to...
More...
Posted
Jul 21 2009, 04:00 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 27 comment(s)
HKS Technical Factory has always liked to impress by creating some pretty rare cars in the past. Their most well known has to be the BNR32-based Zero-R built in the early nineties. Only 4 were ever made, HKS kept 3 due to homologation problems and one was bought by the Sultan of Brunei to add to his vast collection of exotics. But the car you see here, the HKS CT200MR is, believe it or not, even rarer than that. There is only one in the world! The idea was to create a street-going edition of the...
More...
Posted
Jul 01 2009, 12:00 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 31 comment(s)
What's better? Saving the best for last, or starting things off with a bang? Right now I'm going to choose the latter. To kick off Speedhunters AWD month, I'm going to feature what just might be the greatest tuner car of all time. To even call the HKS CT230R a tuner car is a bit of a stretch, but since the car is built and campaigned by one of the world's biggest tuning companies I'd say the name fits. I got to spend some time inspecting every surface of this monster when I visited the HKS factory in Japan last winter, and have been patiently waiting until now to post this feature....
More...
Posted
Jul 01 2009, 02:02 AM
by
Andy Blackmore
with 7 comment(s)
We start off July, otherwise known as 'AWD Feature Month' with our Calendar Desktop, featuring the awesome HKS CT230R EVO. Check back later today for an in depth feature on this car by Mike Garrett. Not to be missed. You can download the July Calendar in Standard (1600) and Wide Screen (1900) formats in our desktop section. -Andy Blackmore PS: Happy Canada Day!
More...
Posted
Mar 26 2009, 01:06 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 13 comment(s)
In keeping with the "cool cars in cool garages" theme we have going this month with all the build stories on the site, I wanted to add this shot of the HKS 180SX drag car. When we arrived at the garge where the CT230R and some of the other HKS cars we boring stored, I was delighted to see this RB26-powered monster sitting there in one of the service bays undergoing some work.
With all the focus on the drift cand time attack cars that HKS has built, you can sometimes forget about the incredible HKS drag cars. The HKS 180's 1,200hp and seven second quarter mile times are just as impressive today as they were when the car was first built.
-Mike Garrett...
More...
Posted
Mar 20 2009, 06:02 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 4 comment(s)
Today has been a pretty good day for those of you that like to constantly change your desktop wallpaper. Here's my contribution - a high res shot of the HKS CZ200S Evo X from my recent feature on the car. Widescreen and standard versions are available now in the Desktops section.
Enjoy your weekend!
-Mike Garrett...
More...
Posted
Mar 20 2009, 04:31 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 16 comment(s)
As promised, here's some more photos from my visit last month to the small museum at the HKS factory in Japan. As I was reading through the comments section of the previous post, I noticed a lot of you guys wanted to see the HKS Mercedes Benz CLK JGTC car from 2002. Of course I didn't forget about this awesome piece of machinery from what many people consider to be the glory days of GT racing in Japan....
More...
Posted
Mar 19 2009, 05:37 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 27 comment(s)
Do you ever find yourself wondering what happens to a company's race cars and tuner cars after their services are no longer needed? Sometimes they will wind up in the hands of private buyers (often overseas), in other cases they will be destroyed or dismantled, and every once in a while they'll be preserved or displayed as part of the company's heritage. In it's 35+ years of existence, HKS has built dozens of these historic competition and street vehicles, and a number of them are kept on display in a special room at the sprawling HKS factory in Fujinomiya City, Japan....
More...
Posted
Mar 18 2009, 05:12 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 24 comment(s)
If you were looking for HKS at this year's Tokyo Auto Salon, you may have been disappointed to find that the company didn't have much of a presence this year. Like a lot of companies, HKS was forced to cut back on their TAS showing due to the economic turndown in Japan and around the world. They might not have had a proper booth at TAS 2009,but a few of HKS cars did manage to find their way into the show. For example, on display outside of the Makuhari Messe near the makeshift D1 course, was this rather unassuming white HKS-built Lancer Evolution X....
More...
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...
More...