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Posted
Feb 02 2009, 05:30 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 6 comment(s)
Over the past few days, I've been finishing up our Mazda-themed editorials with photos from the race car dungeon underneath the Mazda R&D facility. The main reason I wanted to go to the facility in the first place was to shoot this particular car. As pretty much everyone who has read Speedhunters can tell, I'm a die hard Toyota enthusiast. However, I do hold RX7s in high regard. I just love the design and historic lineage of the cars - it's really something I could get into if I still...
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Posted
Feb 02 2009, 03:24 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 8 comment(s)
I know we are wrapping up Mazda month right now, but I have a few more photos I wanted to post before moving on. Last weekend at HKS Premium Day and the JCCA New Year Meeting, I spotted a number of Roadsters in and around the events, and I thought posting some of the photos would be a good way to close out the month. While these cars aren't the "best" examples out there, I think they do a nice job showing some of the typical Roadsters you'll see on the streets of Japan....
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Posted
Jan 31 2009, 04:22 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 26 comment(s)
The first time I spotted this car, I was out at Willow Springs with the yellow Nissan 370Z that I was test driving for my driving impression story on Speedhunters. There were a lot of Miatas at the track that day (obviously, because there was a Miata Challenge event happening at Streets), but in the sea of Miatas parked in the Streets of Willow pit area, I thought this black Miata stood out most. This Miata is owned by Tony Pham, a super nice guy from the San Fernando Valley who bought his Miata...
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Posted
Jan 31 2009, 04:19 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 1 comment(s)
Step right up and get it! By request from Murs (you have to fulfill requests when members of Living Legends are requesting them), Turbo Tony Pham's good offset, fire breathing Miata is now available on the Speedhunters Desktops section for download! Handle it. -Antonio Alvendia
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Posted
Jan 31 2009, 10:25 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 8 comment(s)
Here's another incredible car I found in the Mazda Motorsports dungeon... this one pretty much blew my mind, as I've never seen this car in person before. This is the Mazda/Racing Beat FD3S RX7 that set a land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Historic! This FD was originally built in 1991 by Takayuki Oku and Jim Mederer of Racing Beat in Anaheim California, and was driven by Jim Mederer. There was a video special on the History Channel that included video footage of Jim Mederer...
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Posted
Jan 30 2009, 11:13 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 1 comment(s)
To the RX8 fans out there... Tony Angelo's 787B-inspired RX8 has been added to the Speedhunters desktops section . Enjoy! -Antonio Alvendia
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Posted
Jan 30 2009, 05:38 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 12 comment(s)
I just wanted to post up some quick snaps of this car... when I spotted it, parked quietly in the back corner of the highly restricted access race car dungeon that lies underneath one of Mazda R&D facility, I couldn't quite make out what kind of car this was... however, if you look more closely, examining the hood, the bumper vents, and the roofline, you'll notice that this car is an FC3S RX7 Turbo II. I didn't have much information on this FC, but was told that apparently this car...
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Posted
Jan 30 2009, 08:46 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 2 comment(s)
I remember hearing some requests for a high res desktop version of this photo of Kenji Takayama in the R-Magic FD3S at D1 Fuji last October, so here you go. Widescreen and standard versions available now in the Speedhunters Desktops section. ...
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Posted
Jan 29 2009, 03:00 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 36 comment(s)
It's funny to think some Speedhunters readers were concerned that we had gone through our Mazda lineup of cars and forgotten about about Tony Angelo's RX8. Don't worry, we didn't. How could we forget? Everyone knows that Tony has been a devoted Mazda fan for a long time... does anyone remember his article in Wired Magazine that describes him running his local mountain roads in his home state of Pennsylvania? Tony represents his beloved PA pretty hard, which is probably why he always...
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Posted
Jan 29 2009, 01:03 PM
by
John Brooks
with 7 comment(s)
The problem with getting to the top of Mount Everest is once you get back down to sea level where do you go next? Some would say it is the price you pay for ascending the heights, like Icarus getting too close to the Sun, others of us lurking in the shadows would say be grateful for ever reaching the summit. Of course the mark of a great champion is to repeat the feat and keep repeating it, however that becomes almost impossible if the rules get changed 180 degrees...........and that brings us to...
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Posted
Jan 29 2009, 08:37 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 30 comment(s)
One thing you might notice about Japan is the "team spirit" of its car enthusiasts. Whether its drift teams, VIP clubs, or even ita-sha groups, there are organizations dedicated to every type of car and model out there. Sometimes the clubs will be a broad group of friends that simply enjoy driving and hanging out, and other times they will be dedicated specifically to one type of car. If you are an RX7 fan, or fan of classic Japanese cars in general, you might have stumbled across the group known as "22C Works". As the name suggests, 22C works is a club for owners of the first generation SA22C Mazda RX7 from around Japan. There are lots of cool 22C's in the group, but we found one in particular we had to showcase this month....
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Posted
Jan 29 2009, 03:49 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 17 comment(s)
As we creep towards the end of Mazda month, I still have a couple of special features left to do. You have already seen some of the privately owned RX7 track cars in Japan earlier this month, but now it's time to look at the "top guns" of this. These are cars the cars that share more in common with works-backed racing machines than they do normal tuner cars. At the track, you'll see them with full pit crews, stacks of extra tires, air jacks, and other things you'd see at places like Le Mans, or Daytona. There are many RX7's out there capable of lapping Tsukuba Circuit in well under a minute, but there are three big ones that come mind. The Screen FD, the Pan Speed FD, and the most recent addition, the Revolution TA-2 FD....
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Posted
Jan 28 2009, 11:25 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 60 comment(s)
Earlier this month, there was a discussion about the roadster community amongst a few of us Speedhunter folks and the subject of the Kinod Photography group came up. I hadn't heard of them previously, so had a look at their site and was rather impressed with what I saw.... One photographer particularly stood out: a young chap named Linhbergh Nguyen. I don't know where he learned to shoot photos but think he has an incredible eye for composition, light and colour.... things that you can't...
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Posted
Jan 26 2009, 07:29 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 9 comment(s)
After seeing all the gorgeous Miata's that Antonio posted I thought I would be nice to see a bit more FC's. The first FC I wanted to share is this orange one that was previously owned by Daijiro Inada, yes the 'godfather' behind D1GP, the Tokyo Auto Salon and Video Option. He enlisted the help of Top Secret and RE Amemiya to build his car. These names are synonymous with top notch builds and it is no different with this rx7. The car is not your typical tuner car with a plethora of...
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Posted
Jan 26 2009, 06:31 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 6 comment(s)
I spotted this late model Mazda Axela (AKA Mazda3) as I was walking through the parking lot outside the JCCA show yesterday, marveling at all the cool cars and firing off photos about as fast I could. As you can see, the owner has applied the 1960's rotor-themed Mazda logo to the front fender. Just something I thought was a cool touch, especially since we are highlighting Mazda this month....
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Posted
Jan 24 2009, 07:36 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 27 comment(s)
Pit Crew? RS Aizawa? In Atlanta Georgia?! WHAT! Okay! (you have to read that part in Lil Jon's voice) It's hard for me to imagine I shot this car way back in 2005. After stumbling into it on the internet, I immediately made contact with the car's owner, Peter Brusa, because I knew I'd be going to Formula D in Atlanta, where the car lives. (Peter lives there too.) I originally shot Peter's car for a feature in Grassroots Motorsports Magazine a few years back. However, since it's...
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Posted
Jan 23 2009, 09:23 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 17 comment(s)
I'm not sure how many of our readers regularly follow the 24 Hours of Daytona... but it's happening this weekend in Florida, and our good friends from Mazdaspeed are campaigning four cars out there this weekend. Here's a photo of one of them. Good luck to all our Mazdaspeed friends! -Antonio Alvendia
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Posted
Jan 23 2009, 02:57 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 7 comment(s)
I think SSR MarkII wheels are one of my favorite types of wheels ever... in the history of all wheels ever made. They certainly do a lot to make this NA6 Eunos Roadster look legit. Don't you think? Personally, I'd prefer a wider wheel up front though, for a bit more stretch and more lip. No doubt. Nicely done car. -Antonio Alvendia
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Posted
Jan 23 2009, 01:02 PM
by
Andy Blackmore
with 5 comment(s)
The 1991 Le Mans win by Mazda may have been the first for a Japanese manufacture, but Mazda made history in Touring Car racing a decade before. Mazda was back-to back British Touring Car titles in addition to an impressive win at the Spa 24 Hours (above), a first for a Japanese manufacture. This was also a first for a Rotary engine. Mazda's first involvement in the European racing scene was at the end of the 1960's. Straight in at the deep end, Mazda chose to compete in a 84 hour (!) Nurburgring...
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Posted
Jan 23 2009, 09:37 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 9 comment(s)
Nogami Project, or "NOPRO" as it's better known, is one of Japan's biggest Roadster specialty shops. The NOPRO catalog includes everything from hardcore chassis components to GT style wide-body conversions. For a smaller company, NOPRO is extremely active in motorsport, and its biggest achievement has to be the 13B-powered Roadster that ran during the mid '90s in the JGTC (now Super GT) GT300 class. The shop's website has a number of vintage photos of this car in action, and my favorite was this shot of the car being chased by a pair of Castrol Supras and Lamborghini Diablo....
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