Posted
Nov 04 2009, 02:30 PM
by
Linhbergh Nguyen
with 125 comment(s)
Let's put all the cards on the table: this car is ridiculously stupid. The build quality is shoddy, the care that has been given to this car is questionable, and the ride height is by no means produced by a human with a single ounce of rational thought. Why would you take a prized relic such as this Nissan 240z and completely ruin it, turning it into some pretentious piece of metal that serves no function other than itself? The first thing you notice about this car is the rusted hood and the...
More >>>
Posted
Nov 02 2009, 03:20 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 111 comment(s)
VIP Style... Drift Style... Hella Flush (?) style... Lux Style... Time Attack Style... JDM Style... These are all different labels which have been thrown around the US import car scene in the past few years. Once a style gets solidified, a rule set gets made and standards are created for what one should and shouldn't do with a car build. However, every once and a while a car will come up which makes you scratch your head. This 2006 Nissan 350Z is certainly Hella Flush approved, but it's clean...
More >>>
Posted
Nov 02 2009, 12:01 PM
by
Vaughn Gittin Jr
with 24 comment(s)
Like a proud father, I am very happy to introduce a new generation of the Ford Mustang - the Mustang RTR. I have dreamt this vision in my head for years; unfortunately, it has taken so much time for me to find the right people to help take the vision from my head to paper, then to the actual prototype phase that you see here. It sounds a lot easier then it really is - trust me! I fell in love with the Mustang in late 2004 and, as most of you know, we have been inseparable since. The Ford Mustang...
More >>>
Posted
Oct 30 2009, 01:21 PM
by
Vaughn Gittin Jr
with 27 comment(s)
If you are halfway into drifting, then you have heard of Drift Alliance Ace Brian Wilkerson and his infamous Zombie car. The car was given the name after a serious smash into a wall at the 2007 D1GP in Englishtown when Brian let it all hang out in a battle against Imamura. He let it hang a bit too much and got bit by the wall - a wall that showed no mercy and immediately transformed the beautiful Cassius Red S13 into none other then a Zombie. Like most of us drifters, he didn't care that the...
More >>>
Posted
Oct 26 2009, 02:26 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 24 comment(s)
Last weekend at the Formula Drift awards banquet, an award for "Best Looking Car" was given out. I'm not exactly sure what criteria was used in the judging, but I don't disagree with the results. As part of our Driver's Month features on Speedhunters, we figured it'd be the perfect time to do a feature on the "Rossta" S15. On Saturday morning I took a short drive over to Garage Boso in Gardena where co-owner Frank Siharath showed me around the shop and rolled out...
More >>>
Posted
Oct 26 2009, 09:00 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 30 comment(s)
Toyota was on a roll at this 41st Tokyo Motorshow and right after presenting the FT-86, Akio Toyoda moved to the Lexus corner of the massive Toyota stand to take the wraps off an equally awaited sports car, the Lexus LFA. Lexus took its time developing its ultimate supercar, teasing us with three different concepts, a roadster concept and even a race car version that raced at the Nurburgring 24h race last year. But the production version is finally here and there is no doubting that Toyota has created...
More >>>
Posted
Oct 07 2009, 03:00 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 23 comment(s)
There is one thing about Japan that you’ve just got to love. No matter how many tuning shops and modified cars there are out there, finding something very special and most importantly of all, different, is not as hard as some may think. It all comes down to a need to be unique and stand out from the crowd, something that becomes very evident if you spend a little time in Japan. This need to be different is precisely what drove the owner of the exceptionally clean JZX80 you see here to go out...
More >>>
Posted
Oct 06 2009, 11:15 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 68 comment(s)
It isn't every day you come across a car like this, that's for sure. It all happened during a driving expedition my friends and I organized last fall, something we have been doing for years now. The idea is to all meet up at the Hakone Turnpike, one of Japan's most well known driving roads, and drive up into the mountains and down into the Izu peninsula through the appropriately named "Izu Skyline" pass. Which is precisely where I first saw this impossibly spotless Nissan Skyline...
More >>>
Posted
Oct 06 2009, 02:00 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 20 comment(s)
This is a car I've been meaning to feature for a while now. It was built by my friend Russ, the man behind the RE-Extreme blog, the place to go to for the latest news on anything and everything related to the RX7. Before Russ got rid of this, his second RE-Extreme project car, we met up in the Tokyo Bay ready to immortalize his very unique ride. After much searching we ended up at a Hotel in Tokyo Disneyland, which provided a very nice, yet very un-Japanese backdrop! Before embarking on this...
More >>>
Posted
Sep 30 2009, 12:00 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 18 comment(s)
I'm sure most of you guys are aware of the short but fruitful linkup between BMW and McLaren that produced the F1 Supercar, but this was not the first time these two companies worked together. Back in the 1970s McLaren had an American based racing team that was used for its Indianapolis campaigns. It was this team which BMW charged with running its IMSA Camel GT campaigns for the '77, '78 and '79 racing seasons. And this was the tool: the E21 BMW 320 Turbo IMSA racer. A car which...
More >>>
Posted
Sep 15 2009, 09:10 AM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 21 comment(s)
The E46 CSL that Paddy featured a few weeks back is a person favorite of mine, the same goes for Ronni Renaldi 's supercharged M3. I'm not sure if he wanted to build himself a CSLreplica, but with a E46 M3 he was off to a good start. In the end, I even think he has build himself something better! Ronni sure likes his cars, he previously owned a Audi S4 and a E39 M5 and has already sold this car to purchase a Mercedes Benz E55 AMG. At the front we see the signature CSL frontbumper made by...
More >>>
Posted
Sep 14 2009, 04:16 AM
by
Ross Ianson
with 22 comment(s)
Anyone who has been to a round of the JDM Allstars championship this year could not help to notice the sister Falken V8 E30s of Remmo Niezen and Lars Verbraeken, providing a welcome break to the endless list of Japanese machinery the Dutch pair have provided the bass to the screaming external waste gates of the championship.. Lars' E30 is the more subtle of the pair looking not that far removed from an E30 evolution.. ..the dash retains the shape BMW intended but recreated in carbon fiber, the...
More >>>
Posted
Sep 09 2009, 07:00 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 33 comment(s)
I'm sure that you are all somewhat familiar with this beautiful piece of engineering -the Rahal Letterman Racing BMW M3 GT2.... And lucky for you, BMW agreed to let me get under the skin of the GT2 during my recent trip to Rahal Letterman Racing a few weeks ago. I've been following the development of this car with some interest since the racing program was first announced and made sure that John Brooks took tons of snaps of the car at Sebring earlier this year. The debut of the new racing...
More >>>
Posted
Sep 08 2009, 01:30 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 15 comment(s)
This BMW E21 belongs to Dieter Verboven, although you might remember his other car I featured back in March. Like his Lancia, the attention to detail on this build is top caliber and is definitely feature worthy during September's BMW month. This isn't the first BMW that Dieter has owned, before this one he had an E30 convertible . With the E30 he won several prizes, but because of the laws in Belgium, he didn't had a lot of fun driving it on the open road. All cars need to be stock when...
More >>>
Posted
Sep 07 2009, 05:40 AM
by
Andy Blackmore
with 10 comment(s)
The BMW 320Si is one of the most popular and successful touring cars of the modern era. In this car feature, we will look at the Team Airwaves British Touring Cars of Jonathan Adam and Rob Collard with the aid of images from Peter Still, John Brooks and Jonathan Moore. The BMW 320si is a S2000 class touring car introduced at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2005. Over 2000 production road cars were built to suit homologation. The production cars are powered by a 2-litre unit based on the older E46’s...
More >>>
Posted
Sep 04 2009, 03:15 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 24 comment(s)
One of the good things about BMW month is that we can make great use of Kevin Raekelboom and his large archive of Europe-based car features . While looking through Kevin's photos for interesting BMW's, my eye was struck by this E36 M3 owned by Kirsten Geukens of Herentals Belgium. Besides serving as Kirsten's daily driver, the car is also used for trips to run on the Nurburgring - something Kirsten has become addicted to. With a car as good as the E36 M3 (especially in Euro spec!), one...
More >>>
Posted
Sep 01 2009, 02:45 PM
by
Patrick McGrath
with 37 comment(s)
Since I started contributing to Speedhunters, my main area of focus has always centred around drifting and with that, predominantly its been about the Prodrift Series. Of course I have no complaints about this area of work, but I often find myself wanting outside of these tight JDM orientated circles. When Rod dropped me the line to say that September was to be BMW Month, I knew, I just knew I had to find an M3. I don't know a whole lot about the history of BMW but I do know what I like. With...
More >>>
Posted
Sep 01 2009, 11:17 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 31 comment(s)
When asked to pick a feature for this first day into our BMW month I knew precisely what to show you guys. Some of you may remember that I already posted a couple pictures of this M5 a few months back during my coverage of the Tokyo Import Show . It was by far my favorite car of the exhibition and I knew I had to hunt it down for a proper shoot. It was by pure chance, during a test drive in the mountains of Hakone, that I encountered this unique bronze M5 again, while it was being put through its...
More >>>
Posted
Aug 31 2009, 09:00 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 22 comment(s)
Few tuners can rival Top Secret’s global popularity. For over a decade, Smoky Nagata and the Top Secret team have rewritten the book on modified car culture by constantly developing cars that are ground-breaking, innovative and inspiring. Indeed, many of the spectators who flood into the annual Tokyo Auto Salon dash straight to Top Secret’s stand to see what insane demo car they’ve come up with this time. While Top Secret’s cars are often synonymous with gold paintwork and...
More >>>
Posted
Aug 30 2009, 03:00 AM
by
Linhbergh Nguyen
with 60 comment(s)
When you're at Bonneville you see all sorts of crazy contraptions while walking (and driving) around the five mile long pit and spectator area. You witness things that can rocket to speeds just shy of 400 miles per hour to things that are created to look the best while flossing at 20 miles per hour. Basically, you see the whole spectrum from pure performance to pure hardparking. It's phenomenal to be able to to be able to take all of this at a single event. With such an eclectic mix of cars...
More >>>