Soarer-Dom

I know it has been months since my last post… I’ve just been busy despite it being month #6 of lockdown. This is a kit that I wanted for a while, but I figured I already had too many kits. It was a good thing I bought it because it would turn out to be one of the best kits out there.

Today’s review is a vintage kit made by Aoshima. I first saw it online in the Yahuoku auctions and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Nissan Leopard kitted like this before. Being one of my favourite cars with an interesting retro bodykit, I decided to buy it.

This build was inspired by a post I made on CarThrottle - my latest dream car. Ever since I discovered the Soarer many years ago, I have wanted one. The only issue is that for half the price you can get an A70 Supra with all the same offerings and with a shorter wheelbase in a smaller package. After all, the Soarer is a large luxury coupe. Today’s kit is the Fujimi Soarer 3.0 GT Limited - a very popular kit among Soarer enthusiasts.

It wasn’t long after I got into cars that I started building model-kits. They are a bit like Lego, but accurately reproduced in 1/24 scale, as opposed to blocks/bricks. Now that I have posted just about every cool box art, I think it is time to go through all the kits I have bought and built during 2020. This kit is very cool and very well reproduced. The body is the typical mold plastic by Hasegawa that feels more rigid that the other brands I have used. I didn’t like decals at all, but after assembling this kit I now love them.

So I’ve been online again, and more box art has popped up. These are mostly Fujimi with a lot of Aoshima in there. I am also quite sure that I own the A60 kit. In addition, I also found a listing for the complete collection of cars from “You’re Under Arrest”. Also, how good is that e30 with Super-Volks?

This is one of those rare occassions when the U.S. got the better specced car than the Japanese equivalent. While the Japanese Piazza Nero was only available as a front-wheel-drive powered by a naturally aspirated 1.8, buyers in the United States were able to choose grades as high as this - the RS Turbo AWD. What makes it special is that partway through the first generation, the Giugiaro-designed wedge received an upgrade in handling by British marque Lotus in the form of tuned suspension. The upgrade carried on into the vehicle’s second-and-final generation, the JI/JR.

For some reason, selling the 306 has been the saddest car to sell - even more so than the R34. Maybe it’s because of its practicality, or maybe the sheer enjoyment of driving the car on some backroads. Unfortunately I was not able to get the car onto a racetrack. Due a change in jobs I am unable to look after the car, and so I listed it for sale on Boxing Day. Just last night I was contacted by an interested buyer and by midday today he had deposited half the asking price.

And furgen hell is it amazing! There are A LOT of ads for R32 Skylines 😱 Today these two cars are each worth a fortune! The Falcon GTHO is another that is worth a lot. A phase III in mint condition recently sold for over $200,000 I found this magazine sitting in my dad’s work bag. There are a few cars he circled - most of which are Peugeot 405, BMW e30, Holden Commodore and Nissan Cefiro. I don’t know what year this is from, but the newest vehicle is this R33 taking up half the page.

The car of choice for me is the Toyota Soarer Z20. It has a perfectly proportioned long-nose luxury coupe body, matched with the running gear and underpinnings of an A70 Supra. The style is so perfectly 80’s that, in my eyes, it is on par with the Ferrari 512 and DMC DeLorean. Unlike these two, it doesn’t suffer so much from that Italian/French/Irish unreliability - being a true JDM car means it was fitted with the finest parts Toyota could offer its home market.

This is the Hino Contessa. I found out about it by searching car dealerships in Japan, and soon learned that it was in fact built by truck company Hino. Much like what Isuzu did in the 1960’s, Hino meddled in the world of sports cars - this time with the help of Renault. Unlike the Bellet and 117 Coupe, the Hino Contessa was a mid-engined rear-wheel-drive sedan and coupe.

Takeey’s Garage in Japan always has strange and interesting vehicles for sale - usually rare cars and classics, this is a bit of both. Back in the early 60’s, Ford created an all-american car which was to be short lived - the Falcon (not to be confused with the Australian Falcon). The Japanese car-people are obsessed with unique - that’s why many European cars in Japan are left-hand-drive, and why so many Mitsubishi Eclipses were reverse-imported to the Japanese market. This Falcon is exactly that - unique and over-the-top.

A few years ago I spotted this Peugeot 206 GTi Limited Edition. I had limited knowledge of this car and why it had a big WRC bodykit, but now one has popped up for sale. Although it is not the exact same car, the 206 in the link below has a plate verifying that it is one of only ten cars to be signed by both Marcus Gronholm and Richard Burns - both of whom are big names in WRC and WRX.

I was looking at cities where my friends come from and the place where street-view dropped in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia is full of Cefiros, plus an R32, R33 and R34. There is also a blue cefiro in the bottom left, a silver pignose Cefiro off to the right and a yellow R32 in the workshop on the left.

I have heard that many manufacturers lied about or didn’t meet production numbers for homologation. Does anyone have an example of one?

My mum said not to waste money on used junk, so I sold the Hyosung and bought a brand new Ninja. I figured it’s not fair that I have never dropped a bike yet all the ones I owned had bad scratches and marks from previous owners, plus buying brand new means I get a warranty and the peace of mind that it has been run-in correctly and looked after. I was going to get it wrapped before posting on CarThrottle, but I changed my mind when I finally got around to detailing it. Oh, and did I mention that 19 is my lucky number?

I came these vehicles earlier today when I was looking for something to replace my R34 -something like a Suzuki Cappuccino or a Toyota MR2 etc. This first one is a kei truck from the 70’s: a Suzuki L40. Honestly, with my extensive knowledge of rare JDM vehicles, I didn’t know this existed. Even more intriguing is that this isn’t JDM - it’s NZ New (sold brand new in NZ). I know very little about this vehicle, however the seller has stated that the engine is a 359cc two-stroke.

Too many times I have heard of people tightening nuts so much they they snap the stud off the car. This isn’t funny, it’s pure idiocy. On every vehicle I have worked on, someone has been so scared of their oil filter magically falling off that they have tightened it so hard that only Thor himself came loosen it. This made it difficult to remove every filter that I haven’t installed, but much so on my friend’s Peugeot where it meant damaging his radiator to get his filter off. They literally say “hand-tight” or 6nm on the box.

After all these attempts at getting the bike up and running, I decided to just get another engine for the bike. So where did it go sour? Parts availability.

Just when I thought it was time to reassemble the engine, the 2fiftycc forum advised otherwise. And so I decided to pull out the conrods again and measure them up. It’s all the same, except the FZR250 rod is 2mm shorter and 3g lighter than the FZR250R rod. The extra length helps to rev all the way to 19,000rpm. Because of this, I can’t mix the FZR250 conrods with FZR250R conrods so I decided it was time for a very brief guide to the differences between the FZR and the FZRR.

Which one do you recommend? Everyone I know has always used CRC - heck I even have 2 cans of the stuff! I have never used WD40 but I see that my favourite auto-parts store now stocks the stuff. Should I give it a try or stick with ol’ faithful 5.56?

Genuinely curious. Personally I would choose Arctic White or Active Red on just about any car.

So those who have been following me recently would know that I have stripped my bike right down to the bearings - and that’s exactly what was damaged. In the following photos you will see what I mean, but for now let us bask in the moment knowing that someone on CarThrottle is actually working on engines and not just posting memes.

As you might know, I recently purchased a Hyosung GT250R EFI to replace my FZR250R while I work on fixing the engine. Being a new bike with only 36Km on the odometer, I assumed nothing could go wrong and that a new bike will be good and reliable. Oh was I wrong.