As a Toyota Supra fan I cannot be more excited reading articles about the legendary GT-R. Why? Well first off the GT-R is a fully functioning race-mobile. And if I didn’t have my passion for the Supra, it would be my favourite. Just look at the resurgence the GT-R got when it went back into production. Is the same thing in line once the new 2020 Toyota Supra hits the streets? I think so. Check out this event covered by Speedhunters…

When was the last time you spent a weekend surrounded by 1,000hp+ street-driven cars bashing their rev limiters?

Don’t feel bad if your recreational time has been somewhat horsepower deficient, Speedhunters is here to help by extending a virtual backstage invitation to Australia’s Tuners Edge GT-R Challenge.

Who else remembers the time when breaking through the magical 1,000hp barrier was strictly reserved for dedicated race machinery, daydreams, and shit-talking wankers?

Honestly, even if an older, wiser, and more handsome Matthew Everingham [LOL – PMcG] hijacked a time-travelling DeLorean to return to my youth and describe what was possible in 2019, my younger self would have struggled to believe street builds of this calibre could ever exist.

And yet here we are, descending once again on the tiny regional township of Cootamundra, where some of Australia’s heaviest-hitting street cars will fight against themselves and previous records on a 1km-long airstrip.

This year marks the event’s 11th anniversary, and instead of chasing 10-second passes as it once was, the target has been set deep into the low 8-second range. That notion becomes almost absurd when you consider the runway is more like country b-road and less like a prepped race surface.

Typically, there’s a full second margin between personal best times set in Cootamundra and those run on a bonafide drag strip. ‘Coota’ as it’s referred to in the most Australian of ways, is a challenging and unforgiving place to set times; it’s a rough, harsh ride and that’s before you begin factoring in ridiculous headwinds and crosswinds.

The slower time slips aren’t a problem though; the aim of the Tuners Edge GTR Challenge is to simulate true street racing, albeit in a much safer environment and without the threat of Australia’s totalitarian law enforcement getting involved. […]

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I have heard about it, yet never made it out last year. Again people started asking if I would make it out to Engineered Automotive’s Cars ‘n’ Coffee – and I said why not! After a long awaited spring I knew this would be a busy event, it was slated to be the warmest day of the year so far. Boy was I right!

As I rolled in, down Confederation Drive, I can see a huge gathering of vehicles and people. Wow, I was impressed. Of course EA’s parking lot was jammed full. But the crowd of people and cars over flowed to neighbouring industrial buildings down the block and along the side streets. You had to be there early to get a good spot. The scene reminded me of the early 2000’s when meets like these were a regular occurrence in local parking lots. It was nice to see the scene alive and kicking.

The variety of cars were extraordinary. You had high end Mercedes, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maclarens, and Porsches. And there was a wide mix of import tuners; GTRs, Toyotas, Hondas, Subarus, and Mitsubishis. The usual domestic beasts were present; Corvettes, Mustangs etc… There was also a mix of custom vehicles that you could tell took years of dedication to build.

Engineered Automotive’s Cars ‘n’ Coffee is held the first Sunday of each month, starting in May. Check out their website for more details. I hope to bring my Toyota Supra to one of these events. It might even end up being the next one. Just this time I’ll make sure I have time for a coffee!

Imagine, for a second, that we’re back in 1979. Lightyears away from the world we know today, two Swedes named Björn stride the planet as respective Gods. While one needed the help of his three bandmates to warble Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! to #1 in Ireland for a single week, the other Björn had a much longer lasting impact on the local landscape.

While dance halls bounced to the ABBA beat, Björn Waldegård was out delivering the glorious tune of a maximum attack BDA engine around the rally stages of the world.

Armed with the most cutting edge MK2 Escort to ever emerge from Ford Motor Company’s competition base in Boreham, Björn and the RS1800 were a formidable pair. The domination was real, with the affable Swede claiming the World Rally Championship crown with only a single point to spare over Hannu Mikkola, the second Ford works driver. The company also won the manufacturers’ crown, a feat they would not repeat again until 2006.

While winning the world championship was a massive deal for Ford, it solidified the legendary place that the MK2 Escort would come to have in rallying circles. It’s a vehicle that now, 40 years on, remains a fan favourite and in Ireland especially, possibly the ultimate definition of a rally car.

While 260bhp BDA Escorts were thought to be on a different planet in the late ’70s, I doubt anyone in Boreham could have imagined how far the humble Ford would evolve.

Sat before me today, looking menacing in Audi’s striking Nardo Grey paint hue, is perhaps the current ultimate evolution of the breed, a 2019 take on the quintessential 1979 rally icon.

When I say the Escort is loved in these parts, I cannot even truthfully express in words the reason behind it. It doesn’t make logical sense in any way, but even today we can see rally events with north of 70 Ford Escorts on the entry list.

The generation that saw the works teams arriving on our shores, with all the star drivers in tow, passed on the stories, and each few years a new breed of ‘Escort men’ would emerge, thrilling crowds with sideways, tail out action.

As category structures evolved to allow a wide variety of cars to compete, Class 14 became the top dog. A class for modified 2WD rally cars, this is where this Ford Escort lives. With a limited ‘125% of max factory displacement’ engine size rule in place, one particular power plant has come to the fore. […]

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Welcome to a warm spring day in late March at Fuji Speedway’s lesser known gymkhana course, nothing more than a big wide open space of tarmac that sits right above the drift course. It’s the perfect venue to hold smaller driving courses, or in this case, shred some serious rubber.

As I pulled in to the carpark, the team I had arranged to meet was already there setting up. The invitation had come from Iikuta-san, a name you may be familiar with if you follow Japanese professional drifting. After seeing his Audi A5 at the Kinokuni booth at Tokyo Auto Salon in January, I knew I needed to follow the development of the car as it was prepared for its foray into this year’s Formula D Japan championship.

FD Japan is what I now like to refer to as the fun professional drift championship in Japan.

Shortly after my arrival, Mori-san from Auto Service Mori rolled in with his Kazama Auto-kitted S15 street drift car. He only stayed for an hour or so, wanting to see and hear what most people were all patiently waiting for that morning; that ridiculous 7.4-liter LSX 454R motor crank into life. In all my years of covering drifting in Japan, I have never seen a team operate as meticulously and as professionally as the guys from Helios, the racing outfit that built the entire car.

There is nothing ‘drift’ about them – they are a full-on, high-level motorsport outfit. You notice it in everything they do, from the way the car has been built to the way they prepared it prior to its first run.

Every single component of the car was checked and double checked before that first start up to gently warm the engine’s vital fluids. It was educational seeing them track down an issue with the fuelling system, with the pumps not priming when given power. They trouble-shot through every piece of the puzzle before realizing the issue spanned from a connector, and moments later we were all greeted with the reassuring buzz of fuel lines being pressurized.

The LSX was then sparked into life, the savage raw idle of its high compression nature resonating against the mountains that serve as a picturesque backdrop to Fuji Speedway. […]

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Whenever I catch a glimpse of a Datsun in person it always makes me stop and take a long look at it. First off they are very rear. But secondly there is something about it that makes me want to build one. Is it the body lines? Or is it the uniqueness of it? I really don’t know. I do know that when I saw these pictures I just had to share. This is absolutely the sweetest Datsun that I have seen!

We all have our childhood dream cars.

For some it may be a Lamborghini Countach or a BMW 3.0 CSL, for Andres Lell it was always the Datsun 240Z.

He’s loved the S30 Fairlady design for as long as he can remember; the long nose and small cockpit blend into an iconic, sporty shape. In building this car, Andres‘ childhood dream would be realized.

Working hard has paid dividends for Andres, and he’s now in a position where he can afford more than one of his favorite poster cars. Within his collection are a few cars with rally pedigree, the reason being that when Andres was young he spent a lot of time in a garage with his father who built and prepared cars for special stage duty.

Due to its climate, Estonia is a country where the weather dictates a lot. Long winters necessitate vehicles a little more sensible than a 600hp rear-wheel drive Datsun, so an Evo or an STI is ideal when conditions allow.

But if you want to be really original you go for a Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution – only 2,500 were ever produced after all. The engine did give up in Andre’s example, but a replacement was found in Japan. […]

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Rotarolla: A Toyota That Braps

Toyota Corollas are known to be some of the most reliable cars on earth, so why the hell would someone put in rotary engine in one?

That’s an interesting question indeed. KE70 Corollas in particular have become super-popular performance build bases over the years, and for good reason. They’re straight forward, easy to modify, and most importantly rear-wheel drive, hence why petrol-heads do all kinds of weird and wonderful things to them.

The most common engine swap is without a doubt the 4A-GE, an engine known for its reliability and tuneable nature. Sticking with Toyota, there’s also the 1UZ-FE, which I’ve seen in all kinds of forms in these cars – normally aspirated, single turbo and even twin turbo. Another popular option is the 1JZ-GTE engine, or if you want to go all-out a 2JZ-GTE, both of which can make serious power. We can’t forget the 3S-GE Beams and the older 7M-GTE, either. […]

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You could tell Matt Field was tired — working 14 hours a day and seven days a week can do that to you. But he wasn’t sleepy, an important distinction.

In fact, for as drained as he might have been, the always-excitable Formula Drift Pro driver seemed more excited than ever. His eyes lit up as he showed us how his shop space has doubled since our last visit, and explained how his team would be fielding two cars for the new FD season, with Pat Goodin competing in Matt’s once-retired S14. Another Pro-spec car was in the shop as well, but I’m already getting ahead of myself.

Matt’s story behind the wheel really starts off with his dad, an off-road racer. With a bit of racer coursing through his veins, Matt was eight years old when he first drove a quarter midget. By the time his 15th birthday rolled around, Matt was comfortably having a blast thrashing around sideways in an off-road truck with over 600hp…

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Toyota’s fourth-generation Supra Turbo (chassis code A80), sold here from 1993 to 1998, has fronted movie franchises, shredded drag strips in as little as six seconds, and—if we recall correctly—conducted the London Philharmonic at the request of Queen Elizabeth II. The iron-strong 2JZ straight-six under its hood has worn turbochargers big enough to sleep in and swims like a shark in a nitrous-oxide ocean. And yet, Toyota has left us Supraless for 20 years, sitting idly by as the car accumulated a mountain of pop-culture street cred.

Now the Big T is finally leveraging that mighty reputation in the form of the new (A90) Supra, which will blast out of a Magna Steyr assembly plant in Graz, Austria, alongside its brother, the BMW Z4. Yes, under a skin based on the FT-1 concept car from 2014 beats a turbocharged 3.0-liter straight-six just as its fast and furious forefather had. Beyond that, well . . .

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It all started with a 1994 twin turbo Toyota Supra. I was the second owner. It came stock black, except for a huge aluminum wing. I wish it came with the classic Supra wing, but I guess the ugly aluminum hydro tower looking wing started the customization process! The modification came fast and furious. Yes, I had the car before the movie!

The best approach to a memorable show car is to complete a paint job first. The car landed in Technik’s paint booth and was coated with a beautiful lime green with gold flake paint job. The car looked outstanding and turned many heads. It received a C-West front end, a carbon fibre hood and an ABflug rear wing to top it off. This paint job was featured on the cover of Performance Auto & Sound magazine, sitting behind the famous Tila Tequila. This cover would go down in history, as PAS Mag has recognized it in anniversary specials. This wasn’t the only paint job this Supra received. A couple of years later the green grew old and the famous Rick G massaged a House of Kolor candy blue on the Toyota. What a work of art! The shine, the curves, the tones! It still sits that way today.

A paint job is not the only thing that makes a show car. A sponsorship deal with Lightning Audio provided me with three 10” subs, four amps and multiple TV screens. All molded nicely together by KHF (Kennedy Hi-Fi) audio. The rear seat was removed to fit the subs. And the truck was loaded with amps and screens. I even molded a rear view camera into the bumper – yes there was a time when this wasn’t a standard feature. To this day I still have a Playstation 2 molded into the glove box location. I sure hope I kept those spare parts to get my glove box back!

This show car was complete, right! Wrong! That is because it wasn’t just show. It had some go! Who wouldn’t want to unleash the 2JZ motor.  Hoisted up in Magnus Motorsport’s garage the twin turbo setup was swapped out for a gigantic Greddy turbo. With all the accessories to go – intercooler, fuel, intake, exhaust computer etc…. Everything needed to make this a reliable beast on the roads. The setup produced just under 600 HP to the rear wheels. This by no means is a huge number for the MKIV Supra, but I was happy. It was fast enough! I didn’t want to increase the boost to gain horsepower only to risk break down and huge speeding tickets. Again to this day it is a reliable street car.

This Toyota Supra sparked a lot of passion. It was driven too many shows across Canada and the US. Which includes the NOPI Nationals in Atlanta. HIN (Hot Import Nights) in Chicago, Boston, Washington, Atlantic City. International car shows in Detroit and Toronto. Drag events in Pennsylvania, Cayuga, London and Grand Bend. It even reached the east coast, touring Moncton, P.E.I. and Halifax. It had quite the show tour. With all this travelling I was still able to maintain it in mint condition and reasonable mileage. I even remember the struggle of taping up the front bumper on these now trips to prevent rock chips and pesky bugs!

Along with all of this, this Supra was featured in a lot in print. The first was a big one! It was the cover and feature car of Performance Auto and Sound in 2005. Along with that cover, it reached the cover of Sport Compact and pages of Modified and Banzai magazines. For one of my best sponsors Meguiar’s, it was featured on a full page advertisements on back covers of various automotive magazines. It was also displayed on-screen. In a Mitsubishi Lancer commercial it was featured doing a burn out in a street racing scene. And reached scenes in the show War of the Wheels. I really wished I kept a better collection of all these media appearances!

Now I have the means to share and store my many photos and videos on OneRide. I hope to make a solid and interesting collection of my toys and rides to share with everyone. And I look forward to seeing everyone’s passion displaying in their ride! Please read OneRide – The Beginning to see how this Supra started it all!.