The whole “low offset, dished chrome” thing was never going to last. The latest thing to run on your car over here in Japan is narrow fifteen-inch steel wheels.
Of course, it’s winter right now, snow is falling in the mountains, and those wheels have Bridgestone Blizzak studless snow tyres on them.
You can probably guess the rest.
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Before I bought the R32 GTS-t a couple of weeks ago, I honestly had no idea what sort of car I would end up with over here.
Why get a Skyline of all things? Why come to Japan just to get a car easily available back in my home country? This is the land of exotic JZX100 four-doors and a AE86 maniac’s dream. While this is true, they are still as proportionally expensive here as they are back home, and there are other reasons not to buy the dream car too early.
After consulting various drivers, workshops owners and friends, the majority of recommendations fell upon buying either an S14 Silvia or an AE86.
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So why would someone throw away a job, nicely sorted drift car and apartment close to the city just to go to Japan and drift an almost standard R32 GTS-t around some rough track in the middle of the countryside? Can it be summed up by a single grainy photo?
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A “missile” car has a couple of definitions in Japan, depending in which context you’re talking. Usually it refers to a drift car that has been left close to standard externally, while still being heavily modified under the skin. Imagine the sort of thing a D1 driver would take up to the mountains for a bit of practice on weekends.
In the case of these cars however, it means that cost of tyres petrol, and entry fee for a track day combined should cost about as much as the car itself.
At this particular event at Nikko Circuit, four drivers showed up in missiles, and three of them were current D1 drivers, which meant the driving was sphincter-tigheningly close. The first two drivers here are Shinji Minowa in an R32 GTS-t, and this year’s D1GP Champion Daigo Saito in what is just barely recognisable as a JZX90 Mark II, running a very large turbo and 19-inch wheels and tyres left over from some of his slightly better looking JZX projects.
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