Takumi's high-speed abilities soon attract the attention of Ryosuke Takahashi, one of a pair of street-racing brothers. The more cerebral of the two, Ryosuke recognizes Takumi's innate skill as having great potential.
Super potential, you might say. He spends his time glued to his laptop, analyzing race results and breaking down the possible modifications a rival might have. Ryosuke's hot-headed brother is Keisuke, and he doesn't like to lose. Going head-to-head against Takumi, he can't believe that the young racer with the old car can hold him off — he declares Takumi his rival and continually tries to figure out ways to beat him.
Eventually, they become teammates. Keisuke's car is a third-generation Mazda RX-7, heavily modified for racing. We got these in Canada in essentially the same specification, but the cars were as temperamental as Keisuke himself, and many suffered fatal engine issues due to overheating or problems with boost. We never got one, being instead fobbed off with the admittedly very good ZX twin turbo. The R32 GT-R was the first and perhaps best of the mighty Godzilla Skylines, and while this one can't beat Takumi either, that's probably down to driver talent.
The style favoured here is grip, as the all-wheel-drive GT-R doesn't need to drift to get down the course quickly. Canada eventually got the turbocharged Evo version of the Mitsubishi Lancer , but not until well after the US, and certainly not before the legend was fully forged.
When Takumi and friends face down the Emperors racing team, they've got a tough fight on their hands. Fitted with an incredibly clever torque-vectoring all-wheel drive, the Mitsubishi EVO excelled in real life at the twisty tarmac sections of rally racing. The fictional cars were deadly too, with the highly aggressive Emperor drivers mounting the decals of their defeated rivals upside-down on the spoiler.
Takumi's first real introduction to street racing comes as a result of his friendship with Koichiro Iketani. They all work at a local gas station together, and race on Mount Akina at night.
Iketani's ride is an Schassis Sylvia, one which he carefully modifies piece by piece. He's not an amazing driver, but represents more of a journeyman approach to the night-racing culture. The world of Initial-D isn't all a testosterone-fuelled quest for glory.
The two-woman team of Impact Blue is tough to beat on their home turf, and soon prove a challenger to Takumi's friend Iketani. Mako Sato is Impact Blue's skilled driver, and eventually goes pro racer by the end of the series. She drives a Nissan SX converted with a Silvia's front end; a very popular modification, this added a little lightness to the SX's front. It's a thrill for any Honda fan, even if the modern car is far more complicated — and turbocharged — than the original.
Furthermore, because it has reached a wide range of audiences on a global scale, it's safe to say that Initial D has played a major part as to why 90s JDM cars are increasingly becoming collector's items, and mint conditioned examples fetch big money in auction sites around the world. Simply put, cars of today have become somewhat too complicated , and stuffed with lots of automotive gadgetry that puts an emphasis on safety, comfort, and automation.
A lot of people look for examples of simple and very straightforward cars that are just meant to be driven hard, just like the examples from Initial D, that gives off the best sense of connection between car and driver. With that being said, here are some of the cars in the iconic manga series that we wish we had in our garages. Of course, we're starting off this list with the main protagonist of the series, the Toyota Corolla AE86 driven by Takumi Fujiwara.
While it's fairly easy to acquire a Trueno in real life, the engine it had in the series is considered as one of Toyota's Holy Grail engines. Having a Formula Atlantic 4AGE motor that revs up to 11, rpm can only be considered the stuff of dreams in real life, and we're kinda envious that Takumi uses a car with a racing engine for tofu deliveries.
Takumi's dad, Bunta Fujiwara, must've really had deep connections to get himself one of the rarest Imprezas to add to the AE86 in doing tofu deliveries. It's another example of rare JDM metal that's appreciating in value nowadays. It's safe to say the Takahashis had great taste when it comes to styling their cars. Safe to say, if we were to flex one of the cars in Initial D on our Instagram, we'd definitely put this at the top of the list.
Kyoichi Sudo's Lancer Evolution III has the distinction in Initial D for being the first car that beat Takumi's AE86, after the latter blew up his engine for trying to keep up with the all-wheel-drive sports sedan. Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 3s are hard to find nowadays, and it would really be bonkers to own one that has hp and a WRC-style anti-lag system.
It pops and bangs all the way, all day long. Only a cat prevented Tomoyuki Tachi to beat Takumi Fujiwara in the manga series, and that sort of stuff doesn't happen every day. It's also fitted with the now-discontinued special Spoon Sports gauge cluster, which costs as much as a used 90s car nowadays. For Honda fanboys, this is the ultimate inspiration for their EK Civics.
This is the car that brought back the GT-R nameplate for Skylines in the best way possible, by dominating all the racing competitions it participated in.
0コメント