Nostalgic Wednesdays: 1984-1989 Toyota MR2

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Mark

The first generation MR2 (AW10/AW11) would be my favorite out of the 3 generations.It was Toyota’s experimental project with the Lotus corporation in its prototype phase of the M90 concept. It’s name ment “Midship Runabout 2-seater” also dubbed as the “poor man’s Ferrari” or “mini-Ferrari” by some, it was something that you wouldn’t expect from Toyota.

it's official when its on Watanabes.

Toyota, well known for producing economical and practical family cars; created a non-practical 2 seater, light weight, mid-engined compact that wasn’t even really born to be a sports car, but was just a fun enjoyable cruiser. The MR2 was the first japanese car to use the MR layout. Enjoyable cruiser? Definitely! Strategically bolt in the legendary 16V 4AG-E, later on supercharging it making a 4AG-ZE, then loading it with Momo commissioned steering wheel and shift knob. The slapping in some Recaro Seats and branding it “Super Edition”..lightweight high reving roadsters; now THAT’s classic DNA of a sport compact car!

Traces of Toyota are still visible in a Lotus. As of today, it is still rumored that Lotus is still in subtle contact with Toyota ; visible in the Esprit’s, the Trueno tail lights, and the Elise and Exige using the Matrix XRS’ VVTL-i 1.4 motor.

Sadly, the succeeding generations of the MR2 died slowly in my book. Toyota needs to bring some Midship goodness back!

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-mark-

mark@maydayGarage.com

Santa’s New Ride: David Ho’s Porsche 993 Carrera Cabriolet

Posted on December 23, 2010 by JohnP

It was Saturday, December 4th, 7:00am, and Mayday Mikey was banging at my door at the crack of dawn. I opened my eyes to quite possibly one of the worst hangovers ever after an epic night of beer pong and ol’ fashioned whiskey cocktails. Why was he waking me up? Simple, Cars and Coffee, and the December 4th event would end up being worth every hangover moment because little did I know that we would be encountering a gem that day..

Nothing wrong with starting from behind.

Arriving to that day’s Cars and Coffee was quite overbearing as the number of cars was easily 700 plus of all varieties. As we started moving about like hawks on a mission looking for a diamond in the rough, there it was. David Ho’s pearl white Porsche Carrera with red leather Recaro Buckets, slammed on RUF racing wheels. It literally made jaws drop as it sat there hammered, subtlety adding to the scenery. The search was on for the owner and luckily enough we caught Mr. Ho as he was about to leave. We exchanged information and the story began…

A Diamond in the rough.

Rewind < <

A few weeks prior to the December 4th Cars and Coffee the Mayday Crew was sitting at a café where we were attempting to mastermind what our Christmas shoot theme would be for 2010. It took a bit, but Mayday David threw it out, Santa and his Sleigh. Now being that we are from Houston Texas there are few things that we never really encounter, one being snow, which is obvious because as I write this feature it is currently 80 degrees outside, and the other is reindeer. So up came the creativity. A convertible car would be the sleigh and horses as reindeer…but where the hell were we going to get someone to loan us horses to pull a Porsche as a sleigh?

Santa lost weight?

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Nostalgic Wednesday: The Chevy-Toyota J-Body Cavalier

Posted on October 20, 2010 by JohnP

Yup that’s right, it is not a typo, the title says Toyota Cavalier. I figured I would throw this up today because of a funny story that happened to me the other day. I was at a mall on the south side of Houston when I saw a pretty riced (not in a good way) out Chevy Cavalier. The owner however the owner was super proud of his accomplishments with his car so I went up to him and started some rice talk for shits and giggles. Turns out that this guy was pretty damn knowledgeable about the ricer industry and the way he built his car was just his taste, bad taste IMO, but to each their own. He did however continue to refer to his beast as a Toyota Cavalier, which I found strange because although I am familiar with the “J-Body” Cavalier from the 90′s I knew that all of them were manufactured in the USA. So, that leads us to this Nostalgic Wednesday, the Toyota Cavalier.

Toyota Cavalier, J-Style

Source Toyota Cavalier Guy.

“The Toyota Cavalier first appeared in Toyota dealerships throughout Japan on January 20, 1996. They were built at the Lordstown Assembly Plant, in Lordstown, Ohio, on the same assembly line as the Chevrolet Cavalier and Pontiac Sunfire. The most obvious difference, of course, being that they were all right-hand drive! The Toyota Cavaliers were shipped by rail and ship to Japan. Toyota Cavaliers were available in both coupe and sedan form. GM states that the Toyota Cavalier was “tailored specifically for the Japanese consumer” and sure enough, there were some features on the Toyota brand that were not even options on the Chevy models, including leather options, a carpeted trunk lid, folding side mirrors and more.

Yup, that's the 90s alright

Toyota Cavaliers had a single standard drivetrain: the 2.4L “Twin Cam” (LD9) engine mated to a four-speed Hydramatic 4T40-E automatic transmission, with overdrive. The Isuzu (96-99) & Getrag (2000) 5-speed manual transmissions found in North America were not available on the Toyota Cavalier.

Many features were standard on the Toyota Cavalier:

Air conditioning
Tilt steering
Dual air bags
Anti-lock braking system
Power windows
Power door locks
Leather-wrapped steering wheel, shift knob and emergency brake handle
Rear seat with integrated centre armrest
Side markers
Wider-flared fenders to cover front tires

There were many other differences on the Toyota Cavalier, including:

Cruise control was not available
The fuel door was flat, with an inside release handle
The radio antenna was integrated into the front windshield
Manual folding mirrors were added mid-1996, and power folding mirrors were standard for 1997

Toyota had aimed to sell 20,000 of the vehicles annually, or about 1,700 per month. The cars were released on January 20, 1996 and by February 19 Toyota had received orders for about 950 sedans and 850 coupes. Unfortunately, strong initial interest died off and by July 1996 sales had totalled only 6,700 vehicles. In an effort to perk up sales, Toyota’s Technocraft subsidiary introduced upgraded models featuring automatic folding side mirrors, rear spoilers and emblems. The 2.4 TRD coupes, equipped with an 11-piece TRD designed body kit, retailed in Japan for 2.29 million yen, up 240,000 yen from the standard issue Cavalier coupe, which sold for 2.05 million yen.

TRD continued with additional aftermarket support, producing a set of lowering springs. Bomex also offered aftermarket support for the Toyota Cavalier, developing body kits, a spoiler, and sleek side view mirrors. The Toyota Cavalier was available from 1996 through the 2000 model year, until finally discontinued due to poor sales.”

I think with some aggressive TE37s and a big ass front mount, this could work.

“In 1997 and 1998, the All Japan GT Championship (JGTC, GT-300 class) saw the #60 Kraft Toyota Cavalier driven by a variety of drivers: Kumi Satou, Minoru Tanaka, Masaoki Nagashima, Junko Mihara and Akira Watanabe. Unfortunately, this Toyota Cavalier’s best finish was 18th place in two of it’s races. ”

I'd hit.

So, if before today you were unfamiliar with this epic 90′s collaboration of GALACTIC proportions, you now know when that guy at a local meet is spouting some jibberish about his Chevy Cavalier being a Toyota Cavalier, he isn’t completely crazy.

— JohnP

The Chreeno Archives: Tyler Calhoun’s Street WRX

Posted on October 19, 2010 by JohnP

139

A couple of months ago a good friend of mine, and local Houston photographer Chris Reno approached me about a couple of cars he had shot over the past year. Chris (Chreeno) is a local ricer as well and has some great taste in cars, so when we talked about a bit of collaboration I got pretty excited. One of the cars in discussion was Tyler Calhoun’s WRX, an ultra clean, tastefully modded street style beast that, when seen in person makes you break your neck. We like cars like this. Though we at Mayday Garage enjoy “over the top” barely street legal, ricer engaged wild builds, we know a clean car when we see one and Tyler’s Subie fits the bill.

Tastefully Tasteful Taste

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Nostalgic Wednesdays: The Kraft Racing GT300 AE-86

Posted on August 25, 2010 by JohnP

137

The Kraft Racing GT300 AE86 is, in my opinion the sexiest 86 of all time. Powered by none other that the legendary 503E (3S-GTE on Crack), the factory backed Kraft Trueno shared the same heart as the GT300 Supras from the older JGTC series. Unfortunately the car no longer exists as it was abandoned by the Kraft team for a newer MR-S halfway through the 2001 JGTC season.( According to sources the car burnt to a crisp on track). When it did compete against its newer counterparts however, this fan favorite became as piece of Japanese tuning history. There is not very much media on this car around anymore because it existed before the time of mega blogs and forums, but, linked below is the Kraft GT300 AE-86 build video with tribute to GT300. Simply put, amazing.

Money

TE-37s never age!

Legend

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JohnP

A Sinister Love: Khanh Le’s 1972 Datsun 240Z.

Posted on August 13, 2010 by JohnP

127

It was 10:00pm on a Saturday night when I received a phone call from Mayday David. David was out at a local car meet when he stumbled upon a classic beauty that we had yet to see in our neck of the woods. At the exact moment of the call I was in the symphony listening to the legendary Nobuo Uematsu (the creator of the Final Fantasy music) getting my nerd on. It was intervened by the call that went a little something like this, “John, where you at?” David said. I responded, “Jones Hall, the symphony”. David responds, “Well, you better get your suited up ass over here to this meet, because there is a Datsun you HAVE to see”.

Graveyards, fitting for the sinister minded

We have featured a Datsun before on this site, Van Luong’s, which, in my opinion is pretty damn clean and hard to top, so if these guys are making me come out to a meet in a symphonic suited up fashion, then, this HAD to be an awesome whip, and they were right. One thing I was not prepared for was the perfection that I was about to cast my eyes upon, Khanh Le’s 1972 S30 240Z.

This, is stance.

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Nostalgic Wednesdays: The Renault Espace F1, the ULTIMATE Grocery Getter

Posted on July 28, 2010 by JohnP

127

The year was 1994, and the Paris auto show was going down. Most people were expecting a slew of econo-box mini -vans and new concepts for the savvy consumer of the 90′s. What they were not ready for however was the arrival of one crazy masterpiece conceived by Renault and built by MPV Espace designer, Matra. To celebrate their 10th year anniversary Renault and Matra took their flagship minivan and bred into existence the Espace F1. The Espace, like every other MPV at the time in the world, was ugly as shit. I think the most attractive mini-van of that era was most likely the Toyota previa, and you know for damn sure American minivans in this era were ugly as sin. So, for this corporate duo to whip out this Grocery getting monster, you can say the world, at that time was a bit surprised and probably thought everyone at Renault and Matra were high as hell.

The Ultimate...Grocery Getter

Powered by an 800 horsepower, V-10, 3.5-liter Formula 1 motor, this ultimate grocery getter could get to 125 mph in just shy of 7 seconds. Yup, that is right, sub 7 seconds, 6.9 to be exact with a top speed of 186 miles per hour. For the stats hungry out there, it also dropped a 0-60 bomb from a standstill of just 2.8 seconds. And for those that want a cherry on top, this bad boy also came with a 6-speed sequential automatic transmission, dayum!

Mom's Driving

Apparently Renault had taken great lengths to keep this car as agile as possible by essentially taking the “Espace” Body (a carbon fiber version) and dropping it on a double wishbone rear and front suspension (a 1993 winning Formula 1 Grand Prix frame). This was one of the key factors that would help propel this minivan to break physics on the track, well, that, massive slicks and quite possible some of the most gnarly aero-dynamics ever. Check out the wing! It was said to have been able to pull between 1.5 and 2g on the track, amazing.

A fitting donor

I think one of the best pieces of its design is how the interior was filled with 4 seats. Two buckets for mom and dad, and two for the kids, a perfect car for the perfect nuclear family.

Safety first, now for the ear plugs.

The word amazing doesn’t even come close to describing the awesomeness that is the Renault Espace F1. It is truly a piece of art.

Dishhhhhhh....

Check out this monster in action!

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If I only had the money…

–JohnP

Nostalgic Wednesday: Hot Version’s RX-7 Legend.

Posted on June 16, 2010 by JohnP

Got a minute? Sit down and enjoy Hot Version’s “RX7 Legend” a dedication to one of the sexiest cars to come out of the Golden ERA of Japanese tuning. Money.

–JohnP

YESSSSSSSS: Formula 1 returns to the USA. In Austin, Texas!!!!

Posted on May 25, 2010 by JohnP

Someone slap me, is this a dream?

Taken from Formula1.com

”

Formula One World Championship Limited and Formula One Administration Limited (together, the F1 Commercial Rights Holder) and Full Throttle Productions, LP, promoter of the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix™, announce that a historic agreement has been reached for Austin, Texas to serve as the host city of the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix™ for years 2012 through 2021.
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From Houston with Love: Princeton Wong’s 1996 Porsche Carrera 2 Monster

Posted on February 23, 2010 by JohnP

146

In today’s tuner world, innovation is a very rare occurrence. When I say innovation, I am not talking about how creative your fiberglass guy got in modifying your body kit and system. I am talking about the character of a car; the feeling you get when you see a work of art, something that makes you stare and say, ”holy shit.” To be able to take an idea from your mind and execute it in such a way, which not only inspires others but also brings a whole new level of play to the game, is a rare skill. Someone had such a vision for his naturally aspirated Porsche 993 Carrera 2, we are talking a vision circa 2002, Princeton Wong’s vision.

Someone call 911

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