Kei Miura is the mastermind behind the T.R.A.-Kyoto design company. Miura works with other aero tuning companies to produce body kits for many Japanese cars as well as his own notable Rocket Bunny and 6666 lines for the Nissan S-Chassis cars. Crank and Piston got an inside look at his operation and his latest creation, the Rocket Bunny Scion FR-S. Miura designs kits by laser scanning the cars and then CAD modeling them. From there he uses a CNC machine to cut the molds for the fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP) parts from foam.
This is an interesting video for a couple of reasons. The first part has to do with the NSX-GT FR. The story behind the car begins in 2007 when the sanctioning body of the Japanese Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC) announced a regulation change that would require all of the GT500 class cars to be front engine with rear wheel drive (FR) layout. At the time, Honda was racing with the mid-engine NSX. The NSX was Honda’s halo performance car with the rest of their sports car lineup being front wheel drive. The NSX-GT FR was built by Honda R&D to see how feasible it would be to adapt the NSX chassis to a FR layout. That’s why the nose of the car in the video will look abnormally stretched and it’s cornering attitude will seem a bit odd compared to the rest of the NSX’s you’ve seen. Honda ultimately decided to develop a clean sheet design for an FR chassis, the HSV-010, specifically for competing in JGTC. The NSX-GT FR was thought to have been scrapped, but it turns out it was just put into storage at the Honda R&D facility after it was used for testing in 2007.
The second reason this video is interesting is the re-emergence of the NSX-GT FR. Honda surprised the Japanese press when they randomly showed up at the Twin Rings of Motegi circuit with the car in 2010. It turns out they were testing a Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) by Zytek, the same company that makes the KERS system currently used in Formula 1 racing. Honda R&D was seeing if KERS would be feasible for widespread adoption in the JGTC series. The NSX-GT FR was a natural candidate since it was already available and it wouldn’t give Honda any extra testing time with the HSV that was still being campaigned. If you listen carefully, you can hear the KERS working under braking and the car rolling down pit lane in pure electric mode.
Here’s another installment from Jay Leno’s first trip to Japan. Here he’s getting drifting lessons from The Drift King, Keiichi Tsuchiya. Even though Leno is probably the most famous car nut in the world, he sucks at drifting. The result is a pretty entertaining video. Jay almost puts the Toyota GT-86 into the wall twice. Keiichi has to pull the hand brake from the passenger seat at the end to purposely spin the car instead of crumpling it into a concrete wall.
The HachiRock Festival is a celebration of the AE86 “Hachi-Roku” (Corolla GT-S sport RWD here in the US) that takes place every September in Japan. The AE86 is the spiritual successor of the Scion FR-S / Subaru BRZ / Toyota GT-86 (it’s where the 86 part of the name comes from). Originally built in the mid 80’s, the AE86 is a lightweight, low power, bare bones driving essentials car. It is difficult to drive fast; but if you can be fast in an AE86, you can be fast in anything. The car’s honest traits have garnered it a cult following around the world, especially in Japan. The HachiRock Festival is one of the annual events where owners and enthusiasts can get together to look at each other’s cars, swap parts and keep up with the latest trends in tuning. The JyuRoku blog put together this video coverage of the event:
Luke Huxham of Maiham-Media caught up with the Rocket Bunny Scion FR-S at the Fatlace Hellaflush Fuji event in Japan. This car has been making some waves on the internet because it’s one of the first really good looking wide body kits for the Scion FR-S / Toyota GT-86.
