LeMans was hard to watch. They really need to stop mandating all these stupid rules for LMP1 and just let the teams build good race cars again. All these hybrid requirements are driving away the teams and making costs skyrocket. Not only that, but nearly all of the LMP1 cars broke or crashed out. It's a hard race, but when the majority of the top tier cars don't finish the race you need to take a good long look at the rules and change them. I mean, come on. An LMP2 team nearly won. That's ridiculous.
I was planning on saving for one but then I saw a 1990 F-250 for sale at a farm in the next town over. Mmmmm....
If I do buy one it'll probably be a really cheap one that doesn't run or needs a transmission or something. I've yet to buy a car for under $1k and it's something I definitely want to do.
My best friend just recently bought the most expensive vehicle he's ever owned, an 02 half ton 4wd Chevy, that he paid $1100 for. He's also selling three other's right now, a 95 2wd half ton 5 speed Chevy with no engine for $300, a 91 4wd half ton automatic Chevy for $600, and a 94 4 cylinder automatic Cavalier for $300.
You know, every time I think about car culture and Japan and stance and mountain racing and anything else, I just find myself getting unbelievably ticked off. People think "USDM style" means running a quarter inch off the ground with stretched sidewalls, 5 million raunchy stickers, 15 degrees of camber, and maybe a roof rack now. All the mountain racers call their craft "touge" even if they contain 0% Japanese DNA and have never even been to Japan. Say that rock makes better driving music than Eurobeat and out come the f-bombs because you just tipped everyone's sacred cow. People endlessly repeat that American cars can't turn. Everything's Japan or Europe now, people don't remember or care to remember muscle cars, sports cars that aren't called "Miata", Mulholland Drive, or the moonshine runners. And every time I think about this, it makes me want to start punching people. I start getting fantasies about getting a crew together to practice on the local passes until our skills are on point, then going to Japan with said crew to make Tsuchiya look frickin' stupid on his own TV show, then following up with a three-week dashcammed rampage of pass and expressway, all just to prove that everyone else needs to stop looking to Japan for their car culture and skilled drivers. I know that's a childish fantasy and not likely to happen, but this really does make me just that angry. LOVE YOUR OWN FRICKIN' COUNTRY, FOR PETE SAKE!
I love my country. I love it a lot. I love my Mustang (even if it's engine was originally a Euro design). I love our culture, but that doesn't mean I can be intrigued by other's culture and other countries cars. Depending on decade, my preferred car comes from all over the world. 60's I'm American, 70's European, 80's American or Japanese, 90's definitely Japanese, etc. etc. America simply doesn't make the best cars yet. I've grown up around them and owned them. I'm replacing my GMC pickup with a small, Korean hatchback because the electronic brake controller failed at 108,000 miles. I'm not mechanically inclined to replace, and the family mechanic wants $600 to do it. it The same pickup just had $350 worth of conditioning work done, has a broken passenger window regulator, a failing stereo, and a speedometer that doesn't read right in the winter. My Mustang wouldn't start this morning because condensation got between the plug wires and points on the coil pack, thus I had to sand them because they corroded. The same car is extremely prone to rust because Ford used shoddy metal in the early 2000's. In fact, it's already starting to rust: the driver's side front fender above the headlight and a couple rock chips on the roof. Are we catching up? Yes, but only because of the world car.
The world car, AKA designing and building to the lowest common denominator. America has space to spare, but Europe has cramped cities, so everyone gets bland-looking 3- and 5-door hatchbacks in place of coupes and wagons. America still has cheap and readily-available gas, but other places don't, so everyone gets joyless, boring eco-turbo I4s (granted fuel economy regulations are to blame here too, but those are BS also). Americans still sort of like to drive, but Chinese consider it more honorable and prestigious to be driven, so brace yourself for a barrage of boring long-wheelbase gadgetmobiles as soon as GM runs out of leftover Euro designs. Nonetheless, I understand some reasons why some people might be into foreign cars. The problem is, they completely ignore and forget their own country's car history and car culture, allowing it to be overwritten by something downloaded from Japan, or just something completely stupid (stance). Need for Speed 2015 is a perfect example - lots of Japanese influence, lots of European cars, very little American influence (all modern and on or nearly on the supercar level except for the Foxstang, the two classics, and the later-added hot rods), things like camber and track width treated as a part of visual tuning rather than performance tuning, and the car list is biased toward JDM cars - Supra SZ-R instead of base USDM Supra (why they used the NA model anyway is beyond me), Sprinter Trueno GT-Apex instead of Corolla Sport GT-S, Civic Type-R hatch instead of Civic Si coupe. You can have your Civic or your GT86, but I'd honestly rather see a Taz sticker on it at this point than a young leaf.
"USDM", "JDM", or any other countries domestic markets literally means "the supply and demand of goods, services, and securities within a single country.". "JDM" or "USDM" aren't styles, they're labels on where the vehicle is made and where the modifications derive from. There are Japanese cars made in the United States and use modifications made in the United States, this would make it "USDM". It doesn't matter what you call it. Who cares if the person doesn't have any Japanese DNA. Touge is just a Japanese word for "pass" as in a mountain pass. In the English language we constantly take words from other languages and use them in every day speech because it is the best way to describe something; The word "hamburger" originally derives from Germany, but we use it as it is easier to say hamburger than call it a ground beef patty sandwich. How about this, everyone has the right to their own opinion to what music they think is best for a certain situation. I have never encountered this issue in my life, so either you are making stupid arguments with people, or you have encounter somebody with a mental disorder. Stereotypes are thing for a reason, but there are cars that break these stereotypes. The Corvettes and Vipers and other cars break the stereotype that "American cars can't turn"; The Hellcats are the stereotype when it comes to that "American cars can't turn" because just like classic muscle cars they had too much power for the tires and suspension to handle a turn at speed. This is a great example just that: You are harboring some serious issues and you should talk to a professional about it. Why do you care so much about what people enjoy? Why do you need to try to prove what you like is better, are insecure about your decision? People can like what ever they want to like. You have no right to talk down on somebodies automotive style, If somebody likes to stance their car their car they can do that, If somebody likes lowriders they have every right to do that, If somebody likes mud bogging they can turn their truck into a mud bogger. As an automotive enthusiast you don't have to like or be into anybody choice of modifications, but you sure do need to respect their decision in furthering car culture, every single automotive styling ever thought of has been looked down upon by one group or another. You can love your country and love any automotive style you want.
Hopefully cars won't get completely electronic-ified, that sounds kind of boring actually. I have had this happen many times too, and I also think that rock does make better driving music than eurobeat.
I really dislike the tuning style we have here in germany they stance theyre bmws and vws and thwn brag about how they completed the ring faster than a corvette because their car can turn better than a american car wich isnt true anymore. A modern bmw m5 to me at least is a underpowered muscle car its heavy and cant corner as well as it should. I really like the cars here but alot of people who call themselves tuners her i hate. Spoiling a perfectly fine tuned old e30 m3 by slamming it isnt tuning its stupid. They often will justify slamming by saying racecars are low to but racecars arent as low and they can enter a racetrack eventhough theyre low. German car magazines are that way too theyll never let a car from another country win the best was a test between a fabia rs and a polo gti where the bigger fabia got less points in space and eventhough having the same engine and weighing less it was 3 sekonds slower than said polo
^^This. To add to what ItaliAsian has pointed out, people will like what they like. Some Americans have no interest in American cars, and prefer Japanese or European alternatives. I don't see why you would have a problem with that, it's basic human nature that everyone likes different things, hell at the other end of the spectrum there are plenty of Japanese people who are into American muscle cars and lowriders. Are you going to tell them that they can't have American cars because they aren't American? You are free to like whatever kinds of cars or tuning styles you want, and you are equally free to dislike other options. Personally, I like pre 2000's JDM models and period correct tuning. On the other end of the scale, I rather despise people who put American V8 engines into Japanese or European cars. That said, I feel no desire to go up to people who've LS swapped their Miata and bludgeon them with a body pillow until they repent their sins. Instead, I let them be, while I focus on the car culture that I love, or another novel idea, I may actually look further into car culture I "hate", because maybe I'll find elements I actually enjoy. Basically, it is irrelevant where you are from or what car or mods you like, what matters is the relationship between a car and it's owner. Rather than focus on the trivial differences between car cultures, how about focusing on the common bond between car and driver and then we can all peacefully coexist. Telling someone what kind of cars to like is like telling them who to date or what religion to believe in, either way you're not going to make many friends doing that (then again, coming from someone who thinks a crappy 80's Camaro can defeat Tsuchiya's 86 on the Touge...)
I can attest this, the lowrider scene from the 90's over in the US is pretty big in Japan, not to mention people importing big US pickup trucks and the likes into Japan as well. Like these two at the Cars and Coffee in Nagoya. A 62 Impala in Shibuya with some rather tacky rims.. Hell, you'd even get a GMC flatbed towtruck over there as well Even the Dodge Ram vans are popular as well. Even the Nurburgring in Germany's seen it's fair share of American cars as well.
The only car thing I'm conflicted on is electric cars. Sure they will probably be better in every way than ICE cars eventually, but I'll miss ICE. Won't have to worry about that for a few decades though.
All technically correct; however, car culture tends to use those terms to refer to parts and styles, so that a modified car patterned after those commonly seen in Japan would be described as "JDM style", whereas one patterned after those common here would be "USDM style" - except that there would be no need for such if the style of modification matched the car's original or current country of residence, since it would just be done according to the norms for that area. Not sure if I explained that understandably, but whatever. The point is, we didn't need the word "touge" back when the Mustangs and Corvettes were ripping it up in the California mountains, and we don't need it now. I'm familiar with the idea of loanwords, and am usually OK with them, but the thing is, widespread use of that word implies that mountain racing is an inherently Japanese thing. When an American refers to pass/canyon racing as "touge", he's basically letting Japan feed his own country's car culture back to him as though they created it, which is saddening to me. Back when I had Netflix (and they had more than the five most recent series of Top Gear), I could always tell when I'd been watching too much Top Gear because I'd start to use words like "bonnet" and "boot" without really thinking about it. And I HATED that, because I'm an American and we call engine compartment lids "hoods". It's the same with "touge". I pretty much did start a stupid argument, as the AC video this was in the comments of was sort of patterned after Initial D, but the point remains there's no need to get swearingly angry over that statement. I even like (some) Eurobeat, I just don't think it's the end-all be-all of driving music or even necessarily the best. True, but, no matter how well some of the older ones handled (*cough*PONTIACGTO*cought*), no matter how much handling-related aftermarket becomes available for them, no matter how good the new ones have become, people still believe that American muscle cars are all useless in the mountains. Besides, it's not all about muscle cars. Like I said, no one cares to remember the Mulholland racers or the rum runners, even though they very much should. I never tried to dispute their right to do it. What ticks me off is that, while everyone's going gaga over Japan, they're marginalizing their own country, allowing its history and car culture to be overwritten by another's, or their take-off of another's. It's an irrational thing and I'm not even sure why it bothers me, considering that previous examples of foreign influence (including pretty much the entire presence of sports cars in America, including the first Corvettes) haven't been so obnoxious. I guess part if it is, those happened before I was born, so they look normal, whereas the Japanese takeover of American car culture is much more recent, so it appears more intrusive by comparison. But then again, maybe there's more to it than that. I once met at a car show an older gentleman with a Jaguar E-Type. He loved his Jag and was very into British cars and was part of a club for them, but he never once tried to pretend that it wasn't a US-spec model. In fact, he admitted without even thinking about it that the only countries he'd ever had it in were the US and Canada, and that the engine upgrades had been done by a shop in Ohio. What a contrast to the people who will go to Japan just to get a muffler for their Civic when they could get a Cherry Bomb or other American muffler that would fit their car just fine within comfortable driving distance of home. Basically, what I'm saying is, enjoy Japanese cars all you want, but don't go head over heels for Japan itself unless that's actually where you live or are from. Once again, it's not about the cars or parts themselves. I'd gladly put RS Watanabes on a Chevy pickup if I could find them in the right size and bolt pattern (no, really, I think they'd look killer on a blacked-out squarebody S10), but I wouldn't then cover it in Japanese writing and young leaf decals. If I saw a Skyline on Craigslist at a price that was actually commensurate with its abilities, I'd be tempted to take out a loan to buy it... but the chances of it ending up with a Flowmaster muffler, a Grant steering wheel, at least one radio preset locked to country & western, and, if I get one before then, a "re-elect Trump 2020" sticker would be high, even if more significant modifications will require a trip to Japan. You can mix styles and ideas, but never forget where you're actually from in the process. Even the Dodge Van racers in Japan aren't necessarily letting America overwrite their car culture - remember, in America those vehicles are usually seen as cruisers (when we customize them at all), and the Japanese popularity of those vans began with their use as enclosed motorbike carriers. It's just, racers being racers, it was inevitable that the vans were going to get tricked out too at some point. Again, I agree with a lot of what you've said, it just hurts me to see so many people marginalize their own country and forget all that it's done in favor of something generic from somewhere else. On one hand, if it weren't for Initial D, I might not have got into the idea of mountain racing for a little while longer, though maybe that would be for the better. On the other hand, Initial D is all the farther a lot of people have gone. Their own country's racing history has become so forgotten and ignored that they had to find out about pass racing from a Japanese cartoon, but once they did so, they never looked any farther, and started trying to establish something similar in America without realizing that it'd already been done. Perhaps that's nothing out of the ordinary; Mulholland itself played host to several different racing organizations over the years, and they weren't always completely aware of their predecessors. So one one hand, I can't completely hate Initial D, because it did kind of get me into mountain racing (though I did know of several good backroads before that, anyway), but on the other hand, I do hate it, because it's taken over everything related to mountains. It feels like being invaded, and it stings, because we already had our own version of what invaded us.
And in turn the pass racing isn't any different from the Laning that occurred in England prior to the great war. Or the rally events elsewhere. Get off your high horse and quit trying to ram "America is the best, support your country" down our throats, many of us here aren't American, or better still, have our eyes open to the fact there's a world beyond the country holding 90% of firearms deaths of under 17s in the developed world per year (CDC figures) of which over half were murders. Pass racing or touge racing was hardly invented by moonshiners. Loan words are fine. Your attitudes and slander to the regular enthusiast are pretty offensive and a stain on the community at large
Most of the points you attacked simply don't exist. I write from an American perspective because that's where I live, but the same thing applies just about anywhere. On one hand, I'm waiting for the "Initial D: UK Stage" tribute I found on YouTube to continue, but on the other hand, perhaps there shouldn't even be an Initial D: UK Stage because it means the same exact thing is happening there. Maybe not to the same degree, but still. I also never claimed that we invented pass racing, just that we were doing it way before Japan was, so all you've really done by bringing up Laning and rallies is prove my point. Also what is gun violence doing in a discussion about racing culture, I mean seriously, the two have nothing to do with each other.
You could definitely do that yourself. With the internet, all vehicle repair is as simple as assembling a piece of furniture from ikea. What electronic brake controller are you talking about though? ABS module? The rest of that list is cake. I agree with this part.
Interesting point, reminds me of the American auto industry during the oil crisis. Sure, America had their "own version" of what a car should be, and that was the case for many years. But during the 70s, this version of a car was unsuited to the current market conditions, whereas Japan was offering cars that were better built, more reliable and fuel efficient which naturally outsold their local competition at an astonishing rate. So what did the American auto industry do to solve this? They threw a hissie fit, destroyed a corolla with a hammer, told people not to buy Japanese cars because they are made by evil communists, kill an innocent man because he looks Japanese, and finally take a steaming dump on themselves and beg the country for money. Whether or not a place has their own version of something is irrelevant, people have free will and can support whatever or whoever they want, and there's nothing you can do to change their minds. Don't like it? too bad. And if you really want to influence the masses to support your idea, demonizing the opposition is not going to do anything than diminish your credibility. Instead, offer an alternative that is as good as the opposition, and people will follow naturally. People like the Japanese car scene so much because it's new, fresh and full of life, as opposed to the stale domestic scene. The opposite applies in Japan would you believe. Here's a Celica Supra I saw at a car meet in southern Japan, the guy could of easily opted for a local Celica XX, but went to the trouble to import a USDM version. This guy has even installed USDM bumpers on his JDM 86 in Japan. And to top it off, here's a Toyota Sprinter Cielo in Japan, except the owner has gone to great lenghs to transform it into a US spec Geo Prism.
