SPEED HERO Blog — over looked cars

The Bombs Bursting in Air

When I was first getting into drifting the idea of drifting anything RWD was obscure and silly. It was Corolla's, S chassis, FC's and the odd sedan. With the increase in popularity comes variety due to desperation. I was desperate for wheels just before our last event. Weeks, months? Earlier I had purchased an SC400. It was going to be my missile for the year. I was excited. I'm a massive 1uz fan having a little experience drifting one around it was a great opportunity to jump...


Burnt Toast

Engine fires are a matter for the courts! Toaster vans existed in North America at some point, and to be honest so few noticed. Victoria is littered with old Toyota Vans. Maybe that was the problem; names. The Toyota Van was literally the name they were sold under, Van was uncreative but a utilitarian approach the Japanese companies took to tell North Americans they were making mini-vans long before the Caravan....wait, there's more? The fact is Toyota was not alone on this venture into cheap people movers,...


Nissan is Superior

There was a group of cars designed by Shoji Takahashi for Nissan as a 'Back to the Future' project in the late 80's. Bringing vintage styling to a then, modern times. In my mind it was very successful, enough to have imported one myself. The Nissan Figaro, Pao, BE-1, and S-Cargo were all vintage styled models with modern mechanicals. I was curious to where he got some of his inspiration, and while browsing today, came across accidentally one of those influences. As you can see the Gutbrod Superior, the world first fuel injected car, is a striking resemblance to the...


Baby Benz and Friends

From Zee's to Bee's that end in Zee's. I enjoy finding new obscure and rare cars. Want another car that doesn't have a wiki page? The Mercedes Benz 190e 2.6 Compact. More pictures below! The 190e 2.6 Compact was apparently built by Schultz Tuning, a company I just cannot find any information...


Baby Zee

My love for African car culture continues to grow. Just a small tidbit, but apparently South Africa specifically received the 140z and 160z! Based on the Datsun Sunny, these were the affordable African alternative to the famous 240z. Featuring L14 and L16 motors and some interesting alternate styling. It's so obscure there apparently isn't even a wiki page for them. Go figure, thanks to this Random CarDomain page.