Five Axis Project Scions and Lexus IS-F to appear at MJS 2008

This just in from World HQ: Famed custom car builder Troy Sumitomo of Five Axis will be making his presence felt at Motoring J Style. Sumitomo will appear on May 24th with a collection of wild custom Scion cars and one very special one-off Lexus IS-F widebody. The Lexus (pictured above) debuted at the 2007 SEMA Show in Las Vegas and has also been shown at the New York International Auto Show. Full press release and more details below:



FIVE-AXIS SCIONS ON DISPLAY AT MOTORING ‘J’ STYLE

ALAMEDA, Calif., April 16, 2008 - Leading edge contemporary automotive stylist Troy Sumitomo will appear with a collection of his custom Five Axis Scion showcars at Motoring ‘J’ Style. Sumitomo, a California native and founder of Five Axis, has established himself in little over a decade as a rising star in the world of custom automobile design and fabrication. The one-day event, which is dedicated to Japanese car culture, will be held Saturday, May 24, at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo, Calif.

Five of Sumitomo’s Scion Five Axis creations will be on display in the Exposition Pavilion. The futuristic Scion xA Speedster is a highly modified open-air roadster with a unique underhood-mounted projection screen. The tangerine-hued Scion DJ xB has a mobile DJ booth complete with turntables, mixer and speakers integrated into the car’s frame. Other Five Axis Scions in the show include the Blackberry xB, Spec tC and Papaya xD. A full lineup of 2008 production Scions rounds out the exhibit.

Also on display will be the matte-black Five Axis modified Lexus Project IS-F which debuted at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas last November. Five Axis body kits, wheels, paint, and aftermarket modifications will also be shown.
Besides these Scion and Lexus vehicles, Motoring ‘J’ style will include vintage pre-1985 Japanese roadsters, coupes and sedans, contemporary collectables, and tuner creations. Live drifting competitions and rally demonstrations will also take place at the expansive Fairgrounds.

Show hours for Motoring ‘J’ Style are 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. Saturday, May 24, 2008. Admission is $20 for adults while kids 12 and under are free. Priority parking has been arranged for those arriving in a Scion. In addition, Scion drivers and passengers can receive $5 off the admission price by checking in at the Scion booth outside the main entrance and show an attendant their Scion key. For show information contact (415) 479-9930 or go to www.motoringjstyle.com
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Press contact: Justus Dobrin/ MDPR (510)865-8005 jdobrin@mdpr.com

The Five Axis Scion xA Speedster, a Troy Sumitomo modified widebody conversion roadster, will be featured at the second annual Motoring ‘J’ Style show, Saturday, May 24, 2008 at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo, Calif.

The Five Axis Scion DJ xB, a mobile DJ booth featuring Pioneer components and speakers, will be on display at the second annual Motoring ‘J’ Style show, Saturday, May 24, 2008 at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo, Calif.

Lakes Speedster - Datsun motor looks like Offy 6

This sweet salt-flats style speedster rod just popped up on Jalopnik, and what looks like at first glance to be a period Miller/Offy straight six is actually a Datsun 260z lump! Jim Pendleton of Texas is responsible for the build, and did a spectacular job. Read more /see more photos on Jalopnik.



The Datsun motor posing as an Offy really sets it off - nice detail work Jim... This represents the next frontier - making modern motors look vintage in period style builds. Along those same lines is this Model A Ford powered by a twincam Cosworth four that looks the part.

Z side by size

I have to say the new NISMO Z takes the 350z up a notch, and makes it feel more tuned and more special than the regular car. The drooped nose and giant front splitter gives the Z a more aggressive stance, while the back aero package takes a little more getting used to. However, when compared to the original, it’s apparent how much safety equipment and modern crash standards influence the sheer size of modern automobiles. The new Z feels fairly compact inside, in some ways even more so than the original – but on the outside it’s apparent there’s a lot of stuff packed underneath the skin. Roughly 3320 lbs of stuff versus 2300 lbs on the original.

The Motoring J Style MR2: A Study in Carnage

If you follow this blog you're probably aware of our exploits at the 24 Hours of LeMons in some of Japan's finest machines of the last several decades. We thought it might be inspirational to shed light on how a vehicle comes to be a participant at this fine motor race, with the goal of properly documenting carnage.

We found our MR2 while perusing craigslist one day last January. It lived on the mean streets of Berkeley with a rather optimistic asking price of $700.00. We arrived in the Lexus LS460 press car (hardly a good choice to roll up in when you're buying a $500 car), and succeeded in parking far away so that the owner would not realize we arrived in a $70,000 Lexus. That way, we thought, he'd be more susceptible to our bargaining tactics. We found the owner (pictured above, right), in the middle of a major street in Berkeley preparing his two cars for sale: The MR2, which simply had "$700" written in shoe polish in the back window, and a much worse '95 Mustang V6 Convertible (salvage title), which he was painting in high-quality Krylon flat black for that sinister "aggressive" look.

We drove the car around the block, and despite a truly horrible clunking sound in the right front suspension, decided it was worth buying. After offering $350, we settled on $450 and (cautiously) drove the car home.


The car was horribly rusted out, so bad, in fact, that there wasn't enough of the driver's floor left to bolt in a roll bar. Of course, we didn't find this out until after we dragged it home and ripped out the carpets. Well, nobody said it was going to be easy. The photo above shows master mechanic Mack of the Motoring J Style Racing Team trying to diagnose the loud clunking noises in the right front. I'm not really sure what he did, but it got quieter and we deemed the car "safe to race".


I'm going spare you all of the boring mechanical parts and maddening problems we encountered in trying to get this former East Coast car into race-ready condition. It was a real pain in the ass and I don't want to relive it now. Painting it was fun, and as you can see we assembled a large army of rattle-can wielding LeMons enthusiasts to help us with this task...


....which took us a long-ass time! Note to self: when you use grey primer, it takes a few hundred coats of flourescent yellow and green paint to cover it all. We painted, and painted, and painted until our index fingers were frozen to the Krylon nozzle and we had ruined several formerly-presentable outfits.


No, that's not our car. This is another LeMons devotee who shall remain nameless. He showed up in his MR2 to help us with our little artistic masterpiece. We quickly surrounded his car and demanded numerous parts be taken off, at which point he smartly backed up as quickly as possible and got the hell out of there. Look closely and you can see him looking over his shoulder trying to get out of this predicament as quickly as possible. Life went on.



There are few things in life more satisfying than a freshly painted race car. Isn't she a sexy beast?


Even better with numbers on! Finally at the track: Altamont, July 2007 before the MR2's first race. She wouldn't look like this for long.


And we're off! A little traffic, no big deal...


12th place finish and not too bad damage to show for it!


Race #2: October 2007 24 Hours of LeMons, Altamont


Moments like this gave some cause for concern...


But mostly we just chugged along without any mechanical issues, everyone driving well, always in the top 5...like a fine wine, she was getting better with time.


Then our man Jordan rammed a Honda Prelude with about a 30mph closing speed, causing grave damage to our front end and seriously rearranging the rear end of the Honda Prelude. Oddly enough, the Prelude guys got the sour end of that deal and lost precious time in the pits repairing their car. Prelude guys, if you're reading this, I'm still sorry about that.

We thought the race was over. Surprisingly, the MR2 has pretty good frontal crash protection (and I'm the one to know, I tested one before at the age of 16). Despite a gouged radiator core, the car seemed to be holding its water and continuing despite a few bent panels.


Looking pretty worse for wear here. This is in the last 30 minutes of the race. Amazingly, we finished 4th! More amazingly, we drove the car home on the public freeway.

Photo Credit: Jalopnik

Post Race Carnage:



And if you don't think we're stupid enough already, we're bringing this car BACK for the 24 Hours of LeMons on May 10-11, 2008, at our old stomping grounds, the riotous Altamont Motorsports Park in lovely Tracy, California. Come see us!

Toyota and Isuzu Sportwagons Rocked the 1971 Tokyo Show

In 1971 Toyota hit the Tokyo Show with the RV1, “Recreational vehicle 1” was Toyota’s first attempt at a sportwagon.

The concept featured a small trailer filled with an inflatable camp-hut that would expand to 13 feet in diameter and 6.5 feet high to sleep 4-5 people, and 500-watt portable generator to run an electric air pump for inflating the hut. The lid of the trailer also turned into a small boat, complete with small outboard motor.


The Celica based chassis made do with a 105hp inline-4 from the Corolla. The design featured a narrow tailgate (between the elaborate taillamp assemblies with 30 lights in total, and unique gullwing opening rear hatches. Nissan must have studied this showcar in detail for their Pulsar NX “Sportback” option. Needless to say, the RV1 never saw production, but the idea of the sportwagon was never forgotten in a host of liftbacks and hatchback designs.


Also at the ’71 Tokyo Motor Show was a sportwagon from Isuzu based on the Bellett. At the time it was called clean and European – and looks like a cross between a Lotus Eclat and a Gremlin. Based on the Bellett GT chassis, and fitted with a 1.8 liter dual carb’d twincam, the Isuzu was more sporty than the Toyota RV1 across the show on Toyota’s stand. At the time it was compared to the Volvo ES – a 2+2 with some luggage space. Like the RV1, the Bellett sportwagon never made it to the production line.

GTR Break-in Procedure

Kazutoshi Mizuno, Nissan’s project leader and self proclaimed ‘Mr. GTR’ wanted to ensure that every GTR be capable of the performance claims they’ve made and to keep themselves honest, each car goes out for nine laps on a test loop on the proving ground at the Tochigi plant facility. The loop itself isn’t a picturesque road course or even a high speed wailing on the banking, but instead looks like a multi-lane drag strip with different lanes with different road qualities. The goal is to properly and uniformly break in the various systems on the car. The procedure is well orchestrated, with the first four laps consisting of a set number of progressively harder stops and a little brake and throttle at the same time to properly break in the massive rotors and bed the pads. Laps five to seven focus on checking turbo boost and loosening up the transmission, and the final laps take the GTR on a bumpier section of pavement to reduce the friction in the suspension bushings. After the drive, each car is measured at several key points, and the alignment specs are re-checked and adjusted if needed. Nissan doesn’t want any funny vibrations at 300kph!

Hammering away on the Nissan GTR Assembly Line

62 miles north of Tokyo, at Nissan’s Tochigi plant, the GTR takes shape. The facility was established in 1968 and has produced cars since 1971. It’s ringed by a high-speed four mile banked oval with the Nissan logo spelled out in shrubbery that you pass under while entering. The GTR is assembled along the same line as the Skyline coupe and sedan. I wasn’t allowed into the stamping shop or the area where some of the die-cast pieces are fitted into the body, but did get to wander through the actual assembly line inside a giant tin clad building.

On the assembly line itself, GTR’s are interspersed randomly among Skyline coupes, sedans, and US bound G35’s and G37’s with about six meters of space between them. Robots do most of the heavy lifting, as the line is 83% automated.

There are fewer of the musical robotic delivery carts than in the regular engine assembly areas (in Yokohama, GTR engines are built in a clean room, separated from the giant automated 4-cylinder MR assembly line full of robot delivery carts rolling along the aisles) but they’re present and belting out high-pitched happy songs (like Mary Had A Little Lamb and It’s a Small World in pitches that could double as mobile phone ring tones) as the cars snake along and workers at different stations install their guts. I wonder if they'd secretly like to throw their tools at the little noisy carts from time to time.



After the components are installed along the 900-meter long line, the cars are driven to a four-wheel dyno station that automatically shortens or lengthens itself for the next car. At the front of the dyno station, several monitors display camera images of the front and rear of the car so the operator can test headlight and taillight functions, and a central screen depicts the rolling road speed on the dyno for checking speedometer calibration.

Assuming there are no problems on the dyno, the cars were driven forward to a final quality inspection lineup under a sea of intense flourescent lights. Workers crawl around the car and checking panel fit and finish of the interiors. It's amazingly bright!

Datsun's Rotary

Back in the early seventies, Datsun (along with a host of other car makers) was serious about developing a Wankel engine on the heels of NSU and Mazda. Toyota was also rumored to be working on one, but Datsun built them and ran test prototypes in Datsun1200 sedans. The Datsun 1200 Forum has a cool 1973 article on the state of development (at that time) of the Datsun Wankel.

Crazy Precise Alignment on the new Nissan GTR

Motoring J Style goes behind the scenes in the making of Nissan's new GTR.


One of the more unique processes of the GTR is the high precision alignment it gets as it is assembled. Before the parts hit the assembly line, the axle shop assembles the rear subframe with the rear transmission/transaxle unit, the suspension arms, uprights, and rotors and then mounted to an elaborate hydraulic cradle that sets the suspension at rideheight – simulating the weight of the car so that two technicians can setup the alignment specs with race car precision on a laser guided tool before the piece is mounted in the car. This ensures that the wheel alignment is precise before the parts go into the car, and it’s checked again after the brake-pad transmission shakedown on every car. Comfortable 300kph cruising is serious business, and razor sharp alignment specs ensure that all production versions are as capable as the test cars.

More Vintage Touring

Like to drive? There are a number of non-make-specific rally-style touring events where you can get out and mix it up with exotics, and rough and tumble classics on the backroads of California. It’s a low key way to enjoy your classic without having to compare mirror bolts, or be told you’re running the wrong sun visor by a self proclaimed “fill in your car name here” expert. These folks just enjoy getting out and blowing the cobwebs off their classics across less traveled routes. There are a host of events, from the no cost “NO FRILLS IRON BOTTOM Motor Tour, the California Melee, the now retired Alpine 500 which will be succeeded this year by the Snowball Rally, The SoCal TT and more…

Early Celica Liftback on the Iron Bottom, also a veteran of the California Melee - piloted by our own David Swig

Ford V8 powered Datsun on the Iron Bottom

Afraid of a little dirt? Don't try this with your Z then. 24 Hours of LeMons Creator Jay Lamm has no fear in his Z...


Sweet Honda S600 Coupe on the Alpine Rally!


RHD SSS 510 Coupe on the California Melee


Get out there, you know who you are!!!