Do you own a Japanese sports car from the 1990s? If so, your retirement is paid for. Because at the current trajectory, previously near-worthless Japanese metal will be valued at around $1billion a piece by 2030.
Supras, worth under £10,000 in TLCB’s home nation just a decade ago, are now up to £50,000. MR2s, which were scrap value just a few years ago, now make £10,000. And the humble Nissan 240SX – even a knackered ‘project car’, now costs five figures, with good examples north of £20,000. For a thirty year old Nissan!
We don’t pretend to understand it, but we suspect much of the hype is down to the video games Gen-X-ers and Millennials played two decades ago, which were awash with modified Japanese metal.
The resultant phenomenon today is a boom in ’90s Japanese sports cars, with all of them ending up looking likes this; 1saac W.’s superb modified Nissan Silvia / 240SX. Wide wheels, silly camber, a phat exhaust, and huge aero tick all the drifty boxes, and you can take a closer look at 1saac’s immensely valuable Nissan at his photostream.
Click the link above to pay the Drift Tax, whilst we rue the fact that Gran Turismo didn’t feature the sheddy old Rovers that make up TLCB carpark instead of ’90s Japanese sports cars…
This is resolutely not this TLCB Writer’s kind of car. But the rest of the staff are ‘busy’ in the corridor doing something with a remote control bulldozer and some Elven ‘volunteers’, so it falls to him to write about a pink drift-pig BMW.
That said, whilst this model is based on a real and eye-searing car, Fuku Saku‘s brick-built homage to the sideways E36 is thoroughly excellent, being both instantly recognisable as an E36 3-Series Coupe, and managing to replicate the drifty modifications of the real thing.
The doors and hood open to reveal further cleverness within, and there’s more to see of Fuku’s E36 Drift Car at his album of the same name on Flickr. Click the link above to go sliding about in something pink.
Ken Block’s wild twin-turbo ‘Hoonitruck’ has appeared on these pages before, but today we bring you a rather smaller recreation of the Gymkhana icon. This one is the work of ianying616, who has captured the aesthetic of the drift-happy movie star brilliantly in Model Team form. There’s a detailed interior, full roll cage, a realistic* engine, plus opening doors and hood, and there’s more to see of ianying’s build at his photostream via the link.
Matthew Terentev’s Volga/GAZ-2402 station wagon has appeared here before, being a somewhat unusual choice for a Technic ‘Supercar’, with working steering, engine, and suspension. He’s now gone a step further though, replacing the miserable inline 4-cylinder engine with a V8 (which the real 2402 was actually available with), and he’s added a whole host of other exciting modifications including lowered suspension, aero, and – most importantly – racing decals and stripes, which are worth at least an extra 200bhp on their own.
We’re not sure how suited a Volga/GAZ station wagon is to drifting (about as much as your Mom is to the 110m hurdles we suspect), but because we’re rather sad here at TLCB we love unlikely cars turned into racers. Plus the Elves would’ve have rioted had we not blogged a drift car with racing stripes.
There’s more to see of Matthew’s drifty GAZ-2402 station wagon (and the unmodified permit-only family car on which it’s based) at his photostream. Go sideways in the Soviet Union via the link above!
It’s election night here in TLCB’s home nation, and here is a Toyota Corolla Trueno AE86 pictured in a full ‘Initial D’ drift. Is it swinging from right to left, heading perilously close to the cliff-edge, crashing-out, or gaining a conservative majority? OK, that last analogy didn’t work, but we’re quite proud of the first three! Previous bloggee Simon Przepiorka, now known as SP_LINEUP, is the builder behind this most excellent scene and you can cast your ballot, er… we mean see more of his brilliant drifting Initial D AE86 on Flickr via the link above.
Just like people, some cars are born into greatness. They might have limited talent and have achieved little, but a family name goes a long way (we’re looking at you Bentley Bentayga and Rolls Royce Cullinan). Others have become great, either through their own endeavour or through blind luck and a random affiliation. This is the story of the latter.
The Toyota Corolla AE86 Sprinter Trueno was a good car in the same way that most Japanese cars of the 1980s were; well priced, fuel efficient, and far more reliable than its American or European counterparts.
And that is where the story should have ended, with the AE86 just another Japanese compact quietly getting on with not breaking down or falling apart. But in 1995 the AE86 got a shot at fame. At ten years old it became the star of a Japanese comic called ‘Initial D’, in which 18-year old Takumi Fujiwara slid sideways up mountain passes delivering food behind the wheel of his father’s AE86 Sprinter Trueno.
By 1999 ‘Initial D’ had become an anime production, viewed not just in Japan but around the world, and Toyota’s humble hatchback – now long out of production – had become a megastar. The popularity of drifting has continued unabated, leading to the AE86 becoming one of the most sought-after and iconic Japanese cars in history.
This superb recreation of the Toyota Corolla AE86 as it appeared in ‘Initial D’ comes from Peter Blackert (aka lego911) of Flickr, who has captured the world-famous car brilliantly in Lego. His design appears in the new book ‘How to Build Brick TV and Movie Cars’, which includes building instructions for the Sprinter Trueno pictured here (along with many other iconic cars) so that you can create your own version at home for drifting around your desk.
Peter’s Toyota Corolla AE86 Sprinter Trueno model is available to view at his photostream via the link above, and you can find the book in which the instructions for this model features by clicking here.
Ok, this might be digital, but it’s too cool not to post! This is a GT4586. What’s that you ask? The 4.5 litre V8 engine from a Ferrari 458 fitted inside the engine bay (mostly) of a Toyota GT86. The result is one hell of a drift car, and it’s street legal too, as builder/racer Ryan Tuerck demonstrates in this rather excellent video. Sadly the real car is no more following an accident, but TLCB favourite Simon Przepiorka has brought the Toyrari/Feryota back to life in Lego form with this awesome-looking render. Make the jump to see more via the link!
Drifting, as we learned earlier this week, has been around for some time. Today’s favoured drift weapons are 1990s Japanese cars, being relatively cheap (although the drift tax is now causing values to rocket), rear drive, and – most importantly in the modern drift scene – cool.
We’d prefer this though. It’s a glorious 1970s Datsun 240Z, one of the prettiest cars to come out of Japan, and one of the prettiest cars to come from the ’70s too. Flickr’s Simon Przepiorka is the builder as he’s fully driftized (what – it’s a word!) his 240Z with the addition of a wide-arch kit, what looks like a front-mounted intercooler, and an enormous rear wing.
Why drift cars need rear wings we don’t know, seeing as they’re going too slow to generate any downforce, they’re sideways so the air isn’t flowing it in a straight line, and surely downforce (and therefore grip) is the opposite of what helps cars to break traction anyway.
If you know drop us a note in comments, but we strongly suspect it’s to do with that ‘cool’ thing mentioned above. Anyway, Simon’s lovely Speed Champions scale be-winged Datsun 240Z can be found on Flickr – click the link above to get sideways.
1990s Japanese cars are rocketing in value. Now that the generation brought up on Playstation racing games are old enough to afford the cars they drove digitally as kids, demand for twenty-year-old Japanese boxes is at an all-time high. This is one such car, the Nissan 240SX/S13 fastback.
Easily modifiable, the 240SX has become a staple of the drift scene, even though in standard form it was (whisper it) quite a bland box. This brilliant Speed Champions style 240SX fastback in full drift spec comes from Flickr’s Simon Przepiorka, and it features probably the most perfect use for LEGO’s new quarter-tile pieces that we’ve seen yet – it’s almost as if LEGO designed them specifically with the S13’s rear lights in mind.
Ken Block’s Gymkhana series is a YouTube phenomenon. A series of expertly choreographed driving stunts seamlessly sewed together, Ken’s online exploits have created a worldwide army of fans. TLCB Elves are included in this, and each new Gymkhana video release is followed by days of Elves riding anything with wheels (and a few things that don’t) around the office, annoying everybody.
Gymkhana 7, published three years ago, has racked up over 43 million views on YouTube alone, and stars an 800+ bhp all-wheel-drive 1965 Ford Mustang and some enticingly deserted Los Angeles streets.
It’s this video that builder Primoz Mlaker has chosen to recreate in Lego form, building both part of the Los Angeles set and Block’s ferocious classic Mustang. But it’s not just a static diorama…
Yup, thanks to some hidden Power Functions motors Primoz’s Mustang can throw down the moves from the film, including the obligatory Gymkhana donuts and also the opening seen from the video involving the Mustang’s unique all-wheel-drive system and a very strong chain…
Dogs on hardwood floors. The masters of indoor drifting. Until now.
This angry-looking creation is a Citroen DS3 World Rally Car, as driven by nine time World Champion Sébastien Loeb, who has now switched to the World Rallycross series.
Underneath the shopping-car-on-steroids bodywork would normally be a trick all-wheel-drive system powered by a monster turbo engine. However builder Anto has taken a different route…
Driving the rear wheels only are two Large Power Functions motors, whilst a servo takes care of the steering. The steering has a clever caster angle built in, meaning that when it’s turned the stiff chassis unloads a rear wheel. In principle this means Anto’s Citroen could drift, if only LEGO motors had a bit more power…
With the addition of a third-party BuWizz bluetooth battery brick however, they do. A lot more. The BuWizz system delivers up to eight times more power than normal to the LEGO motors, and that is easily enough to spin the rear wheels on a not just a hardwood floor, but pretty much anything.
There’s more to see of Anto’s drifting DS3 WRC on Eurobricks, where there are also instructions available so you can build it yourself, and you can watch what the car can do courtesy of the brilliant video below…
Once every so often a car comes along that, for reasons mysterious and illogical, becomes more than just another metal box, a car that captures the imagination, and that becomes more than the sum of its parts. This is one such car, the legendary 1980s Toyota Corolla Levin AE86 / Sprinter Trueno.
If you’re a Japanese drift fan though, you might want to skip this next bit…
The Toyota AE86 was not a special car.
It was in fact a humdrum hatchback designed to take people from point A to point B reliably and at a reasonable cost. Just like every other humdrum hatchback at the time.
But it’s a manual with rear wheel drive we here you cry! It was indeed, but so was pretty much everything else on sale in Europe and Japan back then. So far so ordinary.
But then something strange happened. Moderately successful motorcycle racer / moderately unsuccessful car racer Kunimitsu Takahashi had started to throw cars sideways on track in Japan a few years earlier. Rookie racer Keiichi Tsuchiya liked what he saw, and applied the technique to the illegal street races that he was participating in, becoming a legend in the process.
Keiichi went on to forge a successful professional racing career following his antics on the street, and the car from his illegal racing days, his humble Corolla Levin AE86, became a legend as big as the man that drove it.
Japan’s illegal drift scene exploded, and the arrival of the Initial D manga cartoon in the mid ’90s, featuring a hero driver at the wheel of a Toyota AE86, did nothing to lessen the legend of both the man and the car credited with creating it.
The result is that the little Toyota Corolla Levin AE86 has become one of the most iconic and sought after cars of the ’80s, and as such prices have gone stratospheric. Pretty good for a humble hatchback designed to go to the shops.
If, like us, you don’t quite have the loose change to get your hands on a real AE86, Technic builder RM8 might have just the answer. This is his beautifully engineered AE86 model, and it captures the details of the real ’80s Corolla Levin brilliantly in Technic form. It’s also as fun to drive as drifting a real AE86 up a Japanese mountain pass (probably), with a Power Functions L Motor driving the rear wheels, a Servo Motor powering the steering, and a third-party SBrick bluetooth receiver controlling the signals to both.
There’s lots more to see of RM8’s Toyota Corolla Levin AE86 / Sprinter Trueno at MOCpages and the Eurobricks discussion forum, but much like the real car RM8’s model is something more than the sum of its parts. Take a look at RM8’s enthralling video below to see why…
As you can imagine with a blog as ropey as this one, an Elven workforce held together with Pritt Stick, and our penchant for your Mom, we very much like objects of a slightly aesthetically-challenged nature here at TLCB. This is one such object, an absolutely brilliant Nissan 180SX drift pig by VovaRychkov. What the Nissan lacks in sleek looks we’re sure it more than makes up for in smokey sidewaysyness, and we know which we’d rather have. There’s more to see at Vova’s photostream and you can check out all the images by clicking here.
Entitled simply ‘SBrick Powered Streetcar’, Horcik Designs’ latest creation extols the virtues of one of LEGO’s most sought after pieces, the 5292 ‘Buggy’ Motor. Linked to a third-party SBrick, a LEGO LiPo battery, and a Servo Motor for steering, the aforementioned motor gives Horcik’s car a rapid turn of speed, and makes it capable of drifts on a shiny floor too.
There are 3D printed wheels, custom decals and cut LEGO tyres alongside that non-LEGO control unit, and there’s more to see at Horcik’s photostream here or via the Eurobricks forum here. Get sideways at the links.
It’s a rare event when a Lego creation shares something in common with Wonderbra, so this wire-framed VAZ-2101 by Desert752 Kiril marks a TLCB first. The interesting bodywork design is employed for essentially the same reason as Wonderbra’s patented underwiring; to lift its contents as much as possible.
However, unlike Wonderbra’s garment of lies, Desert752’s VAZ is using its wiring technology to offer you much more than you’d expect… because its lightweight minimalism allows it to drift!
Without the weight of thick plastic bricks to overcome, the VAZ’s Power Functions motors can have a riot on shiny surfaces. You can see the VAZ in glorious sideways-y action at Desert752’s MOCpage, or via the Eurobricks discussion forum here.