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RC said:
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Crash said:
Useless in Europe for all intents and purposes. This thing would blow up after just a few minutes on the Autobahn. 2,6 litres and 850+ bhp don't mix. Not to mention that black hole of a turbo lag...



Well said...no wonder most japanese rice burners with more than 400 HP don't get a technical approval over here in Germany, meaning: a Skyline with 700 HP wouldn't be streetlegal here and one reason is because it would probably blow up if it is driven at top speed for a couple of minutes or even less. Not to speak about environmental issues, safety issues, etc.

Such a car is nice for car forums, for impressing "homies" and kids but for serious sportscar drivers, they're just funny toys for funny people, as arrogant this may sound.



I think the reason why most Japanese "rice burners" with more than 400hp don't get technical approval in Germany is because practically all 400+hp Japanese sports cars are built by tuners.

But things will be changing pretty soon (can't wait for the R35 Skyline GT-R with a rumored 400+hp under the hood). It's a fact that Japanese manufacturers have the capability to build sports cars that will match or exceed the best that Europe has to offer. It's just unfortunate that for so long, tradition (if you can call it that) and government regulations dictated that their cars stick to a 280hp limit. Serious sportscar drivers are already raving about the Honda/Acura NSX despite it having a lot less hp than most of its peers. Imagine how good a factory-produced 400+hp NSX would have been.

The Japanese manufacturers certainly have the technical and engineering know-how. A Lancer Evo is as quick as a 911 C4 around a track, at less than half the price. The R33 Skyline GT-R lapped the 'Ring in 7:59 despite having only approx. 300hp, 7:59.41 for an '04 Subaru Impreza STi spec C. If Nissan built 2,000 Skyline GT-R Z-Tunes instead of 20 and brought it to the European market, and Toyota's top brass suddenly realized that having a slice of the supercar market is a tempting proposition, there won't be any talk of Jap sports cars not being serious enough.

It's just a shame that to a lot of people, most Jap performance cars are similar to the cars on bad movies like The Fast and the Furious.


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Crash said:
It isn't arrogant, it's exactly right. Lots of modified Japanese were removed from the streets here after the TüV certification system was adopted and rightly so.



Keyword being "modified". If the Jap manufacturers decided to really get in the supercar market, we'd be seeing cars that will make great rivals to the best that Germany and Italy have to offer. Which will be a good thing for car enthusiasts wherever they may be.