Today we would like to tell you about one of our customers and introduce you his favorite car. He lives in Yamanashi Prefecture and is a frequent visitor at our local store. The grade of his car is the limited edition TRD Sports. The body exterior was hardly modified, but the interior is just amazing. Of particular note is the mission, which was replaced from AT to MT and the differential was replaced as well. We have listened to his story with a huge interest and were impressed by his passion for car customizing taste.

A car enthusiast by nature!

He got his driver’s license right after graduating from school and used to drive around his R30 with his friends. But then he got married and raised his children, and the Elgrand became his “favorite” car. After raising his children, he finally had the time to look for sports cars again and found this one at a car shop in neighbor Prefecture through the introduction of his high school mate and motorcycle buddy (now the D1GP driver).

Driving his R30 and still owning Nissan Elgrand for a long time, he wanted to buy S14 or S15 Silvia, but while was not able to find one in good condition, ended up buying his first Toyota. He changed a lot of mechanical parts but not the exterior, saying that he wanted to keep the original shape of the car as much as possible and thus did modify the exterior. This was a 1998 model in good condition and even a TRD sport, that`s why he decided to buy it immediately.

He has been customizing it since he bought it. First of all, he switched to a manual transmission as was mentioned above, because his philosophy says that RWD manual transmission is the only way to drive a car. Then he changed the wheels, radiator, air cleaner, electric fan, differential, front and rear sway bars, brakes, and the list goes on. Basically, he did all the parts replacement and installation by himself, and the only thing outsourced was the transmission replacement and differential installation. All of the parts were purchased from the local Up Garage except for the transmission and differential. The staff of the Yamanashi Chuo Store also likes driving, so they talk to each other and sometimes go to drifting events together.

The original cost of the car was about 1,000,000 JPY (approx. 9,000 USD), but the parts and labor cost him about 2.5 times more than that.  He is going to gymkhana and visiting drift events but does not drive on mountain passes like he used to before because the car is an important thing to him  :-))

Specifications:

Toyota Chaser Tourer V TRD Sport
Production: 1998
Engine: 2.5 L cc 1JZ-GTE Single-turbo
Max output: 280 PS
Max torque: 38.5 kg-m
Transmission: 5-speed manual
Dimensions: 4,715 x 1,755 x 1,400 mm

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