Initial D vs Fast and the Furious

The characters are better, seriously.

F&F is just made to cater to the US crowd of show-cars. I.D is made for the racing enthusiast.

 

Tokyo Drift was light years ahead of the films before it. Considering that the other two films were black holes in the space of moviedom...it didn't go very far.

Initial D had Impact Blue's Sileighty, Kensuke's FD RX-7 (with the awesome widebody in Stage 4), and fun races that took up episodes of time.

F&F was just catered to the import crowd.

 

I rate Tokyo Drift at about the same as I would an very good B-movie. It's also quite disconcerting in that a lot of the race scenes were actually in America as opposed to the outskirts and areas of Tokyo, IIRC.

Oh, there's a casting call in LA for cars to appear in F&F4. LOL.

 

INITIAL D!

way better music...

F&F:Mexico rush

 

Interestingly, "Formula D" is fairly even on the Domestic vs. Import Car front. Formula D is the drift-circuit championship in America. I do believe a domestic car beat everyone last year.

 

Keep it on the track, son.

IMHO, the US is quite TAME with the exterior modifications, most of which do NOTHING that is benefitting to the car. Europe and Japan get much wilder. In Europe check out the Citroen C2's they come out with, and the family vans and big rigs that they customize in Japan.

We just have worse taste in general than they do. They can at least get things to match, we're very fashion colorblind.

 

Not really, most cars are electronically limited to go a certain speed. This is because, though the ENGINE may be able to get you to a very high speed, the components of the car like the Suspension, TIRES (!!!!!), and radiator cooling your engine may not be up to the task. It's not only the engine making you go that fast, it's the rest of the car helping.

The aerodynamics - which is why you don't see trucks going a bajillion miles an hour, even if some of them are blindingly quick
the engine - you need at least 300hp to get to 150 easily, IIRC
the suspension - the damping levels [the bound/rebound of the shocks, to be specific] need to be able to go over road crowning, debris, and pot holes without getting the tires to leave the ground, or cause some other loss of control.
the tires - if the tires are only rated for "T" (top speed of 118), then good look trying to get them to stop at 150+. The rubber compounds they use in the tires are fairly different from each other. Some tires focus on durability and some concentrate on grip. If your tires aren't made to cope with the high speed, then either they will blow (!) or you won't be able to stop. Either way, not a good idea.
the brakes - if you can't stop fast enough, what's the use of going that fast? If you're going that fast, you don't want the brakes to get cooked before your car can stop...for obvious reasons. And let me tell you, the worst feeling ever is when the brakes are cooked. They're mushy and things that need to happen just *don't*.

Most German cars are actually speed limited to 155 because of this, again, unless they were built to do massive speed in the first place. Like the Mercedes/McLaren SLR. The car's made to be able to go +200mph, so the limiter isn't there.

While Initial D and F&F make street racing look "cool", keep it somewhere safe. In Initial D, they close off the area, which is why they have all those radios to talk to each other. And, seriously, the level of idiocy a "street racer" shows is sometimes off the scale.

Then again, I do drive a Honda Civic. With a large exhaust. And gold wheels. I guess I can be grouped in with that crowd.

 

Presenting the R35 Skyline GT-R

FYI, this is *supposedly* going to be one of the most untunable cars made thus far. And that's something, considering how large the tuning market actually is in Japan.

Well, I'll see what Mine's (a tuning company) does with it. And, it *does* go faster than a Porsche GT3 on the Nurburgring Nordschleife. For less money, MSRP. Then again, the first R35 in the US sold for about 125,000, which is a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE markup on the car. Something like 40k markup.

Not a real fan of Skylines though. Rather get:

ASL Garaiya. Teh hotness. Super small, super light, and not all that powerful. It's like a go-kart for the street. Not in production though. So I guess I'll keep dreaming of a Lotus Elise or Exige S.

ONE MORE FACT:
Interestingly, the Bugatti Veyron's 253mph limit is apparently due to lack of space as well as Aerodynamics. It takes much more power to be able to bend the sound barrier enough to go faster than that.

 

I have too many dream cars to count. There's the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, BMW M3, BMW 135i, Weismann GT, Morgan Aero Max Coupe, Lotus Elise 111R, Lotus Exige w/ Honda K20A3 engine, Honda NSX Type-R...

The one car I would LOVE to drive everyday though is:

Ferrari 599 Fiorano GTB

OR (especially because of the "cool" factor):

Aston Martin V8 Vantage (But, the roadster version)