(car engine revving)
- Well, we made it through another year somehow,
which means that we have been blessed
with a bunch of new 25 year old cars
that can finally be imported to the USA
as long as you live in Florida.
Hope you remember the lyrics to MMMBop
because today we're going back to 1997 town, baby.
I'm James, I'm very excited.
And this is the D List.
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Now, let's raise a glass and get back to the show.
We need to open another bottle, I think.
- Don't worry, Zach and I have a plan.
(upbeat music)
We're gonna start strong and kick off this list
with a Japanese legend,
the 1997 Honda Civic Type R.
It's a pirate's favorite car,
or if you're like me and like to impress people
by using chassis codes, the EK9.
The EK or the hatchback version
of the six generation civic
was the first one to wear the Type R badge.
And guess what the R stands for.
Racing!
It came with stiffer shocks, a close ratio,
five speed transmission, a limited slip differential,
a seam welded body to make it extra rigid.
It also had the reddest interior that you have ever seen.
You can spill ketchup or cocktail sauce
or whatever all over those Recaros and nobody would know.
Have you been eating shrimp cocktails
in your car again, James?
No.
James, we think you've been eating shrimp cocktails
in your car again.
Prove it.
We can't.
Oh, and another thing that it has
is a hand ported B16B engine
that makes 182 hersh pers,
that's one of the highest horsepower per liter ratios
for a naturally aspirated engine ever.
And the whole thing only weighs 2300 pounds.
Now people have been making Type R clones in the US
since day freaking one.
But now, you can actually bring in the real deal
starting in August 'cause that's when the oldest EK9s
VIN turns 25.
Okay, but listen closely
because this isn't the last Honda
we're gonna see on this list,
but you're gonna have to wait
because this next car is a Mitsubishi.
I'm talking about the Mitsubishi FTO and no,
I don't mean foot ticklers of Ohio.
That's my other channel.
I'll put a link in the description.
The Mitsubishi FTO actually stands for
Fresco Tursmo Omoligato,
which is Japanese Italian for Fresh Turing Origination.
And it's a spicy little two-door,
front wheel drive coupe, just like the EK9
that we just talked about.
Now, it's true that we've been able to import the FTO
for a few years now, but in 1997,
Mitsubishi decided to give it a little facelift,
which has also when I got my first facelift,
but besides the facelift,
1997 was also the year that the GP Version R came out,
not the Type R, the Version R.
Okay?
Stands for racing, yes.
It came with upgraded suspension,
a limited slip differential,
a freaking mad nineties rear wing.
The facelift came out in February of '97.
The same year that Scottish scientists
cloned Dolly, the sheep, who's dead.
But maybe that's not enough Mitsui for your Bishi.
That's fine 'cause I got an even better Mitsubishi.
This is one of my favorite cars ever.
I'm talking about the Pajero Evolution.
Now we've talked about this car truck on this show before
and for good reason, it freaking slaps.
Look at this thing.
It's like, it looks like a Gundam.
This was a homologation variant of the Pajero.
And it dominated the Dakar Rally for decades.
That's because it was built for exactly that purpose,
to dominate the Dakar Rally.
In fact, the Paj Evo, as I like to call it,
'cause we're buds,
has won Dakar more than any other vehicle
and was even driven by the first woman
to ever win the event.
What is up, Jutta Klein Schmidt.
Between 1997 and 1999,
Mitsubishi built 2,500 of these freaking road Gundams.
And starting this year, you can bring one into America.
We're gonna come back to Japan soon,
but for now, let's take a trip south of the equator,
a little place I like to call criminal England
or America's upside down twin, Australia.
I love Australia,
the Ford Falcon of Australia
is nothing like the Ford Falcon in America.
It was produced all the way up until 2016 over there.
And they got a ton of wild versions of this hog.
I'm talking freaking Utes and stuff, with the tray.
But by the late nineties,
the Falcon had kind of strayed a bit from its roots
and lost most of the sport pedigree
that it was originally known for.
But that didn't stop Ford from making the Falcon
XH XR8 Utility.
The funky looking Ute with a Windsor V8
lifted from the Mustang.
This puppy's good for about 250 hers pers,
but that's just the beginning because it's a Ford V8.
There is a ton of aftermarket support for those little toad,
little bull frogs.
Probably supercharge that car for 800 bucks,
might not be the prettiest car on the list,
but it's one of the last really cool V8 Falcons
of the 20th century.
Let's keep this road trip moving.
Next stop, little place I like to call Germanyville.
Next up on the list is the Volkswagen
because I like talking about Volkswagens
and there are a lot of weird versions of Volkswagens.
But the weird version we're talking about today
is the mark for Mark Four Golf VR5.
That's right, not V6, V5.
And to clarify, the engine in my Golf is not a V5,
it's a straight five.
Volkswagen took a perfectly good VR6 engine
and chopped off one of the cylinders.
Why?
Five cylinders engines have a sound
that is unlike any other engine set up.
I have one in my car.
It's very cool.
(wheels squeaking)
- [Jobe] Yeah, baby.
- They even made an all wheel drive version of this car.
So if you want yourself a weird five cylinder Golf R
grand pappy, you can start bringing those over
in October.
All right, guys,
let's say for some reason you want a British car
and you want it to be really, really, really British.
You're the kind of guy who eats like blood sausage
and beans for breakfast.
You're in luck 'cause 1997 was the first year of the LT1
TX1, AKA the London Taxi.
It's roomy, it has classic inspired styling,
looks like you're freaking PT Cruiser
and it's powered by a Nissen Diesel engine.
Oh my Lord.
Put your clothes back on guys.
I know this is so exciting, but jeez Louise.
We're on set, we're at work right now.
Whole camera crew just naked
'cause they're so horny with me describing
this fun car, if it's good enough for the queen,
it's good enough for you, all right?
You know she's been injured by her corgis multiple times.
But what if it's not good enough for you?
What if you want a chofer car
with a little bit more class, a little bit more luxury,
a little bit more cylinders.
Well, that brings us to one of my favorite cars ever,
definitely on this list, the 1997 Toyota Century.
Century, were back in Japan.
The Century has been around for almost a century,
since 1967 as the Rolls Royce of Japan.
But in 1997 for the cars 30th anniversary,
they updated it with new architecture styling
and a big, fat honking V12, baby.
This is the same V12 that Smokey Nagata shoe horned
into his top secret Supra.
We talked about it a few weeks ago.
You know how it works, link in the description.
This car was so exclusive
that Toyota decides who could even buy one,
but now they're on the used car market
and you could cruise one of these yachts down route 66,
which is not as cool as I thought it would be.
Another Japanese vehicle I'd like to mention
is a van because I really wanna benefit
from that van life SEO.
JDM vans have seen a huge rise in popularity
in the last few years.
Some states are downright banning them all together.
Nolan made a video about the subject
and I definitely recommend you watch it
if you're thinking about importing one,
'cause the government might come and take it from you
and crush it.
So if Delicas and Hiatuses are too mainstream
for your likings, we now have another option,
talking about the Nissan Elgrand.
This funky looking, two-tone minivan came with a slew,
an absolute slew of gasoline and diesel engine choices,
two or four wheel drive.
And Nissan's first internet enabled
satellite navigation system.
Not only is it fully insulated,
but it has a ton of room inside.
People in Europe
are already doing full camper convergence on these.
And now it's our turn,
but you probably aren't watching this video
because you wanna go camping.
You're probably watching this video 'cause you're a freak
and you'd like to go fast.
So let's talk about the GTR.
The R33 generation of the Nissen Skyland GTR
has already been available to import to the US
for a few years.
We talked about it in last year's video,
but there's a special edition for the '97 mile a year
called the Nismo 400R
and some obligation special for 24 hours of a mall.
Nismo, Nissan's racing division,
took the standard GTR and improved nearly everything,
they board and stroked the RB 26DETT,
upgraded nearly all the internals
and bumped the red line up to 9,000 RPM.
The thing makes 400 horsepower, hence the name.
And it gets up to 60 miles per hour in four seconds.
Plus it looks nasty
and there's no plan on producing 100 of these,
but only 44 made it out of the factory.
And the best news,
the 1997 model year technically began production
at the end of 96.
So by the time you're watching this video,
you can already in pour one legally, go get one,
you got 300, 400 grand burning a hole in your pocket, do it.
We have one more car to discuss today.
I teased it at the beginning.
If you, maybe you noticed,
remember at the beginning when I told you that,
'cause this isn't the last Honda
we're gonna see on this list.
You remember?
Well, I'm not a liar.
I'm a truth teller.
This next car's a Honda.
Talking about the Honda NSX Type S.
The NSX Type S came with lightweight aluminum,
BBS wheels, a lightweight rear spoiler,
a Momo steering wheel.
So you know it's serious and carbon Kevlar,
Recaro bucket seats.
They had a lightweight battery
and didn't even have power steering.
They even used a special mesh engine cover
to help drop the weight nearly a hundred pounds
versus the regular NSX and to take full advantage
of all of these weights savings,
Honda refuse to sell it to fat people.
They also revise the suspension with stiffer front dampers
and a thicker rear sway bar,
but that's not even the best version of the NSX.
They also made one called the Type S Zero.
That was even more bare bones.
And I'm sure more expensive,
no cruise control, no radio, no power locks,
no traction control, no fog lights,
no airbags, that took off about 110 pounds
compared to the regular Type S.
Now they only made 30 of these bad hogs
starting in 1997.
So if you want one, you better start looking.
Now, it's not easy to import a car to the US,
it costs a lot of money,
and there's a lot of red tape to jump through,
you should get yourself a broker,
but if you're really determined,
and this is something that you need to do,
it's not impossible.
And hopefully you got a few ideas from this video.
We have a couple of friends that import cars.
If you want something JDM, check out Top Tank Importers.
If you want something European, checkout Jamie
at orchideuro.com, both very reputable dudes,
'cause you don't want to Uncle Sam crushing your car.
Thank you guys so much for watching this video
and thank you for watching all of the other videos.
It's been a weird couple years.
Let's keep going, I love you.