streets closed pizza boy! uh why dude? thousand horsepower! i don't know why
why not i don't know why why not!! we love japanese tuner cars around here and today
we're gonna look at some of the gnarliest most bonkers jdm cars built by tuning shops
in the 80s and 90s the golden era before everything went south. i'm
james this is the monolist and this is the show where we put car crap on trial
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first ticket at off the record dot com slash donut today we are talking about japanese cars built by
japanese tuning shops our in-house jdm expert jimmy put this list together so if we skipped
your favorite car you can slide into his dms so without further ado let's get into it dude one of
the earliest most legendary tuning shops in japan was a company called hks i'm sure you've heard of
it in 1983 they built this the celica m300 now a lot of the tuning companies at this time were
obsessed with the little thing that i like to call top speed shops would build cars and take them
to the utabe test track a massive oval circuit where insane speeds were possible and for years
companies tried to break 300 kilometers per hour in a japanese car the celica m300
was the first car to do that it was a first gen celica supra with built internals twin turbos
and a big old fat old intercooler all in all this selly welly made 600 horsepower
and easily smashed the 300 kilometer barrier and that is how our list begins but spoiler alert
this won't be the last time you're gonna see the letters h k and s on this list besides top speed
a lot of japanese tuning houses were getting into drag racing in the early 80s enter kakamoto racing
an exhaust shop that liked to build fast cars if you build fast cars you sell a lot of exhausts
that's just business 101 thanks for taking my class in 1984 they built this sick s30z with a big
fat meaty tires a streamlined body and a bore down engine making 350 hertz pairs now that's not bad
but i'm including it on the list because kakamoto kept refining the car over the years and today it
still exists with a twin turbo setup making 750 hertz pairs the next car on this list might look
familiar because it's one of the most legendary cars from the midnight club like the actual
midnight club that midnight club the abr hasoki s130z aka the inspiration for the devil z
in weighing in midnight it started life as a regular old nissan 280z but abr slapped a couple
of turbos on it and gave it an absolutely wicked body kit they took it to the utabe test circuit
where it clocked a top speed of 341 kilometers per hour how many hers pairs did it have 650 and of
course we can't talk about 1980s japanese tuners without mentioning msmo that's nissan's in-house
tuning shop and they've made some pretty cool cars over the years but one of our favorites was the
r32 gtr group a version this was a literal group a race car that you could buy directly from nismo
and take racing you know the cal sonic gtr from gran turismo or the tyson gtr or even the axia r32
a car these were all built on the group a chassis sold by nismo so you're saying james how much does
it cost to buy one of these sickle little bad boys 500 000 okay cool um james how much horse
purse did it make 550 hearse purge you're gonna see more gtrs on this list but we had to mention
this one because it's one of the reasons the letters gtr means so much to us but guess what
it's the 90s now things are about to start getting a little bit more insane also we're
going to talk about another supra the second super on this list was built by none other than the same
people who built the first one hks they wanted to build the baddest pro stock drag car in japan
sick so cool so they created the hks drag 70 super it's a mark 3 supra that makes it totally
sensible 826 horsepower why because it needs 826 horsepower to do the quarter mile in under
eight seconds that's why and it's not even the last hks car that we're gonna see on this list
it's not even the last three-letter tuning company on this list you ever heard of a
little company called june in 1991 june auto participated in a land speed competition in
the bonneville salt flats in utah they had one goal make the fastest nissan z32 in the world
did they do it yeah they did this 300 zx with no headlights went
262 miles per hour making the first japanese car to break 400 kilometers per hour and it
did it with a 1200 horsepower v6 in 1991 another three-letter company that we can't not talk about
is toms they're an officially recognized toyota tuning company their steering wheels are expensive
and they've made a lot of winning race cars over the years but in 1994 they took a brand spanking
new mark iv supra bust out your bingo cards cause this is the first 2jz on the list baby and created
this for the tokyo auto salon of that year they called it the t20 lms supra
this was a race inspired street car and it honestly might be one of the best looking cars on
this list i mean it looks like a freaking ferrari f50 dude all in all this tommy boy shut up richard
makes a respectable but not earth-shattering 650 horsepower not bad for a street car but
you might be wondering if that 1200 horsepower z32 is gonna stay at the top of this list forever well
let's find out in the mid 90s hks still had their sights on drag racing but what car would
they choose as their flagship dragster a 180sx they shoved an rb26 under the hood of an s13
and of course it was adorned with the iconic oil slick livery so how much power did it make
will this be the new king of the monolith well it made 1168 horsepower so close to the top but
here's the thing power isn't everything when it comes to japanese cars of this era in america
tuning companies became obsessed with building the highest horsepower cars imaginable but in japan
shops were also focused on a little thing called aerodynamics and her sister handling and their
stepbrother aesthetics so as we make our way through the rest of the 1990s keep in mind that
absolute horsepower wasn't the main focus for most of these shops plus the monolith told me that i
had to include a lot of these cars or else they would sneak into my room again so the model is
somehow is my conservator it controls my money i'm not allowed to see my friends unless i ask it and
it always says no hashtag free pumphrey ariamia az1 an autozam az1 with a 20b rotary engine that
puts out 400 horsepower in a baby car here's a shot of me sitting in this thing we have that
right yes here's me sitting in that car imagine it with 400 horsepower craft racing gt300 ae86
no they're not just a macaroni and cheese company they also make sick toyotas 325 horsepower veil
side supra legendary legendary aftermarket company they built this ridiculous chandelier-esque supra
for the 1997 tokyo auto salon and it made 830 horsepower but if show cars aren't your thing
they also built this an r32 gtr called the r1 it was built for pure speed has tiny 15 inch te37s
on all four corners so it can fit big old media old drag slicks and it makes a very respectable
1000 horsepower speaking of gtrs you also have the hks0r 600 horsepower apexi a450 it looks weird and
it was designed to compete with the hks 0r 450 horsepower hks 0r sounds like a soda trial gtr
r33 speedwagon 850 horsepower why not blitz love blitz make very cool wheels shouts to adam lz
congrats on the ride brother 890 horsepower i don't know why why not i don't know why why not
june super lemon r33 gtr street's closed pizza boy uh why dude thousand horsepower that's why
they were mushrooms and pepperonis and a thousand freaking horsepower any yellow car what's that
gto br looks like beer in america we know this car as the 3000 gt or the dodge stealth jackie chan
frickin loves these cars br took one of these puppies and managed to squeeze
750 percy burgers out of it what's that
you want a supra ab flug s900 supra it makes 900 horsepower and it looks
dang weird doing it all right and now a car that i've been dying to talk about
itching to discuss for this entire episode i'm of course talking about the top secret
v12 supra now top secret is one of the coolest companies to ever exist in any category ever in
the entire world they somehow managed to fit the v12 from a toyota century plus two turbos under
the hood of a mark iv supra it also looks insane it's gold okay ecu tuning still was in its infancy
when they built it so it ran off of two ecu's and four electric water pumps to cool it down now
you're probably wondering how much power did it make well sirs and madames it made 930 horsepower
pretty good but it still can't beat that z32 but now we're entering the 21st century and friends
i'm sad to say that the golden age of japanese tuners is approaching its end in the 2000s
japanese car culture began to shift away from top speed and quarter mile times and instead
moved towards drifting and time attack which were growing in popularity it also didn't help that
many of the 90s flagship japanese sports cars weren't being sold anymore they stopped making
the supra they stopped making the 300zx they even stopped making the skyline so naturally
this meant that there were fewer over-the-top high horsepower shot builds i mean sure you had the hks
altezza that made nearly 600 horsepower around the circuit jimmy uh has the wheels off of this car
you also have the top secret 350z which spit out 690 hertz proofs i regret putting that first one
right here this is you guys can't really see i would even mention the escort evo an outrageous
looking evo 9 that pushed a thousand buff hersey percies but still none of these cars were able to
touch the 300 zx bonneville speed car from 1991 and it makes you think that the glory days of
jdm tuning shops are over but what if i told you that the heyday ain't over there's a pretty big
company that i haven't mentioned yet gretty in 2012 for the tokyo auto salon which is the event
responsible for nearly every cool car on this list grete featured an r35 gtr with an experimental
twin turbo setup and a wide body kit and a clamshell front end and it produced 1 250
hearse purrs finally we are back on the board baby there is hope for the 21st century in the last 10
years since this car came out a lot of exciting stuff has been happening in the japanese car world
and with the a90 supra the gr86 the return of the z this year there's a lot of potential for
japanese tuners to come back in a huge way and guess what i know some of them i got my ear to
the grindstone baby it's happening some people say that the glory days of japanese tuning houses are
over but i think that we're just getting started so in conclusion japanese tuning shops need to not
chill out they need to continue to not chill they need to heat up and they need to keep building
awesome awesome cars big announcement the donut underground has a shirt now
you're sure now if you don't already know the donut underground is our membership club for
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video or on our channel page or for ios users check out the link in the description we got a
shirt thank you guys so much uh for watching this video there are a million tuning shops
and i know we skipped a bunch of them if you want to learn about another legendary japanese company
check out this uh episode of my other show up to speed on rocket bunny check out this
episode on rwb follow donut donut media and me at jamespumphrey across all social media i love you