Forza Motorsport 7: The Cool Japan effect

Did you see the latest episode of Top Gear where Matt and Chris drove second-hand JDM sportscars they've obtained from the auction for their road trip to Enbu? That was a blast and that episode made us fall in love with Japanese cars again. Talking about here, I got a little playing to do as I tried the JDM cars that are almost similar to the ones the boys drove in the show.





Both the FD3S and the R34 are one of the all-time greats when they emerged in the 90's, which became the golden age of fun, fast, and affordable sports cars speedo boys love to drive. Even in today's times, these 90's Japanese sportscars like these remain a high-value target for speedo boys to smuggle into their homes without alarming their local Customs. Some are crashed, some got modified, and a few sold twice the price when it was in mint condition. Anyway, no time to explain what's going on with 90's JDM sportscars because time for some words about these machines.



I'm in love with the FD3S Mazda RX-7 ever since it got featured in Initial D as Keisuke Takahashi's car of choice but there's a lot more to it than that because it was the first and last to come with a sequential turbo rotary engine that churns out 255PS of power and the power to weight ratio is 5kg/ps. Yes, some people slammed the rotary engine as one of the most rubbish engines in the world due to poor fuel consumption but that doesn't stop purists from having one because it was far out one of the best sounding engines of all time and with all that purring noises, you just can't stop listening to it. You really can't.



The tenth-generation Skyline, dubbed the R34, is by no means one of the best Skylines in its six-decade history like I said but the best of this generation is the GT-R. Yes, that guy from Friends ended up with the lesser GT-T variant but no matter, at least this generation gave it a good show until it lost to the RX-7 at the race to the airfield. Of course, the R34 Skyline GT-R still has the bits and bobs from the previous R33 Skyline GT-R, a car Triads would love to mess around London Chinatown with it.  There's the 280HP RB26DETT petrol engine, 6-speed manual gearbox, sport-tuned dynamics, and ATTESA-ETS Pro, among many others. Although macho by looks, it still works its GT-R magic like it should and it's like the cherry at the top of the cake for this generation. It really is.

So, with a little chit chat over, how about a little shootout between these JDM icons round the track, shall we?



The FD RX-7 did it in 1:30.580 while the R34 GT-R did it in 1:28.822. Plain and simple.





It's kinda sad that Japan is stuck in an era that kei cars and hybrids flooded the streets but despite the outcome, cars like these should never be forgotten because these are the cars Japan is mostly proud of and despite being flooded with boring and beige eco cars, the sportscar genre is slowly crawling back like the creepy lady from The Ring and I believe they're onto something here.