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Ruf!
Not uncommon in Tokyo, where I used to see one guy driving his XJ220 to work a few times a week in Otemachi.
The Pagani and Lamborghini leave me cold, but seeing Stratos, 250 GTO, or an F40 burning around the Shuto-ko at night is pretty neat.
With a friend in town, and a Spoon Civic test bed available, it was time for a night away, and some touge runs...
Leaving after work, I stopped for a snack as the sun was going down and a photo op with a rare Mazda.
I wished too the Cayman had a rear wiper.
I parked the Cayman in the bus parking overnight, and enjoyed a sulfurous onsen and a tatami room to end the day's driving.
Dramatic difference in styling between the boy-racer fake vents and smooth purposeful lines.
Honda's engine technology is right up there with the best, but their styling department needs a serious injection of creativity.
With heavy rain overnight, the mountains around Chuzenji-ko were covered in mists, and as the sun came up, the touge were empty of both locals and tourist buses.
Next, touge runs and a Cayman for a camera car...
Before tackling the Irohazaka, we went searching for real coffee, but at 08:00 in the Japanese mountains this was a futile idea.
Instead, we settled for a cold can of condensed milk sweetened coffee-like substance, and watched the early morning fisher-folk prepare...
After a few hot days in Tokyo, it was great to be in the mountain mists, smelling the wet forest mixing with the hi octane fuel.
What a backdrop for these roads. It looks like some of those roads don’t get driven much judging by the greenery on the asphalt.
It was hard to stop to take the pics, we just wanted to drive...
Heavy rain overnight had made a bit of a mess perhaps, otherwise the roads get a reasonable amount of traffic, including tourist buses.
We were up early to avoid just that!
The drive home, via some haikyo at the semi-abandoned mining town of Ashio.
Ashio was the location of some infamous historical events - worker riots, prisoner of war abuse, pollution scandal - and it is startling to see the extent of the still visible history in the area, including camouflage painted buildings left over from World War Two...
The roads though are spectacular, and driving them is a real treat...
The rain was already well underway as we stopped for milk on Saturday, then it rained all day Sunday too.
We did not let that stop us enjoying a drive though - there is something very pleasing about the smell of the glistening rice fields and the eerie quiet with mist about.
We stopped and watched a rice field spraying with a RC helo.
After three hours in the softly falling rain, a quiet mountain lunch (grilled fish with salt), and a coffee stop on the way home, the Cayman was covered in road dirt, leaf debris, and mud.
For the first time in a week or so, there was no rain.
So, after a hot day it was great to be out on the Wangan and feel the cool breeze.
The new BMW Supra is interesting.
If you ignore the multiple fake vents everywhere, it's not a bad looking car.
Not that large (good!), and supposedly a good drivers' car too - we need more of those.
After a Belgium Chocolate ice cream, it was off for a few laps of the Shuto...
Just in time, as this week they are closing entrances, exits, and parts of the network to deliberately inconvenience everyone as test for the 2020 Olympic Games - now, one year away.
What's been people's reactions to the new Supra over there? Do they see it only as a rebadged BMW, or are they showing it similar love as if it were 100% Japanese?
I'd imagine people are disappointed at the lack of a manual too, right?
06-25-2019, 03:40 AM
