Post by tony on Dec 23, 2005 19:29:17 GMT
Ok it's not a Crown, but we haven't got a Soarer section yet!
The last Crown 2-door model was an early 80's MS112 2.8 based model. I like it, although its a million miles apart in styling compared to the last UK market Crown coupe of the early seventies.
The model was effectively replaced by a new nameplate in the toyota line up around 1981 - you guessed it, the first generation 'Z10' Soarer, sharing engine configurations almost identically with the Celica Supra MA61 type series introduced at the same time.
The Z10 was superceded by the Z20 around 1986, although they look virtually the same. This ran through to the wonderful but over familiar Z30 shape soarers we see plenty of on the roads today. So I was always intrigued by these mythical JDM only early 'square' Soarers, and always kept me eye out, although the radar revealed only 2 or 3 floating around in a 5-10 year period.
Well in the space of a year, I have now tracked down two!
First an 88 2.0 litre 1G series engined straight six Twin Turbo GZ20 model, then an 88 3.0 litre 7MGE single turbo MZ31 model. This 3.0 was registered in the UK from new, but I haven't found out yet if it was a Toyota UK/GB gaffer's car? It has a kitchen sink of spec, with a recently 're-connolised'? tan leather interior, a tv screen, and a seperate LCD type proto touch screen for the heater and stereo controls, a remote control for same, electronic indicators as opposed to a manually moving indicator stalk (this takes some getting used to), DC-TV antennae??, air suspension etc etc.
A pic of one of my Z20 soarers is at the bottom of www.toyotaenthusiasts.com/contacts_page.htm
I'll post some decent pics soon.
There are some articles and pics at
autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/A_1718/article.html
and
autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/A_1578/article.html
The first thing that strikes you about it is the humungous double door hinges. The rear window area is an unusual styling. They are really quirky unusual cars, and I'm dead chuffed to track them down at long last.
(Oddly, I have also just acquired a mint 1989 Nissan Leopard 3.0 turbo (see www.reallyloud.co.uk/tec/tec_33.htm)
which is the unusual nissan 2-door formal coupe equivalent to a Soarer, aka Infinit M30 in the US. This WAS the ex-Nissan UK gaffers car, Octav Botnar, and is a real find. So I now have a 'very unusual pair'.)
A newly-imported manual GZ20 TT was recently for sale on ebay. It looked pretty nice, although the quoted power specs of approx 250bhp were at odds with mine, and the information on the above articles. Has this car found a new owner yet?
Any more Z10 or Z20 models out there? We can start a very exclusive club!
The last Crown 2-door model was an early 80's MS112 2.8 based model. I like it, although its a million miles apart in styling compared to the last UK market Crown coupe of the early seventies.
The model was effectively replaced by a new nameplate in the toyota line up around 1981 - you guessed it, the first generation 'Z10' Soarer, sharing engine configurations almost identically with the Celica Supra MA61 type series introduced at the same time.
The Z10 was superceded by the Z20 around 1986, although they look virtually the same. This ran through to the wonderful but over familiar Z30 shape soarers we see plenty of on the roads today. So I was always intrigued by these mythical JDM only early 'square' Soarers, and always kept me eye out, although the radar revealed only 2 or 3 floating around in a 5-10 year period.
Well in the space of a year, I have now tracked down two!
First an 88 2.0 litre 1G series engined straight six Twin Turbo GZ20 model, then an 88 3.0 litre 7MGE single turbo MZ31 model. This 3.0 was registered in the UK from new, but I haven't found out yet if it was a Toyota UK/GB gaffer's car? It has a kitchen sink of spec, with a recently 're-connolised'? tan leather interior, a tv screen, and a seperate LCD type proto touch screen for the heater and stereo controls, a remote control for same, electronic indicators as opposed to a manually moving indicator stalk (this takes some getting used to), DC-TV antennae??, air suspension etc etc.
A pic of one of my Z20 soarers is at the bottom of www.toyotaenthusiasts.com/contacts_page.htm
I'll post some decent pics soon.
There are some articles and pics at
autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/A_1718/article.html
and
autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/A_1578/article.html
The first thing that strikes you about it is the humungous double door hinges. The rear window area is an unusual styling. They are really quirky unusual cars, and I'm dead chuffed to track them down at long last.
(Oddly, I have also just acquired a mint 1989 Nissan Leopard 3.0 turbo (see www.reallyloud.co.uk/tec/tec_33.htm)
which is the unusual nissan 2-door formal coupe equivalent to a Soarer, aka Infinit M30 in the US. This WAS the ex-Nissan UK gaffers car, Octav Botnar, and is a real find. So I now have a 'very unusual pair'.)
A newly-imported manual GZ20 TT was recently for sale on ebay. It looked pretty nice, although the quoted power specs of approx 250bhp were at odds with mine, and the information on the above articles. Has this car found a new owner yet?
Any more Z10 or Z20 models out there? We can start a very exclusive club!
...