Loads of great info from commenters and people reaching out directly, thank you to everyone for sharing! Its great fun learning even more about this obscure story. Would you be interested in a follow up discussing all this fresh info?
The ZZ started life in 1991 (Elise in 1994, shortly before TK opened their Norwich branch) and each one was registered in the UK as a kit car, then imported as a road worthy car in Japan. This way they could avoid crash rewuirements, so in 1999 they had to stop sales because US doesn't allow British kit cars.
They announced 2 years ago that they are prepared to bring back the ZZ-II, they have the facilities and moulds ready for it, but now, as ever, they need the funding to greenlight it. They directly responded to me when I asked, and they have the ZZ-II or permanent display in Tokyo.
Who? As I mention in the video I know ASL announced they wanted to move forward with the RS01 (the ZZII's name under ASL). I presume that's what you're referring to because I'm sure any other attempt would see a lawsuit from ASL, right?
Designed in one country, built in another, and shipped back to the first country.. sounds a bit like the Chrysler TC By Maserati saga😅 There was also a 1999 Tommmykaira ZZ2 prototype which was featured in Gran Turismo 2, however that design never progressed beyond drawings. Amazing video as usual👌
Worth noting that while the innards of the ASL Garaiya were most likely based on the ZZ, the exterior was almost certainly inspired by the ZZ-III concept, which only ever existed as sketches (said sketches, alongside the ZZ-II's, were handed over to Polyphony Digital to include the car in GT2)
@piuthemagicman nobody said it was "official" i think we all understand Tak was a third party. Thats still a brand that adds significant value to a car.
Managed to sit in a prototype of a Garaiya at the Tokyo Auto Salon in 2008; it was being used a a demo car by a car audio company called Carrozzeira (or it might have been for Pioneer's product line-up at the time under the same name). I could have sworn that 25 were produced all up though.
I was in Tommy Kaira a couple weeks back in Kyoto . They have a showroom with a couple of ZZ’s. Tomita seems to have the name again, might be worth reaching out to him. With regards to the Breckland chapter… there’s a ZZR in existence, it was for sale recently with an acquaintance, I believe it was purchased for export to Hong Kong. It was quite special, I tried to purchase it but unfortunately it had already sold by the time I knew of its existence.
A British magazine called Performance Car reviewed the ZZ and compared it to the Renault Spider and Elise. The article did mention manufacturing in Norfolk, it could be worth a look as they may have added more detail
The Garaiya road car DID actually have a very low production run, iirc around 10-15 cars max. I still have the old promotional video on my channel that was shown at the launch, was powered by Nissan's SR20 & built at Breckland Technology. The ZZ2 was still on the cards at the time (sometime around 2001/2002) as there is also a teaser for that car in the Garaiya promos. Also yes there were a lot of former Lotus staff employed at Breckland, Breckland also helped manufacture the Mosler MT900
Could it be because "British built" held a certain pedigree in Japan at the time? IDK, just a hunch that rich Japanese potential buyers would ascribe meaning to that sort of thing.
To the Japanese, the British auto industry held a special place in their hearts because automakers like Austin helped restart the Japanese auto industry. Not only that, they feel that British built cars held a certain refined charm.
Maybe? But it was badged with the name of a well known (within the car world) Japanese brand. Would "British built" really have helped sales of a car from a company famous for its JDM mods? And even if it would, could this justify the expense? I suppose its possible but I can't help but feel there's probably a piece of the puzzle missing here
That would be an awful lot of business risk, planning and expense just to have a tagline about British built. Itd make more sense if it were a luxury machine, but paying import/export taxes to do so would be... Unadvisable at the very least. Not saying you're incorrect, im just saying that if the company set up in britain just for marketing reasons, it was a bad decision
@@automobilistici remembered this one on Gran Turismo 5. On GT5, the 2000 ZZ-II sounded like Minolta 88C-V but on GT4, ZZ-II sounds like R34GTR GT500 cars.😅
I have a Tommy kaira M20b. One of just 105 ever made. It is, without doubt, the best condition example on the planet. :) And it is, without doubt, one of the finest cars ever made. :D
I still want to know if the ZZ II really used a R34 GTR drivetrain, RB26 and AWD gearbox, but "front to back", with inverted diffs I guess. Have seen photos that give this impression
If I ever win the lotto or make big money, I'd build a replica of the ZZ-2, such a good looking car with 4wd and a skyline RB26 engine stroked out to 2.7litres making 540hp, absolute perfection.
If you’re a fan of the Rb motors check out what the Aussies do Rb3.2 out of the Rb 30 with 26 head Or you can get all aftermarket block head crank etc build a 2000hp Rb
Since nissan had a factory in the uk , and the primera was wholly built in the UK, this would mean the 2,0 NA engine and running gear would be readily available here. Just a suggestion?
Wonderful video on these quirky cars, like many I was introduced to Tommy-Kaira via Gran Turismo and ever since it's been quite fascinating to dive deep on their history. A small correction though; the ASL Garaiya *was* built, but it was never sold. It would've been, like the ZZ before it, built in the UK and then glued together in Japan which made the little thing cost well over 6.5 Million Yen (in comparison, a Skyline GT-R V-Spec II at the time, would set you back 6.1 Million Yen), once Autobacs crunched the numbers, they quickly realized it was suicidal to attempt producing the car as it would never turn a profit, and shortly after the plans were cancelled. Still a small handful, of which nobody knows for sure how many, of pre-production Garaiyras were built, with the general belief that they were given to higher ups at Autobacs. Extremely rarely, you can read or see someone posting and talking about one of these cars appearing in the wild in Japan. As for how much the GT300 race car shared with the pre-production road cars, they shared *practically nothing* in construction, but the SR20VE engine was initially used in the GT300 car, although with a Turbocharger fitted to it. That engine, however was very uncompetitive, and soon the GT300 race car would see it being dropped in favor of the VQ35DE, which helped to greatly improve the Garaiya's pace in Super GT.
the loophole they where using to be in gt300 being closed was probably due to Honda making the 2017 nsx and stopping the use of the HSV-010 GT so the organizers no longer needed the "production-ready" carveout in the rules to keep Honda competing.
@@takumifujiwara13954 This, alongside the fact that regulation is *specifically* for GT500. GT300 has much more laid back rules and we've seen plenty of prototypes or purpose-built race cars with no road equivalent in the class before.
I loved the Tommy Kaira tuned cars on Gran Turismo, the skyline was pretty good. The ZZ and ZZII were underwhelming from what I remember. At least for how the ZZII looked, reminded me of a McLaren F1 a little. I didn’t love the Garaiya either, it didn’t seem competitive on the game compared to its competition.
I’m sure it could, this was 1997 or 1999 and I was 7 or 9 at the time on PS1 on either GT1 or 2, steering wheels from that era don’t really count😂. And I knew nothing of car tuning at those ages. The Toms or Denso Supra were great for a child haha.
Ferrari’s are cool and all, but if someone showed up to the car show driving a Tommy Kaira, I know which one I’m going to spend all my time looking at!
To me original ZZ is a part of my childhood since i played in GT2 for hours in a row. 20 years ago i still love this little beauty and I'm a little sad that I'll never be able to buy one of them.
An amazing video on a car brand 99% of us here only knew via Grand Turismo. Such a shame we never saw more of the ZZ-2 concept but so interesting to hear the story of the brand. By the way, where have you purchase those model cars in the background? Toyota GT-One and Nissan Calsonic Skyline?
I think the UK had a lot of subsidies to manufacture cars and other tax bennies. The Honda ek and some others were built there in the late 90s 2000s to take advantage. I forget which, but I came across another car more recently that was a Japanese co mfgd in England too.
@@NISSANSKYLINEGTRBNR strictly speaking that's the brand, what went dissolved through the years were the companies behind it. Tomita Auto Co, Tomita Dream Factory, Tomita Dream Sales, etc
so that supercar I just unlocked in gran turismo 3, the mark II version was basically a mid engined super version of an R34 skyline, jesus man what the hell, that sounds awesome as hell, and evidently the cars didnt fail if the mark I's are still around and being made in sporatic construction from time to time and to think the race car competed that long and did that well over a 10 year stretch, that's some pretty good engineering damn now I really wonder how good that concept car could have been, shame they couldnt have made a few of them just to get them out there
This left me a bit confused, there's a ZZII in Gran Turismo 2 that looks vastly different than the ZZII in the video, where did that model in GT2 come from?
If the ZZ-II really did make it into production with an RB26 in it, it could have been CRAZY fast, especially given the RB26's tuning potential and the car's aerodynamics and light weight...it could even have been made an early Lamborghini Sesto Elemento but with more horsepower potential, especially as the RB26 can have been tuned to well over 1000 hp with the right tuning parts...
Hey man love the videos! You should do a video on Moon Craft. The prototype race car manufacturer out of Japan that made the neon genesis livery famous
I actually recorded my fastest lap time on the Nurburgring in that ZZ 2 I ran a 6'24'911 on Gran Tourismo 6- the tourist circuit That car is hella underrated
I didn't say it was unveiled in 2022. I said they announced they would be bringing it back in 2022, under the name RS01, as the car had been called since ASL's acquisition of TommyKaira.
The main fault in their business model is that they didn't base the car on the Renault 12 so that intergalactic binman could make it a running joke on a podcast before inviting you on to record the same episode twice
I wonder if they built it in the UK because the UK drives on the same side as the Japanese but we dont have to restrict every car on the public roads like they do in Japan. Seems extreme but it might have been a way for them to do some naughty speed tests on public roads. UK country roads are also quite similar to Japanese ones, just without the nice looking mountains.
That's certainly a reason to test the car here, building a test car and dialling it in, but manufacturing 220 of them in the UK just to ship 200 of them to Japan must've been for another reason right? Plenty of manufacturers build sports cars in Japan
If they knew about kit car loopholes in the US they could have thrived at that time. JDM cars like the R34 were forbidden fruit and using the drivetrain from one in a midengine layout would have created a cult following here and sold pretty well. The business model works well for Factory 5 with their replicas. Making something bespoke with legendary hardware we couldn't get would have been the recipe for success but I imagine the massive language barrier once again did no-one any favors. Still I'd be happy to see the zz2 see public roads some day
Tommy Kaira said in 2022 that they're looking to put the ZZII into limited production however they're looking at getting external investment to fund the project. If I'd just won the euromillions, oh boy would I have one built! 🤣
Loads of great info from commenters and people reaching out directly, thank you to everyone for sharing! Its great fun learning even more about this obscure story. Would you be interested in a follow up discussing all this fresh info?
Tommy Kaira is Japanese TVR in levels of bankruptcy
There more similar than that too, lightweight small sports car brand with an unfortunate money state
Underrated comment and genius 🙏🏼
Or Spyker lol
Fun fact, TVR is short for Trevor
@@myusdmcavalierthe 2022 ASL TommyKaira ZZ-II was supposed to be rebuild from the ground up.
Imported cars in Japan did not need to go through inspection for crashing so they built them in the UK but that rule changed and we can't do that now
See also: The Japanese love of anything anything automotive with ‘made in Britain’ stamped on it.
Nissan used British motor racing engineering companies to make prototype parts for the gtr as they can make them faster than from companies in Japan
The ZZ started life in 1991 (Elise in 1994, shortly before TK opened their Norwich branch) and each one was registered in the UK as a kit car, then imported as a road worthy car in Japan. This way they could avoid crash rewuirements, so in 1999 they had to stop sales because US doesn't allow British kit cars.
It also started exactly 2 years after Isuzu 4200R was manufactured.
First gen was a SR20DE. Not an Elise
@@miregoji2959 indeed, I pointed the Elise started its life later
They announced 2 years ago that they are prepared to bring back the ZZ-II, they have the facilities and moulds ready for it, but now, as ever, they need the funding to greenlight it. They directly responded to me when I asked, and they have the ZZ-II or permanent display in Tokyo.
The interesting question is,what sort of engine and drivetrain will it use? I have a gut feeling it won't be the RB26,but maybe the R35's drivetrain?
Who? As I mention in the video I know ASL announced they wanted to move forward with the RS01 (the ZZII's name under ASL). I presume that's what you're referring to because I'm sure any other attempt would see a lawsuit from ASL, right?
@@automobilistic ASL is dead, Tomita wants to build it as a Tommy kaira
@@chazzcoolidge2654maybe it is based on 07 GTR R35 gearbox.
@@automobilistic Tommy Kaira themselves, just look it up, the ASL days are long gome and it's back in Tommykaira's name now.
Designed in one country, built in another, and shipped back to the first country.. sounds a bit like the Chrysler TC By Maserati saga😅
There was also a 1999 Tommmykaira ZZ2 prototype which was featured in Gran Turismo 2, however that design never progressed beyond drawings.
Amazing video as usual👌
TommyKaira ZZ-II Prototype on GT2 has 591bhp (886.92PP on GT7 standards). It is fast but its very prone to spin out.
The ZZII exists as a prototype so it went beyond the design stage lol
Simillar story about the original late 90's Ford Puma's engine manufacturing process as well.
@@DomHowardsFluoPants the design was radically changed from the version which appeared in GT2
JGTC Garaiya is one of the most beautiful race cars of all time imo
Worth noting that while the innards of the ASL Garaiya were most likely based on the ZZ, the exterior was almost certainly inspired by the ZZ-III concept, which only ever existed as sketches (said sketches, alongside the ZZ-II's, were handed over to Polyphony Digital to include the car in GT2)
ASL ARTA GARAIYA GT300 2008 also based on ZZ-II and ZZ-III concepts.
There’s a TommyKaira R34 R-S for sale in the UK right now, it’s £160K which is cheap considering what some special edition Skylines go for now
It's not an official Nissan special edition though, rather a modded Skyline.
@piuthemagicman nobody said it was "official" i think we all understand Tak was a third party. Thats still a brand that adds significant value to a car.
@@DrewLSsix it could happen though, just like Mercedes bought out AMG
Managed to sit in a prototype of a Garaiya at the Tokyo Auto Salon in 2008; it was being used a a demo car by a car audio company called Carrozzeira (or it might have been for Pioneer's product line-up at the time under the same name).
I could have sworn that 25 were produced all up though.
I was in Tommy Kaira a couple weeks back in Kyoto . They have a showroom with a couple of ZZ’s. Tomita seems to have the name again, might be worth reaching out to him. With regards to the Breckland chapter… there’s a ZZR in existence, it was for sale recently with an acquaintance, I believe it was purchased for export to Hong Kong. It was quite special, I tried to purchase it but unfortunately it had already sold by the time I knew of its existence.
Soo….. I was the CEO of GLM between 2019 and 2021 - we had some plans…. And nearly 50 of the EV chassis were eventually produced
Was it right after or before they were bought by WE solutions?
@@hexgraphica After. I was part of the team that changed WE Solutions to Apollo after we bought the hypercar firm…
@@09juliancarr so it was a buyout. I thought WE bought Apollo and renamed the whole company after it.
@@hexgraphica yes, that’s correct
@@09juliancarr what was the structure of glm when you arrived? I never understood how exactly Kyoto university was involved
A British magazine called Performance Car reviewed the ZZ and compared it to the Renault Spider and Elise.
The article did mention manufacturing in Norfolk, it could be worth a look as they may have added more detail
nice to see this story in full video format. love it :)
Thanks!
Thank you!
The Garaiya road car DID actually have a very low production run, iirc around 10-15 cars max. I still have the old promotional video on my channel that was shown at the launch, was powered by Nissan's SR20 & built at Breckland Technology. The ZZ2 was still on the cards at the time (sometime around 2001/2002) as there is also a teaser for that car in the Garaiya promos. Also yes there were a lot of former Lotus staff employed at Breckland, Breckland also helped manufacture the Mosler MT900
Could it be because "British built" held a certain pedigree in Japan at the time? IDK, just a hunch that rich Japanese potential buyers would ascribe meaning to that sort of thing.
To the Japanese, the British auto industry held a special place in their hearts because automakers like Austin helped restart the Japanese auto industry.
Not only that, they feel that British built cars held a certain refined charm.
Maybe? But it was badged with the name of a well known (within the car world) Japanese brand. Would "British built" really have helped sales of a car from a company famous for its JDM mods? And even if it would, could this justify the expense? I suppose its possible but I can't help but feel there's probably a piece of the puzzle missing here
That would be an awful lot of business risk, planning and expense just to have a tagline about British built. Itd make more sense if it were a luxury machine, but paying import/export taxes to do so would be... Unadvisable at the very least.
Not saying you're incorrect, im just saying that if the company set up in britain just for marketing reasons, it was a bad decision
@@automobilistici remembered this one on Gran Turismo 5. On GT5, the 2000 ZZ-II sounded like Minolta 88C-V but on GT4, ZZ-II sounds like R34GTR GT500 cars.😅
The ZZII was so OP in all the early GT games.
Thank you for this video. GT2 memory unlocked!
I have a Tommy kaira M20b. One of just 105 ever made.
It is, without doubt, the best condition example on the planet. :)
And it is, without doubt, one of the finest cars ever made. :D
I still want to know if the ZZ II really used a R34 GTR drivetrain, RB26 and AWD gearbox, but "front to back", with inverted diffs I guess. Have seen photos that give this impression
ZZ-II 2000 has 551bhp (834PP on GT7 configuration).
From the picture at 4:18 it looks like they have their own transfer case that flip flops the way the torque is sent to the front & rear wheels
@@AccAkut1987 no it's the rolling chassis of the ZZII
@@hexgraphica oh sorry, I missed that frame, you're right
If I ever win the lotto or make big money, I'd build a replica of the ZZ-2, such a good looking car with 4wd and a skyline RB26 engine stroked out to 2.7litres making 540hp, absolute perfection.
If you’re a fan of the Rb motors check out what the Aussies do Rb3.2 out of the Rb 30 with 26 head
Or you can get all aftermarket block head crank etc build a 2000hp Rb
Since nissan had a factory in the uk , and the primera was wholly built in the UK, this would mean the 2,0 NA engine and running gear would be readily available here. Just a suggestion?
I'm in South Africa, I have never heard of this guy. Awesome video!
Wonderful video on these quirky cars, like many I was introduced to Tommy-Kaira via Gran Turismo and ever since it's been quite fascinating to dive deep on their history.
A small correction though; the ASL Garaiya *was* built, but it was never sold. It would've been, like the ZZ before it, built in the UK and then glued together in Japan which made the little thing cost well over 6.5 Million Yen (in comparison, a Skyline GT-R V-Spec II at the time, would set you back 6.1 Million Yen), once Autobacs crunched the numbers, they quickly realized it was suicidal to attempt producing the car as it would never turn a profit, and shortly after the plans were cancelled.
Still a small handful, of which nobody knows for sure how many, of pre-production Garaiyras were built, with the general belief that they were given to higher ups at Autobacs. Extremely rarely, you can read or see someone posting and talking about one of these cars appearing in the wild in Japan.
As for how much the GT300 race car shared with the pre-production road cars, they shared *practically nothing* in construction, but the SR20VE engine was initially used in the GT300 car, although with a Turbocharger fitted to it. That engine, however was very uncompetitive, and soon the GT300 race car would see it being dropped in favor of the VQ35DE, which helped to greatly improve the Garaiya's pace in Super GT.
Wonder what information came with the Tommy Kaira ZZ II NFT? It was about 10000 USD AFAIK
The TommyKaira ZZ-S and ZZ-II in Gran Turismo 3 to 6 are still underrated masterpiece cars. Way more underrated than the new ZZ-EV.
the loophole they where using to be in gt300 being closed was probably due to Honda making the 2017 nsx and stopping the use of the HSV-010 GT so the organizers no longer needed the "production-ready" carveout in the rules to keep Honda competing.
The Garaiya was forced out in 2012 though. Highly doubt it has anything to do with the HSV-010 GT.
@@takumifujiwara13954 This, alongside the fact that regulation is *specifically* for GT500.
GT300 has much more laid back rules and we've seen plenty of prototypes or purpose-built race cars with no road equivalent in the class before.
I loved the Tommy Kaira tuned cars on Gran Turismo, the skyline was pretty good. The ZZ and ZZII were underwhelming from what I remember. At least for how the ZZII looked, reminded me of a McLaren F1 a little. I didn’t love the Garaiya either, it didn’t seem competitive on the game compared to its competition.
With a steering wheel for control and good knowledge of the GT tuning system, they could be made very competitive
I’m sure it could, this was 1997 or 1999 and I was 7 or 9 at the time on PS1 on either GT1 or 2, steering wheels from that era don’t really count😂. And I knew nothing of car tuning at those ages. The Toms or Denso Supra were great for a child haha.
hearing the zz be called the zed zed for10 minutes gave me an aneurysm
In Japanese z is also zed, but pronounced zetto
@@kanaric zetto zetto kinda sounds dope tho
When the ZZ2 appeared on screen, at first glance it reminded me of obscure Spanish sportscar the SunRed SR21.
I have only seen those cars in the older Gran Turismo games. I was wondering why I never heard of them in real life since.
Ferrari’s are cool and all, but if someone showed up to the car show driving a Tommy Kaira, I know which one I’m going to spend all my time looking at!
4:29 "we have Murray T.33 at home"
To me original ZZ is a part of my childhood since i played in GT2 for hours in a row. 20 years ago i still love this little beauty and I'm a little sad that I'll never be able to buy one of them.
0:59, what's the bet they were Gundam fans lol.
An amazing video on a car brand 99% of us here only knew via Grand Turismo. Such a shame we never saw more of the ZZ-2 concept but so interesting to hear the story of the brand.
By the way, where have you purchase those model cars in the background? Toyota GT-One and Nissan Calsonic Skyline?
The wee black one that looked like a MaC F1 was deadly in the game....
a day with a new automobilistic video is a good day
This really ended up super cool, Lotus meets Mclaren.
Great video
I loved this car back in GT3 Aspec. Kickstart my heart at full blast waking my parents up at 2am😂
2000-03 we had chassis at bentall rowlands at scunny. Don't know which model but it had yellow roll cage.
Great video. Was hoping you would make a video about Tommy kaira, especially zz II.
Fun fact: the ASL Garaiya shares its rear lights with the Alfa Romeo 147
Does somebody know from where automobilistic got his Le Mans Track Map in the Background?
I noticed that one too.
I saw an electric Garaiya at the Tokyo Auto Salon last January
BABE WAKE UP NEW AUTOMOBILISTIC
I remember Tommy Kaira from Gran Turismo as a kid back in the 90s.
I think the UK had a lot of subsidies to manufacture cars and other tax bennies. The Honda ek and some others were built there in the late 90s 2000s to take advantage. I forget which, but I came across another car more recently that was a Japanese co mfgd in England too.
Saw this video coming since he covered Tommykaira in the binman podcast
The motivation for the ship out, build, ship back methodology was absolutely inspired by the Chrysler TC! HAHAHA!
Thanks for the video. Tommy Kaira are still up and running in Japan tho...
@@NISSANSKYLINEGTRBNR strictly speaking that's the brand, what went dissolved through the years were the companies behind it. Tomita Auto Co, Tomita Dream Factory, Tomita Dream Sales, etc
so that supercar I just unlocked in gran turismo 3, the mark II version was basically a mid engined super version of an R34 skyline, jesus man what the hell, that sounds awesome as hell, and evidently the cars didnt fail if the mark I's are still around and being made in sporatic construction from time to time
and to think the race car competed that long and did that well over a 10 year stretch, that's some pretty good engineering
damn now I really wonder how good that concept car could have been, shame they couldnt have made a few of them just to get them out there
This left me a bit confused, there's a ZZII in Gran Turismo 2 that looks vastly different than the ZZII in the video, where did that model in GT2 come from?
I love the tommy kaira m08
"Perfecting the perfection"
The ZZ gives off renault spider vibes
bringing me back all the way to my 15yr old self in 1997
imagine the best way to get a replacement rb26 was to buy one from a wrecked zz2 💀
been on your mind since the Hot Air Outtake I assume?
3:09 ascari a10 at home
i only know about Tommy Kaira because the zz2 was the fastest drag car on gt6
If the ZZ-II really did make it into production with an RB26 in it, it could have been CRAZY fast, especially given the RB26's tuning potential and the car's aerodynamics and light weight...it could even have been made an early Lamborghini Sesto Elemento but with more horsepower potential, especially as the RB26 can have been tuned to well over 1000 hp with the right tuning parts...
Huh, never heard of it. Cool car
Tommy Kaira design philosophy: let's design a car that will only ever exist in video games.
What was that super badass autobacs kei car, the az1? That was so cool. The only Japanese car that wasn’t dumped in NZ in the 90s and dirt cheap.
The AZ1 was a Mazda mate, under a sub-brand called Autozam
@@MrBlazemaster525 yeah that’s the one 👍
Hopefully the oil pan did not take a hit on that curb.
The asl have the same taillights as the Alfa Romeo 147
now tommy kaira is an electric lotus elise clone? i would not take that for free
Wow i comepletely forgot about them. So mucj nostalgia from GT
quick question but where do you get your car models in the backround specifically the honda nsx gt and the mclaren f1 gtr
The RB26 needs to make a comeback in a road car 😢
The ZZII used to kick ass in Gran Turismo 3😅
Didn't they tune cars too? I remember a skyline, didnt that little car have an SR20?
Yeah, they tuned many nissans, mostly skylines, though I remember a silvia & a 350 being shown somewhere as well.
Hey man love the videos!
You should do a video on Moon Craft. The prototype race car manufacturer out of Japan that made the neon genesis livery famous
Of course, we know beneath it all, it's a Renault 12
I actually recorded my fastest lap time on the Nurburgring in that ZZ 2
I ran a 6'24'911 on Gran Tourismo 6- the tourist circuit
That car is hella underrated
Fun Fact: There are Tommy Kaira 190E (Yeah, that 190E/W201)
You should do a video on the porsche 935
what about the zz3 is that just a concept from gran turismo 2
My god I’d love a ZZII. Most beautiful car ever. Even a ZZ would be amazing.
If only the ZZ II was a little bit more remember then we could have miata fighter.
You got a thing slightly wrong: the info I have is that ASL unveiled the RS-01 in 2002, not 2022.
I didn't say it was unveiled in 2022. I said they announced they would be bringing it back in 2022, under the name RS01, as the car had been called since ASL's acquisition of TommyKaira.
the zz rb26 would have been a lagendary car
Building a car in a foreign country only to ship it back for sale, sounds like they asked to go bankrupt.
Where do you buy your model cars from? I dig
I buy them second hand! Most are AUTOart models I found on ebay haha
God I wish I could own a blue Tommy Kaira ZZ-II that's my favourite
The main fault in their business model is that they didn't base the car on the Renault 12 so that intergalactic binman could make it a running joke on a podcast before inviting you on to record the same episode twice
The ZZII was where it was at.
I wonder if they built it in the UK because the UK drives on the same side as the Japanese but we dont have to restrict every car on the public roads like they do in Japan. Seems extreme but it might have been a way for them to do some naughty speed tests on public roads. UK country roads are also quite similar to Japanese ones, just without the nice looking mountains.
That's certainly a reason to test the car here, building a test car and dialling it in, but manufacturing 220 of them in the UK just to ship 200 of them to Japan must've been for another reason right? Plenty of manufacturers build sports cars in Japan
In terms of bankruptcy-enducing, it's good, but its not MG SV-R levels (look up how they made those, its utterly insane)
the zz2 and clearly had original bodywork ... unless you count the homework borrowed from the mclaren f1 just shrunk to 80% size.
Same reason delorian went to wales 🏴
Can we get a history lesson on the Ferrari 550 GT1?
I tought you were gonna say "pat yourself on the back. Congrats. Youre a nerd!"
You should check Hommel
If they knew about kit car loopholes in the US they could have thrived at that time. JDM cars like the R34 were forbidden fruit and using the drivetrain from one in a midengine layout would have created a cult following here and sold pretty well. The business model works well for Factory 5 with their replicas. Making something bespoke with legendary hardware we couldn't get would have been the recipe for success but I imagine the massive language barrier once again did no-one any favors. Still I'd be happy to see the zz2 see public roads some day
Factory Five use types of cars already homologated, don't they?
@@hexgraphica mostly. I think they have a couple original models that look plucked from Burnout Revenge. Only heard of them through The Smoking Tire
Tommy Kaira said in 2022 that they're looking to put the ZZII into limited production however they're looking at getting external investment to fund the project. If I'd just won the euromillions, oh boy would I have one built! 🤣
I knew this car thanks to Tomica.
TOM'S Angel T01.