Hate for Sushi chod.

[Negative Creep]

This helped too:

 

 

The first game genuinely resparked my interest in cars (and music). Used to love them as a kid and collect brochures all the time, but before I played that game I'd never even heard of a Skyline. Oh and the TVR Cerbera LM pwned everything

[saucedoctor]

What about Jap bikes? Indeed, it was in reference to a Japanese motorcycle that I first heard the phrase "JapCrap"

 

I've borrowed/test driven a good range of non-Japanese bikes, and I didn't really like any of them that much. Some of them were:

 

BMW K100 - too heavy

BMW R80 - nice enough, but too "something" I couldn't quite put my finger on

Ducati 916 - I had the loan of this for a long weekend. Looked fab, was noisy and vibrate-y, thirsty and coarse. Felt top heavy, but wasn't. Didn't inspire confidence.

A Triumph 3 cylinder thing with a Union Flag on it, think it was a 900 - probably the closest to Japanese without actually being Japanese. Too slow.

 

Compare and contrast some with some of the J tin I owned:

 

1974 Honda C90 - just so easy to use and live with

1981 Yamaha RD80LC - a wee riot, took all sorts of abuse, never went wrong

1983 Yamaha RD250&350LCs - as above, but a lot faster. Heard a lot of shite about Yam engines being "soft". Not in my experience

1986 Yamaha RD350 YPVS - I smoked an Esprit Turbo away from the lights and up to stupid MPH on that. Rock solid bike, on Microns and BFO Mikuni carbs. Tuned by Scott Bell, also famous locally for stuffing Jaguar AJ6 engines in RWD Fords.

I had a Perverse Cylinder RD as well, but I can't remember what year it was. This disturbs me slightly! I do remember that you didn't overtake cars on that, you overtook entire traffic flows.

 

Had quite a few big uns as well. 1987 Suzuki GSX-R 750. Quite simply the best motorcycle I have ever ridden. A 1985 Honda VF500 FII V Four - just beautiful in every way.

2005 Suzuki GSX 1400 K5. A brute of a bike, yet so easy to use over long distances.

 

Japanese bikes FTW

 

[Lord Sterling]

Japanese bikes FTW

 

Yeah, but can you buy a Japanese bike for £30 and can it make you "lol" like a Chinese bike?

 

I think £30Chinesebikelol_lad will have something to say about this.

[Junkman]

this is the exact same car that got me hooked on misterbishis all those years ago as a newby driver and if it wasn't for vantman I would still be looking.

 

berwick classic 2.jpg

 

A friend of mine in that Belgium had one of those. It could haul bloody arse, lemme tellyas.

I was kind of surprised.

[gtd2000]

Having read rather extensively about WW2 I can see how a lot of that generation could never forgive the Japanese for what they did, but memory becomes history and as such less relevant to most people. Japanese culture has become more prevalent in our own, especially in the entertainment industry, so is seen as cool. Shame they toned down the lovely styling of that 70's era to become more generic, but their reputation seems firmly cemented. In my experience they are not only well put together, but done so in such a way that they're easy to take apart as well. Shame they still can't get interiors right though

 

Funnily enough, I spoke with an old veteran who had fought the Japanese during the war.

 

He hated the Japanese as a result but not for the reasons you would expect.

 

He hated them because they would not just simply give up when the game was obviously over.

 

According to this old boy, this resulted in normally having to kill them, rather than the preferred surrender.

 

Probably messed up his mind after having to do that....

 

He'd also fought the Germans and had nothing bad to say about them at all really.

[gtd2000]

A friend of mine in that Belgium had one of those. It could haul bloody arse, lemme tellyas.

I was kind of surprised.

 

I had one of those as my first car in 1985.

 

Cracking little car at the time.

 

Mine was only the 1250cc version but could blow away lots of other smaller capacity cars.

 

My pal with a Mini 1275GT might as well have been running on 3 cylinders...

[cort16]

It's a mini he probably was

[cort16]

I think the Japanese stuff is only really guilty of being a bit boring and derivative. A lot of what they produce other than some left field stuff like the Nissan cube looks like they've dissected a golf or passat and put it back together with slightly shinier plastics even though the running gear may be superior .

They pretty much admited the is200 was a 3 series's copy , mx5 lotus Élan and even the super cool 60 a and. 70s stuff has a severe design not to the yank metal of the time they're just a little smaller.

[twosmoke300]

No jap bikes in my garage anymore. Just got a bit bored of them tbh. 2 Italians and an Austrian these days. Much more of an event to ride .

[steve_earwig]

Funnily enough, I spoke with an old veteran who had fought the Japanese during the war.

 

He hated the Japanese as a result but not for the reasons you would expect.

 

He hated them because they would not just simply give up when the game was obviously over.

 

According to this old boy, this resulted in normally having to kill them, rather than the preferred surrender.

 

Probably messed up his mind after having to do that....

 

 

 

I had an uncle the same, he hated anything to do with the Japanese.

 

To the Japanese soldier surrendering or being captured was a fate worse than death as it would bring great dishonour on them and their entire families, who would become outcasts. Their families actually expected them to die. This is a lot to do with Bushido - "The Way of the Samurai" as set out in the Hagakuri (but largely adulterated by more modern hereditary samurai who had as much to do with being a samurai as modern English knights have to do with fighting on horseback and rescuing fair maidens). This is the same sort of deal as failed Japanese businessmen committing ritual suicide, the only honourable way out.

 

Having read as much as I can stomach on the war in the Pacific I suspect the only reason the Yanks didn't keep dropping nuclear bombs on Japan until it became one giant sheet of glass was because they took too long to make.

[Richard]

We had a 1991 Mazda 626 for a couple of years and I have never seen a car so devoid of redeeming features. From big things like having virtually no brakes to little things like it being uncomfortable to kneel on the edge of the back seat while fastening a child seat. It was frighteningly slow too- overtaking manoeuvres involved waiting until there was a mile of clear road, move out, floor it, ..., ..., ..., ..., ..., ..., ..., give up, pull back in. Rarely made double figures mpg and never cracked 20. Eventually we traded it in for a povo spec Renault 19 1.9D saloon, which was faster, roomier, more comfortable and more reliable.

[Rusty_Rocket]

I have no real problem with Jap stuff, even if it is pretty soulless. Mind you, that's perhaps not a bad thing (see Junkman and his possessed Rover) 

[saucedoctor]

Yeah, but can you buy a Japanese bike for £30 and can it make you "lol" like a Chinese bike?

 

I think £30Chinesebikelol_lad will have something to say about this.

 

He's welcome to them. All of them.

[Asimo]

Cars, like pretty much everything else, are now designed, made and sold within a single global market. If they weren't, we couldn't afford them. 

This has been happening for a long time.

My 1984 Cavalier had a Brazilian made engine and a Michigan made transmission. I don't know where it was assembled, they didn't put a sticker on that bit. 

Local foibles are pandered to with tweaked details, but almost every car sold today could be made anywhere.

 

Brand names have stronger identities than countries in some ways, eg I bet more Brits. would recognise the Kia logo than the Korean flag.

 

This might be a good thing.

The ideas behind "my country / their country" have caused a lot of trouble over the years.

One world. Make in it, Sell in it. Drive around it.

[xtriple]

The post about jap bikes hit the spot for me. I've had hundreds of Hondas, Yams, Kawasakis but hardly any Suzukis! I learned to ride in the seventies when there was a lot of the 'Jap crap' feeling still kicking about. However, all the guys with CB750s were out riding with their birds on the back while the guys with the British bikes were stuck at home fixing the poxy things!

 

My first British bike was a 2003 Triumph Speed Triple (bought brand new) and it was great. Mine was unfortunately a 'Friday' bike as it went wrong within 7 miles....  I still loved it and ended up having quite a few (ST1050, Daytona, Rocket three) and while they were never as reliable as you would hope, they were GREEEEAAAT!

 

Bouyed by my love of the new Triumphs, I bought a '69 Bonnie. I loved that bike and it was just fantastic fun to ride (it wasn't standard - Morgo 750 barrels and pistons, TT pipes, bigger Amals...) but it rarely completed a ride without a niggle occuring. I looked after it like a baby, and it still used to go wrong all the time: electrics being the main ones even though it had loads of upgrades (Boyer ignition, alternator). It never leaked oil though....

 

In contrast, all the Jap bikes I had were great and reliable. Any unreliability was caused by me being a tit, overrevving them (Kawasakis could take it, Hondas couldn't!) or falling off.