You know the nursery rhyme. We all joined hands back in the day, chanting nonsensical verses in monotone, anticipating the "we all fall down" part like deer in the headlights awaiting a front bumper. Most kids followed the instructions and slumped to the ground, never realizing exactly why. Some, too cool to get dirty or perhaps too smart to scrape themselves up on the pavement, remained standing. There was no way in hell they'd fall over just because everyone else did, even if it meant getting their shoulders dislocated on both sides as the others tugged them down. If they were going to get scuffed, it would be on their own terms, not because someone else recommended it in simple rhyme scheme. But their peers, empowered by strength in numbers, would label them outcasts, even cowards for not joining the crowd. Why couldn't they just fall down and be like everyone else? Well, the answer is right there: Because then they'd be just like everyone else.
You can probably guess which class of ring-dancers Takahiro Ueno of Yokohama, Japan, fits into. That is, if you're scouring his '99 Toyota Soarer and assuming that he chanted Euro-based nursery rhymes in his elementary years. Not too likely for a Japanese kid, but he definitely would have kept to his feet if he grew up on this side of the Pacific. Someone who shapes the rules instead of follows them is the only type who could have created a machine like this. And Takahiro knows-down to the friggin' bolt threads-exactly why he built it: to win the D1GP. That means he's giving guys like Nobuteru Taniguchi and Ken Nomura, fellow nonconformists bent on the exact same goal, some solid competition. And when we're talking about a Toyota Soarer, boy howdy, are we talking solid.
Takahiro claims that he has spent more than 7,000,000 in cold, hard yen on one idea-to lighten the vehicle. That's roughly $60,000. As he explains, "Soarers are heavy cars. Like others, mine looks heavy. However, it is not. It drives like a feather. It is extremely nimble." And we don't doubt that one bit. When you're talking about a race car, especially one built to drift, you can't just yank out heavy objects willy-nilly. You need to visualize and execute. And that's where the money comes in.
The exterior photos we have may tip you off that something is indeed amiss. One picture shows the car racing around with red doors while another shows it sitting still with dark replacements. Surprisingly enough, we didn't slip the wrong car photo into the right feature, as we're so apt to do. We actually snapped the photos out of sequence, and you're getting the before and after all at once. But here, we'll break it down: The bare carbon-fiber doors? Shot before they were color-matched. The carbon-fiber Sard Pro GT Wing? After. The missing bumper? After. After a race, that is. Takahiro usually runs with a front air dam, but when we caught up with him in Japan, he was right smack in the middle of dyno tuning. To ordinary drivers, replacing the bumper is a pain in the ass. But to Takahiro, it's just another chance to test out a new mod. He tells us, "Successful suspension balancing related to dramatic weight reduction is a very difficult issue. We have overcome the problems by conducting tests and experiments persistently. You cannot just blindly reduce the weight of a drift car, you always have to think about maintaining the overall balance." Beaming with enthusiasm, he and his T&E team gladly accept the challenges to realize the goal.