While it may take months for American mind-bending treasures like Kangaroo Jack and Agent Cody Banks to hit the Japanese shores, you get to enjoy the wonders of that island nation this very minute, and you don't even have to endure a half hour of Stuart Little 2: A Production Assistant Reveals All before the real entertainment begins.
Our cast includes two main characters, Tanabe and Succeed Sports, in a romantic interlude deep in the hilly region of the Shiga precinct. Although behavior such as theirs might be appropriate on Animal Planet, we have to keep it clean around here now, as we're becoming a bit squeamish as the years progress. Maybe it's the extra chromosomes or maybe it's that Max Power UK is no longer a part of our company roster. We'll never really know for sure.
What we can tell you is that a relationship like the one between Tanabe and Succeed Sports is extremely intimate, one that should be reserved for books with covers graced by Fabio and a woman, not a Yashio Factory Silvia. OK, that's a bit dramatic, but when you see how intense these characters get, you'll understand why we can say that they make red-butted baboons in zoo cages during the spring season seem as active as sunbathing elderly sloths.
From the outside, you should recognize that this is one fine Integra Type R, far beyond the parameters of a normal Final Call article. In fact, if we didn't have so many amazing cars queued up for future issues, this may well have passed as a normal front-of-the-book feature. We're just mean like that. Anyway, to make it worth your while, we should really talk about the car.
Tanabe and Succeed Sports tell us that the reason behind the vehicle's design is "for it to become the fastest naturally aspirated car in each circuit we decide to race it in." And with so many circuit choices in Japan, you can throw money on the fact that their R&D never stops. Tanabe, as you're likely aware, is an established performance parts manufacturer from Japan that also sells in the States as Tanabe Racing Development USA. Succeed Sports is a newer company that basically tests everything Tanabe throws at it, along with researching its own original parts. Both are heavily involved in racing, and both are extremely serious about winning.
Asyou can tell, both companies spared no expense. The Ings body kit may look minimalist, but believe us when we say that it is far from an ineffective showpiece. One of the greatest things about being a successful Japanese company like Tanabe is that you can afford expensive, finely-engineered Japanese items like the Ings setup you see here, which complements the structure of the vehicle instead of erasing its performance integrity with pointless flare. For visual appeal though, the paintjob could be as lavish as the companies wished. With a nod to JetBlue airlines and One Hour Photo's SavMart, the Integra Type R's overall color scheme is clean, organized, and methodical, albeit lacking the obvious hunter's blade and stalker tendencies. The trunklid does, however, sport a wing, a Voltex GT 3D-type wing, which provides as much wind-grip as the Airbus A320 that's taking your dad to the San Francisco airport. Hope he remembered to pack the Pine Sol, because it's not pretty in there.
Popping the hood latch, the first thing you will notice is that the engine is built. Very built. Way beyond Final Call built. So who built it? Toda Racing. Sure, there are a few stock items left, such as the spark plug wires, fuel rail, intake manifold, and the ignition. But that's because the companies are up to their shoulders in analytical mud, and they're gonna wait to tackle those items later. Everything else you see, from the fuel injectors to the cam gears, are all Toda Racing designed, save for the Mugen headers, ARC intake (installed after we shot photos), and the most noteworthy of all, the Succeed Sports original oil pan and piping design, which are prototypes enduring intense research.