It’s a trope to describe the Japanese show Best driving cars like Gran Turismo In real life, but in this case, it really is. In the 1992 battle between front- and rear-wheel drive cars, the crew put together a simply impressive lineup.
From Mazda, we get the FC RX-7 and NA Miata; Toyota offers the Corolla Levin AE86 and Starlet GT; Honda offers both the Civic and CR-X SiR; Rounding things off are two Kei cars, the Subaru Vivio RX-R and the Suzuki Cappuccino. It is a direct lineup of a low-level race from previous editions of Gran Turismoand also a very convincing argument for the excellence of Japanese cars in the early 1990s.
The video includes the usual Best driving cars A host of tests, including slalom and autocross, but it’s the battle of the middle of the track that we care about most. It’s in Tsukuba, of course, and it’s a lot of fun.
Despite all the legends in this test, it is one of the most mysterious and fastest cars, the Toyota Starlet GT. This was a 130-horsepower turbocharged hot hatch that, surprisingly in 1992, featured an adaptive suspension. He weighed less than 2,000 pounds too, so no wonder he was fast. The CR-X and RX-7 were only two-tenths behind in terms of lap time, but the Mazda finished first.
Honestly, though, we’d take any of these cars. They are simple and relatively low-powered, but each belongs to a high point in Japanese automotive history.