Holden is sending off local production with a dream cruise in Adelaide
Goodbyes are always hard…
10 October 2017
Watch two drift masters kick out a touge battle in the mountains
By 
I mean, what else would you be doing on a bright Sunday in Japan?
Kicking it out in a tiny Toyota KP61 Starlet and a Datsun 1200 - both of which are manual and rear-wheel drive (yes!) - the video highlights "Drift King" Keiichi Tsuchiya and Takuya Kurosawa taking it out to the mountains and driving them on roads that helped define the small Japanese sports car.
While these might not fit the modern day sense of 'sports car', with huge power figures and acceleration times, the (obvious) trade-off with these little hatches is a sense of agility and responsiveness you don't really get with a V8 bruiser weighing 1700kg.
I mean, yeah, the Toyota pushes out a whimsical 55kW at 5600rpm, and the Datsun's not much better at 61kW - which would probably struggle to blow the froth off a cappuccino - but they're just so cool. And light, too - around 700kg.
As expected, the cars lack ABS, power steering, and traction control, but they bring back a time when driving down a road could be something to savor and enjoy. An attitude level best described as 'spirited driving' rather than just attacking flat out.
But it gets even better. Should you be unable to afford a motoring focused trip to Japan, you could ask Tsuchiya-san yourself this weekend at the World Time Attack Challenge in Sydney. Boo-ya.
What do you think of the Datsun 1600 and Toyota Starlet? Are there better cars to take through the mountains? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
Comments