![]() ![]() So when it offered to pay to send Smokey and his car over for the Max Power Live show, he agreed. ![]() Along with Gatso jousting, car park racing and asking what your favourite-coloured orifice was, it had real sway and embedded itself within the zeitgeist, selling nearly a quarter of a million copies a month. For younger audiences, Max Power was a modified car mag like no other. In the seat for the Aqua-Line run was none other than tuning bible, Max Power. This, as you’ll learn, won’t be Smokey’s only tussle with authority in his life. So when the teachers found out, I was expelled.” When we did, I started driving it to school. But I struggled to fix it, so a local boss at Toyota helped me get it running. I bought my first when I was 15 years old – a Mitsubishi Galant GTO. But my father loved driving fast, so I became obsessed with the sensation of speed and started tinkering with cars. “It’s Japan’s northernmost prefecture, so there’s not much going on. “I grew up on a farm in Hokkaido,” he says, dragging in a hefty toke from his cigarette. One that doesn’t stand for social suppression or authority, a trait only exercised in and around cars. ![]() But it’s unwise to judge him by his mannerisms. He’s softly spoken and anxiously fidgets in conversation, often cowering back into a shell of introversion that wraps around his stunted, slight frame. It was the ultimate ballsy PR tool for his company – Top Secret – proving that his cars were the real deal.Ĭonsidering his infamy as a 200mph maniac, Smokey doesn’t have the look of a menace to society. His escapades hit the headlines, and the grainy footage of him illegally squirrelling down the motorway from the cameras gaffer-taped to the car went VHS viral – instantly catapulting him to legendary status within the tuning community. It wasn’t long before the winter darkness filled with blue lights: the police made chase and arrested him, resulting in Smokey having a night at Her Majesty’s pleasure (a remarkably lenient sentence which wouldn't happen today) before fleeing back to Japan, worried his tuning company was going to go under. More than enough to unofficially claim the dubious, dangerous record of the fastest speed ever reached by a car on a UK public highway. Due to some complications (the engine running lean on one run, the car wanting to jettison its bonnet at 190-odd on another), he had a few attempts but ultimately fell short of the double ton, clocking 194mph. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |