Which Japanese Formula One car do you like or think is the best?

[D-Type]

To redress the balancei should list some of the teams that didn't make the grade:
Amon, Arrows, ATS, Chevron, Connew, De Tomaso, Eifelland, Ensign, Fittipaldi, Hill, Iso-Marlboro, Kauhsen, Lyncar, Martini, McGuire, Merzario, Parnelli, Politoys, Rebaque, Surtees, Tecno, Trojan.

Some had large budgets; some had more enthusiasm than money; some were produced by ex-drivers; some were produced by largish firms with lots of experience for lesser formulae; some lasted for several years without success; some lasted less than a year.
So, there is no formula that guarantees success or failure.

With a slightly different mix the Kojima and maybe the Maki could have succeeded.

[ghinzani]

I know its not an F1 car but what do you know of this, MANA 08B Japanese Formula 2000 car from 1973? I had never heard of it before.

[Kojima_KE007]

Originally posted by ghinzani
I know its not an F1 car but what do you know of this, MANA 08B Japanese Formula 2000 car from 1973? I had never heard of it before.

MANA 08B was designed by Kenji Mimura, who was also responsible for the Maki F101/C and Maki F102A.

[ghinzani]

I knew you would come thru! Any pictures anywhere? Its always interesting to see the lineage - to my eye the Makis dont look similar, and they dont really look like the same family as the Kojimas -what do you think?

[Kojima_KE007]

I will try and get some pictures later.

Maki F101C is an updated version of the earlier and more distinctive F101 which probably had a lot of imput from Kenji Mimura alone. The F101C probably had more imput from Masao Ono.

F102A was solely designed by Kenji Mimura and its concept was to make the car as light as possible as the F101 was a massive 100kg heavier than the weight limit.

Kojima is completely different in design and construction altogether from the Makis. It was designed by Masao Ono and Takuya Yura and they do not have anything in common at all.

[ghinzani]

Yes pictures will be great thanks. Its strange tho that I cant spot that many similar design cue's - for instance if you look at Postlethwaites cars its easy to see the lineage between Heskeths and early Wolfs. I have always thought FW06 looked Hesketh/Williams-Wolf like too - maybe Patrick got his design ideas from working with Harvey at Williams (they did for a while I think?). Or as another example ATSD4/RAM03/Ferrari Indycar and Rial ARC01 all bear the hallmark of Brunner.

[Kojima_KE007]

The interesting thing about Kojima is that, before Masao Ono begun drawing lines of the KE007, Matsuhisa Kojima, Masao Ono, Kikuo Kaira, Takuya Yura and Masahiro Hasemi all gathered around and discussed how it should be. Masao Ono wanted to build a car that was more dramatic but Kojima and Hasemi put stop to that and asked Ono to come up with more conventional lines. Kojima also said it could be a "Fuji speccial" as well.Having said that, KE007 had a lot of unique things like duralmin bulkheads, carbon fire body work etc and that probably is what saved Hasemi in that crash.

Maki on the other hand was more of Mimura's design alone rather than Ono's. Ono tried to make the car better but there was not much he could do...

If you see Sigma MC73 and Dome Zero Le Mans cars, you will probably see some bits that reminds you of Masao Ono's desgins.

[Kojima_KE007]

Here's the link to Kenji Mimura's design company he set up in 1985 called "MIM Desgin".

You will find a picture of MANA 08.

http://www.mim-design.co.jp/imd2/his...fore_mim-j.htm

[Kojima_KE007]

Whoops. I didn't realize there was an English version of this page.

http://www.mim-design.co.jp/imd2/his...fore_mim-e.htm