The Power of MOONEYES

Obsession with parts of American culture throughout the development of modern Japan can be noticed very easily. Movies, music, food, or just a trip to Hawaii have always been favored by many Japanese.

But having arrived at Yokohama's Mooneyes meet back in March we quickly began to realize that when it comes to cars, American obsession is taken to the next level.

In Part One I mostly concentrated on size, stance and exposed wheels, leaving power and performance for later.

So let's check out some of the rides that were tuned for performance and speed.

When it comes to Chevrolet El Camino, speed isn't the first thing that comes to mind.  It always had an appeal of certain lifestyle, perhaps being a workhorse, cruiser, surfboard carrier is more of its thing.

That was the case until my encounter with this example sitting low on light weight 19" alloys exposing a full performance sport brake kit that would be worth its place on BMW M5

Unfortunetely I did not have a chance to look under the hood, but I would imagine it would have something to match the handling upgrades.  With rear being so light, I can see how this can be an awesome tire shredding drift machine.

One car that is synonimous with American Muscle is the Ford Mustang.  It was a given that we would see a few examples of this iconic car at this meet.  I was very impressed at the showroom look of this covertible.

But then I was interrupted by a roar of the 5.8L V8 of this unique and quite rare 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1.

Of course a sight of a classic Camaro SS nearby was very pleasing to the eye,

but perhaps not as aggressive as this tuned Chevy Nova. 

I pleasantly surprised when I saw this sign.  Surely, I grew up watching Road Runner Cartoons,

and perhaps that experience brings out those special feeling when I see one of these, which does not happen often as there are not a few of Plymouth Roadrunners around, especially in Japan.

The look of this Plymouth did cure all my ills as it sat aggressively on these huge drag-spec soft walled tires.  Hope some day I will see it tear up a drag strip.

Of course most of these cars weren't just eye candies as plenty of work was done on the inside.  From this absolutely clean engine block hosting a custom small block V8 with Edelbrock headers.

Or this amazingly well stitched leather interior done in pure 60's luxury style.

Large and heavy American cars weren't the only ones present at the meet.  So how could this be - you may ask. Please, don't forget that this is Japan, the island in the pacific where all cultures clash and create a harmonic unity of similarly minded people.

Thus it's a given that there would a great variety of classic JDM machines representing the class of their own,

but in no way compromising the awesome styling dictated by the Mooneyes culture.

At some point of time Mitsubishi was building high quality and entertaining vehicles with Debonair being their luxury flagship model.  It is always a pleasure to see some of them still being around in such prestige condition.

We will finish this coverage with a classic Toyota Crown from 1960's.  Unlike Mitsubishi, Toyota still proudly sells this luxury sedan in Japan in large numbers,  

 
but regardless of their attempts to revive the excitement of this car by fueling it with unrothodox styling, it will never match be elegance of the original.  Enormous amout of character as well as silky smooth straight six engine gave this car this unique quality, same quality that set apart Japanese cars from the rest of the world for many years.

Thank you for reading everyone, please don't forget to share, follow and comment!

 

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