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Location:
North Coast NSW
Registered:
February 2005
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Re: Why?
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Sun, 26 June 2005 15:47
 
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Ok there's a lot of misinformation about these cars so I thought I'd clear a few things up:
Thats what the Japanese call Yankii style, after the young street thugs that originally drove them in the 70s and 80s (i.e. Yankees). Alot of people call this style Bosozoku but that's only partially true, to understand why you have to understand the fundamental difference between Yankii and Bosozoku themselves.
Yankii: As I said before these guys were just Japanese high school street thugs from the 70s and 80s, they are characterized by the trademark elvis hairdoos and Kamekazi pilot/school uniform hybrid clothes. The modern day equivalent of these guys would be the hektik brigade that wear Wu tang/Eminem gear and cruise around in Vn Commos with chromeez, altezzas and massive stereos. Except instead of VN commodores Yankii preffered to drive these things. (Note: Modern day Yankii still exist, just not this traditional, classic style)
(Some pictures of what the traditional Yankii style looks like http://masamania.com/archives/2005/05/fan_of_kishi dan.html)
Bosozoku: This literally translates in English into speed tribe. These are guys Yankiis who have formed organised groups to street race together, all Bosozoku are Yankii (street thugs), but not all yankii are Bosozoku (i.e. they may not street race in organised groups). Bosozoku are mostly bikers but some still drove the yankii style cars like in the pics as well. Bosozoku groups also have a heirachical structure, with a leaders and lesser members. Like Yankii Bosozoku are generally violent by nature, and it was not unusual for small riots etc. to break out between rival groups back in their heyday.
Unlike traditional yankii, apparently some small groups of Bosozoku still exist in Japan. But due to massive police crackdowns on Bosozoku in the early 90s, and the unfashionableness of the traditional Yankii style they barely exist any more. If anyone has seen the movie Akira, the groups of biker kids that are portrayed are Bosozoku, but the concept of Bosozoku has seemed to be lost in translation to English speaking audiences.
As I said before it's not a new thing to make cars like this, and was popular in the 70s and 80s in Japan. What they are trying to do is emulate the style of the Japanese domestic touring car classes of the era. You see two really distinct types of cars within the Yankii style, the early ones (i.e. 70s), which still look reasonably tasteful and usually only sport a set of massive flares w/ massive offset wheels, an external oil cooler and the trademark organ pipe exhausts. However, later ones, from the 80s are the more grotesque ones, with the massive big box flares made from fiberglass/sheet metal/mdf and massive snowplow splitters. These are an accentuated interpretation of the Japanese group 5 / formula silhouette touring cars from the early 80s which looked similar due to their wild aerodynamic packages.
The main reason why Yankiis built cars like this is to grab attention, this need for attention is also reflected in the way they dressed and acted. Other ways they used the cars to grab attention was to fit Claxons (air horns), those massive organ pipe exhausts which are ear burstingly loud and poorly tuned carbs which would backfire etc.
Due to the fact that dressing like a traditonal Yankii and driving an old school Yankii style car went out of fashion in Japan in the very early 90s/late 80s I'd say that the reason those guys have cars like that is because it's retro cool, i.e. like the 50's style rat rod greaser mobiles that have become popular again recently. In fact you could probably make the assumption that Yankiis are the Japanese equivalent of greasers.
There's no denying that those cars are some of the most stupid/bizarre/ugly/impractical machines on the planet but that's the reason why I love them  . I really have no problem with people dressing stuff up like this that would normally be scrapped or left to rot but it really does make you cringe when you sometimes see classic and rare things like ta22 gt Celicas tarted up like that, ouch.
Now that I've written an encyclopedia I'm off to bed.
[Updated on: Mon, 27 June 2005 06:11]
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| | Subject | Poster | Date |
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Why?
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Meetch | Sun, 26 June 2005 12:15 |
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Re: Why?
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xolent | Sun, 26 June 2005 14:30 |
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Re: Why?
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Boso_Elvis | Sun, 26 June 2005 15:47 |
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Re: Why?
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river | Mon, 27 June 2005 07:27 |
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Re: Why?
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Corona RT142 | Mon, 27 June 2005 03:13 |
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Re: Why?
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h3ff44 | Mon, 27 June 2005 06:26 |
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Re: Why?
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Rolla Boy | Mon, 27 June 2005 10:46 |
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Re: Why?
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nitephyre | Mon, 27 June 2005 13:38 |
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Re: Why?
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Evan | Tue, 28 June 2005 00:07 |
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Re: Why?
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BOCKA | Tue, 28 June 2005 05:13 |
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Re: Why?
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Corona RT142 | Tue, 28 June 2005 05:33 |
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Re: Why?
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MX73_drifter | Sat, 02 July 2005 09:49 |
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Re: Why?
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Pieman | Sun, 03 July 2005 21:11 |
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Re: Why?
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Arch | Sun, 03 July 2005 23:13 |
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