名が 松本
PROLOGUE
1993 January (NAGA MATSUMOTO)
At the top of the mountain, at the border between two individual towns, the crickets chirped about to the rustling of the leaves of midnight. Matsumoto stood there beneath the dim light of a nearby lamp post with an automotive magazine in his left hand, right next to a metallic green sedan, the faint silhouette of its four-door lines subtly illuminated by the orange tint of the street light, reflected by the sheen of the golden plated wheels.
He tossed the magazine onto the car’s hood, and dug into his pocket, looking for the faded and flimsy box of tobacco he’d barely finished. He took the ragged box out and pulled a stick from its faded innings, before tossing it back into the pocket of his trousers and pulling out a lighter instead, flicking the sharp metal can open and lighting the roll of paper and tobacco between his lips.
A bitter puff of smoke filled his vision. It was another one of those nights where he’d feel empty again. No matter how many drives, how much praises, how many awards, he still felt something empty sucking through the rest of his insides.He felt the bitterness of the cigarette intensify as his ears picked up the faint buzzing of a vehicle in the distance.
The smell and smoke of the cigarette still partially clouding his view, Naga heard four high-revving engines roaring up the mountain roads, occasionally seeing a glimpse of the cars coming out of the trees.
As four silhouettes zipped by him close to midnight, Naga turned and heard faint tyre screeches in the distance. After anticipating the racers’ arrival, several high-performance cars pulled up to the corner runaway area. Under the street light, Matsumoto could finally make out the shape of the cars and their drivers.
Four characters stepped outside their racers and started a muted chatter with one another.
A salarywoman driving a bright blue Bradford steps out of the group and starts questioning Matsumoto about his metallic green four-door.
“Those rims look nice. It’s standing so low to the ground, it looks so cool! There’s nothing like it on the road.” Tokai exclaimed as she went around, touching the car as she saw it in the flesh for the first time. “Thanks, you’re all into cars, I see.” Replying back happily, “I saw your car featured in the magazine not too long ago, it definitely stands out, too. You did so much to the car, I can tell you’ve put in lots of work on the engine. I bet that car handles as well as all the cars in our group. - ” The girl never seems to stop talking about the car, it’s as if she knew it inside and out. Matsumoto was pretty happy that she knew a lot about it.
Matsumoto, awkwardly scratching his head, was anticipating meeting the other members of the street racing gang. “Come on, I think you’d want to meet the other members, too…” Tokai was slightly blinded by her fangirling. Chucking his cigarette to the floor, Matsumoto walked over to the rest of the group, standing near their brightly-coloured cars.
“Hello, how is it going, my name is Tokisaki Kento, and our fangirl over there seems to be all over the car, you famous or something?” Reaching out his hand to Matsumoto. “I wouldn’t quite say so, but I guess my car did get featured in the magazine your friend was talking about.” Matsumoto reached out and shook his hands, “But yeah nice to meet you, name’s Naga Matsumoto.”
“Over there Umemura Ryuuko is a close touge-friend of mine, though she has a tendency to cook her engine…” Smirking at Ryuuko, as Ellie rolls her eyes at what was going to happen. Angrily replying to his remark, “SHUT UP! You also binned your car when I wasn’t even pushing” Yet again, the two were butting heads at one another, it was quite surreal for Matsumoto, they were quite the? Couple? Not quite, he couldnt put a finger on it…
“Enough, enough you two…” Interjecting herself between the two, “The name’s Ellie Thomas, an Australian, nice to meet you.” A rather tall foreigner, she was the one who was driving that V8 thing? Matsumoto replied, “I’m Naga Matsumoto, first time I’m seeing a V8 on the trail, chopped too.”
“It’s called a ute, pretty common where I come from, over the pond, in the land down unda’ (Eng) ” Briefly speaking in seemingly bastardised English as she points back to her blue ute with the rather race-like aero kit at the front.
“Your accent is impressive for a foreigner. Are you planning on racing it?” Pointing at the spare tyres and petrol canisters in the bed of the ute. “Yeah, ya see those two arguing love birds” Snickering quietly, “I saved those two cars quite regularly ya know. And thanks to me, they don’t have to worry about any breakdowns anytime soon”
“Sorry for causing the trouble,” as he scratches his head, with Ryuuko apologising, “Yeah, thanks to him, for making fun of me…” As the two momentarily look gazes again, Ellie shakes her head, face palming. “Sorry…” Kento pausing slightly flustered. The sudden sincere apology, caught her off guard as the two yet again, are caught up in their ‘affair’.
“I take it that the bumper scars are a trademark of the club, eh?” Chucking after the altercation between the members, Matsumoto ran his hand gently across the rear bumper of Ryuuko’s car. “I think you’ll be helping me out sooner or later as well.”
“I can show you under the bonnet if you’d like.” Reaching her hand toward the bonnet release wired under the centre console. Matsumoto anticipated seeing the racer’s equipment under the bonnet. Lifting the bonnet, Ryuuko said in a muted voice “There was once an 8-valve engine here, I blew it somewhere over…” Pointing her finger at a distant corner on the mountain pass. Matsumoto noticed the new valve cover and exhaust manifold “That’s not the case anymore, huh” Moving out of the moonlight, a 20 Valve emblem on the matte-black engine cover lit up.
“I kinda blew that engine while practicing for a race. I was saving up for this engine for a while after that.” Lifting the tag from the engine lift point, the word “GROUP-A” could be made out, pressed into the metal. “You even gave it a gigantic turbo, props.” Ryuuko blushed as the seemingly magazine-famous street racer complimented her car at every chance he got.
Kento stepped in and asked, “Tokai told me that you found your car deserted at the bottom of a hillside path, or something.” Leaning on his car, Kento started once more, “I got this ol’ girl from my pops” as he pointed to the classical 80s styling, a rather long car for the touge. “It’s a 1982 Suisei Ken GT, it was quite the killer back then, It still drives like a charm. Still holds up well to this day.” Pausing to also look at the many scratches on his car, “These bad boys are my ‘battle scars” slightly smug.
“Those are from you binning your car Kento, not from a battle.” Ryuuko lifting her eyebrow and a slight hint of a smile from her rather calm composure. Kento laughed at the reply, they seem to be close aren’t they, Matsumoto thought… chuckling, Kento popped the bonnet as well, “We’ve all decided to go down the turbo route”
Peering deeper into the engine bay, Naga spots the 5th and 6th cylinders. “Another straight-six, love it.” Turning toward Kento Matsumoto asks him, “What sort of power are you making?”
“360hp last time I checked when I got the new turbo, and apparently engine wise it said 380bhp. I’m pretty happy about this, I can send this car sending around the touge on the uphill very easily for a heavy car.” Touching the still warm engine.
Peering deeper into the Suisei’s engine bay, Matsumoto commented, “That’s quite some power, if you’ve managed that from 2.6 litres or less I’m actually quite embarrassed to say mine makes only 330 at the crank.”
“Though my engine is pretty laggy, from the paper graph the guy printed out. It’s quite a big turbo I mounted. Had to get basically a new set to support the new setup.” Pointing at the beefy intercooler and intake housing, fairly messy and amateurish. “It gets the job done. Not the prettiest setup.”
Tokai once again walked up to Matsumoto and sheepishly asked, “Mind if we see under the bonnet of your car?”
Turning around, away from the group Matsumoto started walking toward the flashy four-door. All members started following him, anticipating something big.
Reaching for the two separate bonnet latches, Matsumoto commented “You might want to lower your expectations a bit, it’s really nothing that special…”
The aluminium bonnet lifted without much effort, revealing the 2.6 litre six.
Noticing a bundle of metallic shielded tubing coming from the front bumper, Kento pointed and asked “What’s that supposed to do, it’s just hanging off the front bumper, right?”
Grinning slightly, Matsumoto said “Oil cooler. It’s the gold thing hanging off the bumper. This engine had problems with oil cooling even before tuning. The only annoyance in an otherwise superb engine. As you can see I’ve dealt with that in quite an… Agricultural fashion.”
Tokai commented on the “330” sticker hanging off the exhaust manifold “What does 330 mean? Is it some production number or…?”
Matsumoto reaches for the pocket inside his bomber jacket and pulls out the very magazine his car was featured in. Right on the front page, written in bold was “330PS!”
Continuing, Matsumoto remarked “The car was tuned at TR-RACING, as you probably know. All of their builds are hand-made and one-off.”
While the rest of the group was nerding out at the engine, Matsumoto stepped inside the car and yelled “Clear prop!” before firing up and revving the engine.
The signature smoothness of the engine meant Matsumoto could balance a coin on its side at the top of the valve cover.
Kento pointed toward the seemingly intricately-crafted rollcage and remarked “This girl can take quite a few screw ups by the looks of it…”
Chuckling, Naga replied “You remember Lancia’s team in the heyday of Group B rally? The most intense battle in the history of motorsport, Lancia vs. Audi.” Kento nodded. “Well they had to have roll cages for safety regulations, but the team’s leader deemed them too heavy. You wanna know what they did?” All of the other racers had turned to Matsumoto now. “They made it out of bloody cardboard…”
The group was stunned. Ryuuko asked “Is… Is that a cardboard roll cage…”
Everyone but Ellie burst out laughing. An obviously very high-effort car… with a cardboard rollcage?
“Oh that’s a shame” Knocking on the rollbar of the Ute, “Now this is a rollbar.”
Kento shook hands with Naga, “Nice meeting you, we’d like to take you to a race some time if that’s not a problem…”
Naga replied “Oh… sure, not like I’ve got much to do in the meantime.”
The group all headed back to their cars. The sound of four high-performance engines revving and tyres peeling was a welcome change in his otherwise mundane life.
In the rearview, Kento saw The tall racer wave to them before fading out behind the dark corner.
His early-generation digital clock now reading 00:43, Matsumoto slammed the 5-speed into gear and dropped the clutch before speeding down Mt. Haruna.
ABOUT
Heading out for a leisurely stroll up Mt. Haruna’s infamously beautiful forests and walkways, Matsumoto spots an ominous sight. Laying half-buried in the damp leaves is a 1986 Fukorami Clarin.
It looked as though other people have tread here before Matsumoto, the car was covered in graffiti and the interior was full of notes. The car had lost all its former majesty, it was now nothing more than an eyesore.
Matsumoto has always had a fascination with the brand, and more specifically this very car. It represented the finest in Japanese engineering at the time, packed with advanced features.
As an accomplished street racer, Matsumoto had a thought…
Due to the legislations in his prefecture, Matsumoto was able to submit a request to retrieve the seemingly abandoned car. After a month or so of nobody claiming the car, Matsumoto towed the car out of the thick forest.
After a deep and thorough clean, the car turned out to be in almost impeccable condition. Everything except for the engine and rear subframe were spotless.
Matsumoto set out on mission to restore the car to its former glory.
After installing a new subframe and fixing what little rot the chassis had, the interior was stripped and light-weight replacements were fitted. The car had been taken to TR-RACING after the easy-to-install items were fitted.
The car was fitted with chassis reinforcements, an aluminium bonnet and front wings, upgraded brakes, shocks and springs as well as an upgraded variant of the car’s original 2.6 straight-six which was now tuned to produce 320bhp.
After the part upgrades, TR-RACING fitted a Suzuka bodykit to the car, topping of the build.
The car, now garnished with the JVNIPER emblem, was the fastest Clarin ever conceived. the silky-smooth 2.6 litre 6 cylinder and 5-speed manual gearbox meant the car could go from 0-60 in nearly 4.5 seconds.
The interior was left spartan, the luxurious leather and mahogany trimming was thrown to the bin in place of lightweight plastic and fibre glass. The wheels were milled from a single piece of aluminium and took 3 months to complete.
Its stratospheric sticker would’ve surely put every other builder off, but Matsumoto was ready to pay.
After getting his car featured in a renowned Japanese tuning magazine, Matsumoto was satisfied.
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