Jivaz Motor Corporation (JivazMC)

Car pictures coming later, I have to get photos of them.

Jivaz Motor Company was founded in 1975 in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. They released their first flagship model, the Mercari, in 1983.

The Mercari, a FWD hatchback with a design similar to the Honda Civic (the Mercari’s main competitor) EF generation. It came in two trims. The SE (Standard Edition), and the Type R. After a successful run with the Mercari, Jivaz released another model.

The Apex.

The Apex was Jivaz’s entrant to Group B rally, running a 3-liter I5 engine pushing 509 HP with a 35/65 AWD F/R ratio. The car placed relatively well, coming in the top 10 quite often. It competed with the Audi Sport Quattro.

In 1984, during the Tour de Corse, driver Jakob Seidler and his co-driver Luca Harrer lost control after a jump and rolled the car 10 times into a wall. Both were unhurt, but Jivaz pulled out the Apex for the remainder of the 1984 season. Following this, Jivaz announced the end of the Apex model and introduced a brand new model, the 450R.

The MY1986 450R was a rear-engined F4 car with a boxer 4 engine. (I haven’t built this car yet, but I’m planning on it). The 450R would only see one Group B championship before Group B was outlawed, and the model would be finished by 1990. The 450R was Jivaz’s shortest-lived model.

I do have more cars and such on this Google Doc with Jivaz’s 1980-2000 Competition models. Most models have not been built yet, so I will get photos out ASAP. Here’s the Doc if you wanna take a look: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLC58XukV9cGCaZlqbUM1GqZxVw_Xcn3N_LIMXyl9gg/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks for taking a look!

20190410155337_1

One of the Jivaz Apex’s concepts. This particular concept never made it past design, as the engine bay only allowed for a 1.5 liter inline 5. It was figured the most that the 1.5-liter engine could make was roughly 368 horsepower. Thus, the design was denied, and the design team went back to work.

(Ironically, this was my original design for the Apex Cincco rally car. I had already made the engine but in order to give the car both the 3.0-liter and AWD, I needed to shrink the engine. After a bit of testing in BeamNG, I decided that the car was too slow and weak to be considered a formidable Group B car. The design was heavily based on the Audi Sport Quattro.)

1995: Jivaz builds the Dynamo and Dynamo Sport, two kei cars built for the American market.

The Jivaz Dynamo was Jivaz’s own kei car built for the American market. The car found good sales as it had no direct competitors in the States, and was popular among tuners.

The Dynamo ran a .64-liter flat-4. The base model was naturally aspirated and had 63 HP (this way, they could sell the base model in Japan). The base model was also FWD. The Sport also ran a .64-liter flat-4, but was twin turbocharged and AWD. The Sport made 77 HP and was only for the American market.

In 2000, Jivaz ended Dynamo production in favor of the Paladin, Jivaz’s competitor to the Subaru Legacy.


Crappy photo, I know. I’ll get better ones later.