Throwback Thursday: BEST Motoring FF Battle
Ah, Best Motoring, Japan’s finest car “review” program and arguably coolest concept for an automotive video show. Best Motoring and it’s Hot Version spin-off pitted Japan’s best motorsport drivers against each other in track and touge battles. Driving a car hard and setting fast laps is one thing, but to so casually make notes and talk about the car and it’s driving dynamics is a seriously challenging endeavor. As cool as it is to see the 500+ horsepower RWD and AWD beasts being blasted around Tsukuba, it’s more impressive to see economy-based front-wheel drive compact cars duke it out. People discount FF (front-engine, front-wheel drive) chassis too easily, and as most Honda heads will tell you, don’t sleep on them.
Today’s TBT is a real throwback, about 20 years worth, from Best Motoring Hot Version #19, and features some of the finest hot Hondas to ever come from the land of the rising sun. This looks to be held at some configuration of Ebisu circuit, and pits an early Integra Type-R against a B18-powered Spoon Civic EK hatch; another B18-powered CRX; a turbocharged EG hatch and the odd man out, a Toyota AE111 chassis Trueno. Let’s see how it goes down: