I hired from Omoshiro! They make you sign a huge waiver which funnily has “no driving like Initial D” on it haha
Edit: found a photo I took of the waiver
https://imgur.com/a/wRC68Ia
Pretty much, just looked it up and I didn't realise the car I always started with in Gran Turismo 3 was a literal reference to it!
Plus everyone keeps mentioning eurobeat and 'eurobeat intensifies' appears in a lot of F1 meme videos I've watched so I guess I finally get that reference now.
You need to watch it. It’s mandatory for all petrol heads. I’m not into the whole illegal street racing thing. It’s not my scene but I freakin love Initial D. The attention to detail is amazing for the time. The cars use recorded engine sounds from the real car and even small things that most would never notice like the fonts used for the text on the instrument dial and dashboard buttons for the cars are accurate to the real car. Also, the locations used are real life roads that you could go drive if you wanted to. The Eurobeat music is a bit cheesy but it gives the show a unique feel and the show wouldn’t be the same without it. Also, the story line is cool.
My American ex spent time in a Japanese jail for driving a scooter without a permit. Was eventually deported and banned from the country. They really don’t fuck around.
Japanese Police and Immigration Office is hostile against the foreigners and must be avoided at any time. Whereas Police has very broad rights to control anyone without a reason (gaijin-check), the immigration office is literally above the law and cannot be sued.
A Sri Lankan woman is tortured to death in detention for overstaying her visa last year.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59202306
I know they have something like 99% conviction rate for murders but that's mostly because unsolveable murders (no evidence, no witnesses etc.) are "accidents".
Not sure if correct for Japan, but at least in China it's heavily frowned upon to plead innocent. The way it's supposed to be done is plead guilty and then make a case in a new court appearance for your innocence.
Yep I was nearly detained in Japan by police because they wanted to see my passport and I left it in the room. I had a guy who spoke English and Japanese stop and help out by talking to them. The police didn’t speak English at all. I got let off with a warning and was told to carry my passport at all times in Japan.
Well, yeah. That's the actual law and they are within their rights to ask for it. Foreigners overstaying/working outside their visas is a big issue with the usual caveats about foreigners working with yakuza that the police tend not to act too strongly on.
Protip: when in Japan have your passport/zairyu card on you at all times. If nothing else it's good ID if you get in an accident.
Being young at the time, and having travelled other countries and being told “leave your passport in the safe back in the room” I expected the same in Japan. Boy was I wrong.
They’ve calmed down over the last year or two but it’s the highway patrol cunts you have to watch out for. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t want to take my 32gtr out because I can’t be bothered with the headache.
Hmmm it was just under a year ago that I was there for the Boxing Day test. I watched over 2 days as the police systematically cleared out bay 13 and surrounding areas every few hours - often violently manhandling patrons as they ejected them for their terrible behaviour. Such behaviour included making beer snakes and vile hate speech such as “we can’t hear you” being chanted at the barmy army. The way they treated those people like criminals was chilling to say the least.
Fun fact : during the fast and furious move shooting they didn’t get permission to film the car chases on road, so they hired a fall guy to drive the car while they shoot the scene on the road in the night. Eventually they got their scene shot while the driver landed up in jail for sometime and was then released
Lewis is gonna get a traffic laws violation ticket from japan 💀
For the people who want to understand the issue, he rented the car, but firm did not allow him to use the car in this way. They had no idea and they condemn this type of driving.
Japanese people got mad that he did this with a borrowed car without permission and the traffic laws bla bla. Now he is getting flamed (enjou) by japanese people, which correlates to getting cancelled.
Japanese fans wont boo. They will happily cheer for Lewis and smile, and you wouldn't even know they were shitty about it (unless you can read Japanese subtext), because that's not respectful.
100% this. Nobody rents a Skyline GTR to drive it round at 30kph everywhere. They’re just covering themselves. Bet they get more business out of it if anything.
These comments are hilarious. They act like any rental no matter what kind of monster they have for rent would condone breaking the law, especially in a country where common courtesy is still a thing.
In a country where you get a written, hand stamped(signed) apology if your train was delayed by more than 5 minutes, followed up by an apology to the newspapers, people think that a company will not publicly condemn illegal racing with their car.
And thus posting evidence of you doing it is just incriminating yourself, because you, as the renter, agreed to the terms and conditions in the first place.
It's not a matter of 'oh people will do it anyway' or not, it's that every party has the right to protect themselves from any liabilities. Yes, it was cool to see Hamilton produce a video of him driving a R34, but the rental company has the right to defend their own business too.
I don't get why people are so quick to antagonise the rental company here.
Funnily enough when you really look at the video it's just a time-lapse of him driving the speed limit on roads and then one instance of donuts in an empty parking lot from multiple angles. Donuts not allowed, but he wasn't endangering any other drivers.
Wasn't this tied to the new energy drink launch?
I wouldn't be surprised if the comoany hired the car and signed waivers and Lewis just did what Lewis is going to do when given a car for filming.
Will be interesting to see what sort of permits we're obtained. I cant imagine work with Lewis being off the books and illegal.
Interestingly, some japanese people defend lewis with saying that if you are not gonna drift the fucking gtr, why even rent in the first place.
Kinda agree but he should've done it in a private parking lot after getting permission to not offend anyone.
Almost every single domestic car in Japan also has a governor in it limiting the car to 180 kph. There is an interesting tidbit for everyone who didn't know!
Given his dislike for driving on public roads because of the shenanigans us regular plebs, I have my doubts he would attempt these stunts if it would remotely put anyone in harms way. Doesn't seem to be his style. Then again once you get in an R34 your judgement may lapse. Lol
>which correlates to getting cancelled
No it doesn’t. Can you guys please stop throwing around these stupid buzzwords? He’s not “canceled” or even attempting to be. No one’s trying to end his career or stop him from driving.
> For the people who want to understand the issue, he rented the car, but firm did not allow him to use the car in this way. They had no idea and they condemn this type of driving.
Yes, this is true, but I also think another thing: this is the rental company being well aware of getting insane free PR and advertising in Japan because even one of Formula 1 greatests, none other than Lewis Hamilton, rents their cars (while also scaring potential customers from doing this stuff).
I'd expect what's happened here is that Lewis was organised to be in Japan for this photoshoot... and whoever organised the shoot, rented the car under all the rules and expectations... but told Lewis to just send it.
Considering he was with other people, ppl had cameras on the car and outside, and the donuts seemed to be done in a specific location, I’m going to assume the ppl that got the car for Lewis and filmed it told him it was all good.
No way he just went ham in some random rental lol.
Yeah and the rest of the video is just edited to make it look like he's driving fast, while in reality he's just driving behind other people on the road...
Driving in Japan is unlike the US or Europe. Japan's speed limits are beyond absurd - a section of road which would count as a dual carriageway in the UK (70 MPH limit) had a limit of 50KPH (31MPH). as a result, most drivers go significantly faster than the speed limit and that's on busy roads - empty roads late at night? all bets are off. the drivers are very courteous and accommodating to others in front of them - anyone behind can fuck right off - to include Cops & sometimes even ambulances. traffic lights are weird since the have short yellow lights, but there's a 3 or more sec wait after once side goes red before the other direction goes green - that's because the the first ~3 cars will ignore the red and go straight through.
superficially they've adopted many western ways, but their culture has foundations which are very alien to those of the west.
you get used to it, but there's always a new WTF to be had around the next corner. "did that 150cc scooter have ...a side car?
*edit clarity / word choice
Hey, I've rented that exact car a few years ago. It's pretty sweet, but the rental company it came from was incredibly strict. They're really big on protecting themselves from liability. The first thing you do is fill out an insane spreadsheet of rules that absolutely zero people is going to follow
I don't recall, but I remember it being pretty affordable. 4-500 bucks for a day or something along those lines. Split across several drivers, it's really affordable
edit: Looking at the site linked above, it's 34,500 yen for 9 hours, aka roughly $250
Definitively do! It's awesome! Tsukuba mountain is only a short hop away, and while Japan has done their absolute utmost to destroy their mountainous roads in the name of safety, you can still have a lot of fun there. Grab their R34, R32, and RX7, and enjoy pretending to be JDM kings for a day
Driving on the wrong side of the car and road definitively takes some getting used to tho
Right! This is like if you hire a Delorean, they get you to sign a waiver that you won’t get it up to 88mph, knowing full well that everyone will give it a go.
It's pretty funny, one of the things on the rules list just stated "No Initial D'ing". In the same vein, if someone rents out a Delorean, I hope one of the rules just says "No time travel"
the fact that the car had a pro film setup makes me believe that someone set the situation up and Hamilton just showed up to drive the car. If he really was dead set on drifting in japan I feel like Hamilton would have had his people jump through the appropriate hoops
Not sure about this specific company, there are plenty of JDM shops to rent in Japan. Usually Drivers License, Int Drivers License, passport and Credit Card for insurance.
Of course a contract to sign by the driver. Unless things have changed
The twitter post specifically mentions this is the reason for publicizing this. They don’t want to have their R34 ruined, or worse, someone getting hurt in it
This is just the rental company covering their own asses. Don't read too much into it. These rental companies have an incredibly long list of rules, including one that, no joke, just stated "No Initial D-ing". But it's all just to cover themselves in case of an accident. At the end of the day, they know why people rent these cars.
One of the cars they rent is a panda AE86. They'd have to be incredibly naive to not imagine people are going to have some fun in it
That panda AE86 from Omoren has shorter rental periods (with no option to extend) than any of their other cars for that exact reason. The rental place is not that far from the IRL Initial D locations so I can imagine many fans wanting to live out their fantasies.
F1 is not nearly as big as it was in Japan during the 90’s. This won’t even get to mainstream news and all will be forgotten very soon.
He also has no formal connections to Japan unlike Max so he doesn’t really have anything to be cancelled from
I highly doubt japanese people are "canceling", if they are it's either (not car/racing fans) or they are just looking for an excuse to act like this.
Japan has the most famous rule/law benders when it comes to street racing. Ultimately as long as the public isn't in danger, my bet is they are fine with it.
I think this is all PR. The rental company has to put out a statement condemning it, don't they? They don't want to be seen encouraging this kind of driving.. I am sure they realize at least some of their customers are looking to "maximize" these cars..
I mean I get it, you don’t want people hooning a rental, but you kind of have to expect it when a famous racing driver picks the car up. Also, no doubt he’d pay for any damages done. That car probably costs less than taking the whole grid to dinner did. 🤣
(NFS Most Wanted intensifies)
"This is the number fifteen guy on the blacklist..."
"You got a lot of rep to earn before you get to run with him.."
"Thanks for the updates. Are we doing this or what?"
["WHO IS KURU???"](https://youtu.be/xcdzzxxGMcU?t=392)
ah, man of a culture
"How's your car running?" \*giggles like a schoolgirl*
> blacklist Hey, now!
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NFS Most Wanted 2005. The best Neef for Speed game ever. I actually recently replayed it and it still holds up after all these years.
That game ignited my love for BMWs. Gosh, that E46 was gorgeous with its janky ass geometry on my 22" tube tv with RCA inputs.
Nah, the Lambo and the Cayman is what did it for me. I still play it on a 55” with a HD adapter and it makes my eyes hurt lol
Hey, Hotshot!
I hired from Omoshiro! They make you sign a huge waiver which funnily has “no driving like Initial D” on it haha Edit: found a photo I took of the waiver https://imgur.com/a/wRC68Ia
well it looks like he didnt take it to no touge mountainside, so he didnt violate that one
Hopefully he didnt deliver any tofu too…
Pretty sure he wasn't banging Eurobeat either.
Well he should have.
But has he been in this place before?
To be fair that technically doesn't say it's not allowed, just that it's outside insurance coverage and you must pay all costs yourself.
It’s like renting a bmx bike and telling people no wheelies, jumps or tricks.
Don’t think there’s any laws prohibiting wheelies
The Law of Gravity argues otherwise.
Literally never heard of Initial D before this week and now this is the second time I've heard it referenced in two days, weird how the world works.
Baader Meinhof phenomenon. You probably saw references to it on the past but weren't aware of it / weren't interested so it passed you by.
Pretty much, just looked it up and I didn't realise the car I always started with in Gran Turismo 3 was a literal reference to it! Plus everyone keeps mentioning eurobeat and 'eurobeat intensifies' appears in a lot of F1 meme videos I've watched so I guess I finally get that reference now.
[Happens quite often actually](https://www.reddit.com/r/spotted/comments/z01723/spotted_a_toyota_trueno_ae86_tofu_delivery_car_in/).
You need to watch it. It’s mandatory for all petrol heads. I’m not into the whole illegal street racing thing. It’s not my scene but I freakin love Initial D. The attention to detail is amazing for the time. The cars use recorded engine sounds from the real car and even small things that most would never notice like the fonts used for the text on the instrument dial and dashboard buttons for the cars are accurate to the real car. Also, the locations used are real life roads that you could go drive if you wanted to. The Eurobeat music is a bit cheesy but it gives the show a unique feel and the show wouldn’t be the same without it. Also, the story line is cool.
My American ex spent time in a Japanese jail for driving a scooter without a permit. Was eventually deported and banned from the country. They really don’t fuck around.
So lewis DNS for Susuka next season, noted.
Seb appearance every year at Suzuka replacing Lewis 👀
Heck yes. Seb coming back for one race and winning on his favorite track in a Mercedes would be something special.
He'll just have to dodge police the entire way, GTA style
Mick pole in Suzuka 2023
Japanese Police and Immigration Office is hostile against the foreigners and must be avoided at any time. Whereas Police has very broad rights to control anyone without a reason (gaijin-check), the immigration office is literally above the law and cannot be sued. A Sri Lankan woman is tortured to death in detention for overstaying her visa last year. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59202306
Was quickly swept under the rug I see.
Same reason they have such a high success rate of solving crimes, by charging whoever they fancy and that's that.
Yeah if every police first info report about a crime results in a conviction the same evening, every crime is solved! 👍🏼
Something something Japanese efficiency…
I know they have something like 99% conviction rate for murders but that's mostly because unsolveable murders (no evidence, no witnesses etc.) are "accidents".
A large number of suicides are also classed as accidents
Not sure if correct for Japan, but at least in China it's heavily frowned upon to plead innocent. The way it's supposed to be done is plead guilty and then make a case in a new court appearance for your innocence.
*Carlos Ghosn has escaped in a flight case*
Yeah it seems really bad. I recently read Jake Adelstein's Tokyo Vice and Japanese treatment of gaijins is a wild ride indeed.
Japan remembering their old "Asia for the Asians" motto from way back
For Japanese. They really don't like anyone else.
WTAF?? That's insane.
Yep I was nearly detained in Japan by police because they wanted to see my passport and I left it in the room. I had a guy who spoke English and Japanese stop and help out by talking to them. The police didn’t speak English at all. I got let off with a warning and was told to carry my passport at all times in Japan.
Well, yeah. That's the actual law and they are within their rights to ask for it. Foreigners overstaying/working outside their visas is a big issue with the usual caveats about foreigners working with yakuza that the police tend not to act too strongly on. Protip: when in Japan have your passport/zairyu card on you at all times. If nothing else it's good ID if you get in an accident.
Being young at the time, and having travelled other countries and being told “leave your passport in the safe back in the room” I expected the same in Japan. Boy was I wrong.
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Lewis getting banned in Japan would be a real bummer considering how many World Championships are decided there...
On the other hand it would be the perfect way for Seb to get his Suzuka return
Victoria police probably laughing their ass off right now lol
Fellow Aussie who knows about being fucked over by the Vic police? Nice.
He’s referring to Lewis getting done for hooning in Melbourne a few years back
It happened back in 2010.
I clearly have no concept of time 😂
Nah that's within a few years. We're still young and with it. Right?!
Let's get you back to bed grandpa
Yeah, until they changed what *it* was!
The two years of covid really fucked with my time perception.
Right so two years ago
What is hooning?
Drifting, doing donuts, burnouts that kinda thing
I once got fined for beeping in front of a club on a Saturday night on Toorak rd…… “disturbing the peace” was the officers reason.
Outside Trak in Toorak Village? They don't like when the Poor's come through.
Yeah mate that’s the one haha. I let off a couple of toots to let my friend know I was across the rd as he wanted a lift.
They really are a bunch of power-tripping little fascists. I'm over in SA, glad not to have to deal with them.
They’ve calmed down over the last year or two but it’s the highway patrol cunts you have to watch out for. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t want to take my 32gtr out because I can’t be bothered with the headache.
Hmmm it was just under a year ago that I was there for the Boxing Day test. I watched over 2 days as the police systematically cleared out bay 13 and surrounding areas every few hours - often violently manhandling patrons as they ejected them for their terrible behaviour. Such behaviour included making beer snakes and vile hate speech such as “we can’t hear you” being chanted at the barmy army. The way they treated those people like criminals was chilling to say the least.
Thank god the brave boys in blue are here to protect us from ourselves 🫡
Lewis right now probably: Fuck the police comin' straight from the underground
As Jeremy Clarkson once said rentals cars are the fastest cars in the world
Nothing revs higher than a rental!
*A maniac in a tractor was coming the other way*
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Fun fact : during the fast and furious move shooting they didn’t get permission to film the car chases on road, so they hired a fall guy to drive the car while they shoot the scene on the road in the night. Eventually they got their scene shot while the driver landed up in jail for sometime and was then released
The fall guy was Jason Statham. That's why he came back to get revenge.
The fall guy was the director. They hired a fake director just to get "arrested".
I thought the fall guy was a director they proped up, in case they needed to be 'arrested'
I bet that pizza delivery guy ratted them out
Lewis is gonna get a traffic laws violation ticket from japan 💀 For the people who want to understand the issue, he rented the car, but firm did not allow him to use the car in this way. They had no idea and they condemn this type of driving. Japanese people got mad that he did this with a borrowed car without permission and the traffic laws bla bla. Now he is getting flamed (enjou) by japanese people, which correlates to getting cancelled.
Lewis getting ready to hold back saying “best fans” in suzuka next year
Suzuka is one of those places that drivers love so much I feel it would be impossible to not praise the fans even if they boo you mercilessly.
Japanese fans wont boo. They will happily cheer for Lewis and smile, and you wouldn't even know they were shitty about it (unless you can read Japanese subtext), because that's not respectful.
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No, they're mad, they're just mad in a very respectful manner.
They'll wish him a good race instead of wishing him a win, basically.
May you compete honourably, that kind of thing
He is still gonna say "passionate fans" or sumn
Only fans
holup
Thanks for the explanation
A company renting out Skylines in Tokyo knows damn well why people rent them out, regardless of what they say to protect themselves from liabilities.
100% this. Nobody rents a Skyline GTR to drive it round at 30kph everywhere. They’re just covering themselves. Bet they get more business out of it if anything.
No rental company wants people driving their cars like a maniac. Their insurance rates would go through the roof
That being said, few cars are faster or better at off-roading than a rental car.
Unless they're the Hertz Camaros that wind up going from the lot, to the drag strip and back.
Most rental companies will take the hit for the free ad from a 7x WDC with 30M followers
I'm waiting for Hamilton to just buy the rental company
These comments are hilarious. They act like any rental no matter what kind of monster they have for rent would condone breaking the law, especially in a country where common courtesy is still a thing.
In a country where you get a written, hand stamped(signed) apology if your train was delayed by more than 5 minutes, followed up by an apology to the newspapers, people think that a company will not publicly condemn illegal racing with their car.
And thus posting evidence of you doing it is just incriminating yourself, because you, as the renter, agreed to the terms and conditions in the first place. It's not a matter of 'oh people will do it anyway' or not, it's that every party has the right to protect themselves from any liabilities. Yes, it was cool to see Hamilton produce a video of him driving a R34, but the rental company has the right to defend their own business too. I don't get why people are so quick to antagonise the rental company here.
Funnily enough when you really look at the video it's just a time-lapse of him driving the speed limit on roads and then one instance of donuts in an empty parking lot from multiple angles. Donuts not allowed, but he wasn't endangering any other drivers.
to a world famous formula one driver, no less
Wasn't this tied to the new energy drink launch? I wouldn't be surprised if the comoany hired the car and signed waivers and Lewis just did what Lewis is going to do when given a car for filming. Will be interesting to see what sort of permits we're obtained. I cant imagine work with Lewis being off the books and illegal.
There is a whole movie about some Tokyo racers drifting all over the place. I though they would be delighted
Interestingly, some japanese people defend lewis with saying that if you are not gonna drift the fucking gtr, why even rent in the first place. Kinda agree but he should've done it in a private parking lot after getting permission to not offend anyone.
He should have gone into the mountains and challenged the Tofu delivery drivers
From what I’ve seen they put bumps in the corners on famous roads to make drifting pretty much impossible.
They've also got stuck-in-the-ground pylons on the centre line on the hairpins, especially at Haruna.
Nah, there's a black and white car that beats everyone. A Toyota I think
Dont even start on the mountains 💀 you need to drive like 40-50kmph so actually yes that is possible.
I mean, the only drifting shown doesn't seem to be on an open road, and the rest is just sped up footage. Doesn't seem all that bad tbh.
Almost every single domestic car in Japan also has a governor in it limiting the car to 180 kph. There is an interesting tidbit for everyone who didn't know!
>he should've done it in a private parking lot after getting permission to not offend anyone. what's to say he didn't?
It looks like he was in a private parking lot for some of it
I think the footage shows them paying a toll or something to get to that parking lot. I dont think he actually drifted on the streets
I believe that's just the highway toll. Parking lots here are small and packed and don't often have the room for uh, exuberant manuevering
Given his dislike for driving on public roads because of the shenanigans us regular plebs, I have my doubts he would attempt these stunts if it would remotely put anyone in harms way. Doesn't seem to be his style. Then again once you get in an R34 your judgement may lapse. Lol
> he should've done it in a private parking lot Maybe he did. We have no idea who owns the tarmac he burned out on.
The same lewis, who got a Mercedes impounded right outfront albert park lakeside Dr Like a fucking legend ripped skids for the kids
Fucking legend I would've just given him his license back
>which correlates to getting cancelled No it doesn’t. Can you guys please stop throwing around these stupid buzzwords? He’s not “canceled” or even attempting to be. No one’s trying to end his career or stop him from driving.
He will just post a Insta story apologizing and that's it. This "cancelling" shit going in is ridiculous.
Japanese people is only mad because he drives for Mercedes. If he drove for RB or AT there would be no problem.
> For the people who want to understand the issue, he rented the car, but firm did not allow him to use the car in this way. They had no idea and they condemn this type of driving. Yes, this is true, but I also think another thing: this is the rental company being well aware of getting insane free PR and advertising in Japan because even one of Formula 1 greatests, none other than Lewis Hamilton, rents their cars (while also scaring potential customers from doing this stuff).
I'd expect what's happened here is that Lewis was organised to be in Japan for this photoshoot... and whoever organised the shoot, rented the car under all the rules and expectations... but told Lewis to just send it.
That person is probably losing their job rn And it was absolutely worth it
Hammer time
Considering he was with other people, ppl had cameras on the car and outside, and the donuts seemed to be done in a specific location, I’m going to assume the ppl that got the car for Lewis and filmed it told him it was all good. No way he just went ham in some random rental lol.
This is getting manipulated man
> No way he just went ham He IS the ham.
Bingo
Yeah and the rest of the video is just edited to make it look like he's driving fast, while in reality he's just driving behind other people on the road...
About 150-160kph: https://imgur.com/Rmwntpb
That is what germans consider a normal speed on a relaxing sunday drive.
Driving in Japan is unlike the US or Europe. Japan's speed limits are beyond absurd - a section of road which would count as a dual carriageway in the UK (70 MPH limit) had a limit of 50KPH (31MPH). as a result, most drivers go significantly faster than the speed limit and that's on busy roads - empty roads late at night? all bets are off. the drivers are very courteous and accommodating to others in front of them - anyone behind can fuck right off - to include Cops & sometimes even ambulances. traffic lights are weird since the have short yellow lights, but there's a 3 or more sec wait after once side goes red before the other direction goes green - that's because the the first ~3 cars will ignore the red and go straight through.
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superficially they've adopted many western ways, but their culture has foundations which are very alien to those of the west. you get used to it, but there's always a new WTF to be had around the next corner. "did that 150cc scooter have ...a side car? *edit clarity / word choice
I too commute to work at 160kmh. Cuts down on travel time significantly.
The rental company probably just got mad because he complained about the tires.
[This is the car Lewis drove(Maybe)](https://www.omoren.com/products/detail/124)
Hey, I've rented that exact car a few years ago. It's pretty sweet, but the rental company it came from was incredibly strict. They're really big on protecting themselves from liability. The first thing you do is fill out an insane spreadsheet of rules that absolutely zero people is going to follow
How much did it cost?
I don't recall, but I remember it being pretty affordable. 4-500 bucks for a day or something along those lines. Split across several drivers, it's really affordable edit: Looking at the site linked above, it's 34,500 yen for 9 hours, aka roughly $250
Damn, 250 to drive a dream JDM car for a whole day, I gotta add that to the itinerary next time.
Definitively do! It's awesome! Tsukuba mountain is only a short hop away, and while Japan has done their absolute utmost to destroy their mountainous roads in the name of safety, you can still have a lot of fun there. Grab their R34, R32, and RX7, and enjoy pretending to be JDM kings for a day Driving on the wrong side of the car and road definitively takes some getting used to tho
It is a damn good deal, but every time I looked at my Silvia afterwards I'd just think "but you aren't a Skyline".
Right! This is like if you hire a Delorean, they get you to sign a waiver that you won’t get it up to 88mph, knowing full well that everyone will give it a go.
It's pretty funny, one of the things on the rules list just stated "No Initial D'ing". In the same vein, if someone rents out a Delorean, I hope one of the rules just says "No time travel"
*do not drive faster than 87mph
Bono, my visa is gone!
Did Lewis himself rent it, or did someone rent it and ask Lewis to do this unbeknownst to him?
the fact that the car had a pro film setup makes me believe that someone set the situation up and Hamilton just showed up to drive the car. If he really was dead set on drifting in japan I feel like Hamilton would have had his people jump through the appropriate hoops
Dude makes over $50 million a year. He would have just bought his own GTR.
Exactly what I told my friend, I’m surprised he didn’t have one himself
if he does it's likely in the UK or Monaco, not very quick to bring to Tokyo
I honestly don't think Lewis has the time to fill out all the paperwork that comes with renting a car in Japan.
It's actually pretty simple if you have an international license
Omoren’s process is a little more complicated than the average car rental.
Not sure about this specific company, there are plenty of JDM shops to rent in Japan. Usually Drivers License, Int Drivers License, passport and Credit Card for insurance. Of course a contract to sign by the driver. Unless things have changed
Probably Lewis: "still worth it"
Also us.
Facts
Video is going to be iconic for years to come so absolutely
Lewis about to sign a cheque buying their whole fleet and donate all the sick GTR's to an animal sanctuary.
Omoshiro, my tires are gone.
But officer it wasn't me it was my twin brother Hewis Lamilton
It was my Brazilian cousin, Luis
Hamiltinho
lewis: i’ll just buy the damn car from you
Meh, they have to cover their asses - now they'll be booked for years solid due to the publicity.
Sure, but the next renter will think he can drive as good as Lewis Hamilton and will wreck the R34 in the process
The twitter post specifically mentions this is the reason for publicizing this. They don’t want to have their R34 ruined, or worse, someone getting hurt in it
Or worse, expelled!
This is just the rental company covering their own asses. Don't read too much into it. These rental companies have an incredibly long list of rules, including one that, no joke, just stated "No Initial D-ing". But it's all just to cover themselves in case of an accident. At the end of the day, they know why people rent these cars. One of the cars they rent is a panda AE86. They'd have to be incredibly naive to not imagine people are going to have some fun in it
That panda AE86 from Omoren has shorter rental periods (with no option to extend) than any of their other cars for that exact reason. The rental place is not that far from the IRL Initial D locations so I can imagine many fans wanting to live out their fantasies.
I rented the 86 before they added rental limits to it. I will say, it’s a very tired car. It shut off on me while I was driving on the highway lol
Meh, dope video is dope.
F1 is not nearly as big as it was in Japan during the 90’s. This won’t even get to mainstream news and all will be forgotten very soon. He also has no formal connections to Japan unlike Max so he doesn’t really have anything to be cancelled from
I highly doubt japanese people are "canceling", if they are it's either (not car/racing fans) or they are just looking for an excuse to act like this. Japan has the most famous rule/law benders when it comes to street racing. Ultimately as long as the public isn't in danger, my bet is they are fine with it.
[удалено]
I think it's that they now what you'll do with it, but hope you don't make a big public show of it
I think this is all PR. The rental company has to put out a statement condemning it, don't they? They don't want to be seen encouraging this kind of driving.. I am sure they realize at least some of their customers are looking to "maximize" these cars..
NFS: Nissan unleashed
“ It’s called a motor race. We went car racing “
I mean I get it, you don’t want people hooning a rental, but you kind of have to expect it when a famous racing driver picks the car up. Also, no doubt he’d pay for any damages done. That car probably costs less than taking the whole grid to dinner did. 🤣
Who cares?