imaspy

ok i was gonna enquire about prices until i checked your mod list good luck though!

hey!!!! the guy that owns the stagie must have just changed the grill... cos on monday when i saw it, it had a sexy, broad-spaced chrome mesh in there.... it wasnt loud and looked great IMO.... hehe yeah and about the video.... notice when i start walking down the street, the girl in front hits a tree with her umbrella... then of course i walk right under it and have my own personal little shower.. lol ... after the finished the vid, she called out 'sorry!' in english to me, it was so cute!

aaargh its so super-sexy! personally i would ditch the stickers. it was great to see (and hear) it in the flesh! or should that be steel

ok got my card reader back. now i know this is only crappy phone quality video and picture. so it cant really do this car justice. i am not joking, this thing looked like it had just been rolled out of a showroom. and yes, that is the glow of neons you can see underneath the car. i dunno about the wing/spoiler, but f**k me it sounded like a million dollars. interesting choice of wheels too, i think they looked good. drew. here is a link to the video. sorry bout the quality but photobucket automatically resizes it http://s82.photobucket.com/albums/j275/big...rent=MOL003.flv

sorry to tease everyone but yesterday i saw the sexiest stagea ive ever seen in japan. i managed to get one photo and one video however the pic is a little blurry because my hand was shaking with orgasmic delight. as soon as i get my mini-sd card reader back, ill get the stuff off my phone and post it here!!!!! promise you wont be disappointed!!! drew.

heheh those plates are cool, even if they are temporary... すき in japanese (su.ki), naturally, it sounds like 'ski'... it means 'like', as in ' i like this car!!!' yatta!

yep, high quality highways is right... except the speed limits are lower than home (they arent covering as much distance). see point 6 in my post about speeds! however, roughly half the country is pretty mountainous. but once again, a car like a stagea (or the majority of them) wouldnt have been pushed that hard on the mountains, as i think the typical stagea owner tends to be your average 40-something guy on the street. if youre looking at importing a stagea (as i will be eventually, when i get back to oz), it would be easy to tell if you should buy it or not. like one jspec, there is that red one with the gold wheels and mismatched bodykit. i would say that one would have been neglected (read: neglected; not 'abused'). however most of the stock (or close to stock) examples, i probably wouldnt think too long about buying. im not trying to be a smartass or anything by preaching all this info to you but hey, if it can help then maybe its not too bad. HOWEVER, one thing i am not too sure about re. driving conditions is the weather... of course oz is damn hot... but on the other hand, japan is damn humid (in the biggest cities).... for example yesterday it was only about 31 degrees, but no joke, i couldve sworn it was darwin, the humidity was so high. i thought i would be able to cut the air. would this constant high humidity in the summer and a little bit of spring have some kind of adverse effect on the engine etc? i wouldnt really know.... and i think one of the main things you need to worry about with a car from japan is the dashboard... they always have holes or adhesive pads where various things have been attached, eg navigation/dvd screens, cup holders, radar detectors, copious amounts of figurines etc

sorry luke but i feel i have to disagree there from my experience in japan, i can ascertain the following: 1. k's: most low k cars in japan are just that: low k's. because obviously, the country is smaller so there is less distance to travel. if you want to travel to antoher city, train is by far the cheaper option, i will never complain about the cost of citylink again after driving through japans overpriced highways. also, if you live in anything resembling a city, usually the train or subway works out cheaper than driving all the time. 2. most japanese people offload their cars after one or two cycles. a cycle is a when the shaken (some people say shyokan) is due to be renewed on the car. basically the car must pass an environmental test. if it fails, then the owner has to pay even more money to take the test again.... so it all adds up to be quite expensive. it often works out better (and sometimes cheaper) in the long run to get a new car from toyota at 4.2% financing. 3. the interiors are damn good, because thats how it is. people in japan are surprised when i tell them that the lacey seat covers (or seat covers in general) are not that common in australia. here, virtually every other car has seat doileys or some other protectors. 4. dealer service programs are a bit better in japan. this compensates for the lack of mechanics compared to home. obviously in australia, we have more harsh and adverse conditions to contend with. 5. an interesting difference between here and australia is that japanese people seem to smoke a lot more in their cars. so that could be an issue, we all know how hard it is to get that smell out if we dont like it. 6. japanese speed limits are looooowwww....... my girlfriend lives 21kms from the city.... it took us 50 minutes to drive to the city. at home, we would take a a highway and it would take 20 mins tops. cars like stageas (and many, many countless others) dont seem to be thrashed. so yeah, in my opinion, i would say there are more bargains (from an australian price perspective) than lemons, to be found in japan. just my 0.02c.

you bitch!!!! im jealous! i was eyeing that one off myself!!! best of luck to you though the price is fine. just from when i walk around yards in japan, you can get 97 models for about 3000 AUD if they have more than 90,000ks on em. soooo unfair, i wanna take em all home with me! its like going to the animal shelter!!!!

hey all found a couple of interesting stageas recently. first one was taken outside mos burger at night, with camera in the phone so noisy as hell, although you can see it has a nice kit. good looking stuff. second is the new stagea in a small nissan mini showroom in nagoya. i dont like the plastic going all the way around it but the interior is nice. i like how the back window is hinged up and the bottom part is hinged down. shame about the burgundy color too hehehe

been living in nagoya since february 05, and will regrettably be going home in august this year. to probably grab myself a stagea!! anyway if i had it my way i would live here a bit longer. but who knows eh?! cheers drew.

i do a bit of photography, though not as much as i should. go out and drink, learn calligraphy, hang out with my gf, take weekend trips, watch sumo (awesome!), eat, go car-watching, stagea-hunting, and basically just hang out. its just great that i get another handful of awesome experiences living here that i would just never get living in australia

hey everone. seeing as we like to post pics of japan i will post a link to some of mine. i havent got any of the car scene posted on this link (for obvious reasons) but perhaps i will tackle that if i get time. imaspy's gallery as you can see, it has many photos in it, not just japan. anyway! regards drew nagoya

go nagoyajo go!!!

ill get on to that soon justin. youre not missing terribly much in nagoya but its a good city nonetheless talk later!

hey all i am a new member to these forums, but have always been a member of antrx.com as imaspy. i have been living in japan since feb 05 and am in love with all the great models that we dont get in australia. of course its fair enough, we are such a small market, but even toyota is not dorky at all here. am current;y curious in importing a nissan stagea when i permantly settle back in melbourne again, mainly becuase they are everywhere here and of course, so cheap. i dont have much time to browse the forums (maybe once a week) so apologies if i seem rather scarce on these forums. thanks and have a good 2006! regards drew (nagoya)