TommyKaira ZZII - A Promising car that never made into production

Unless you were an intensive Gran Turismo player at some point of your life, you probably never heard of this Mid-Engine Supercar and also the company that made it, the reason for that is because this car never really made it to the mainstream world of cars, never had any media appearance apart from Gran Turismo and it never even made it into production. It is a car made by a tuning company from Japan who had already spawned many tuned products that is TommyKaira, and the car I’m talking about is the ZZII, a car from a promising idea that has never made.

We’ll start with the company itself, TommyKaira is a Japanese tuning company that made its existence in the early 70s under the name “Tomita Yume Kojo”, and they started out making and tuning Mercedes-Benz cars. One of their first products were the Mercedes 190E-based M19, where they took an normal W201 and then altering the engine, suspension and also a stiffer bodywork, they also did the same treatment to the W124 300E, calling it the M30E. From 1990 onwards, TommyKaira decided to transfer their focus from Mercedes to local JDM cars with Nissan and Subaru were the selected brands for their job, this idea spawned great tuned cars such as the Impreza-based M20B, a Legacy-based M20TB, an R33 Skyline-based M25 and also the TommyKaira Z based on a Z33. On most (or even all) of these mentioned products were entirely rebranded like they were the ones who made it, similar to what RUF did on Porsche cars. Unlike RUF though, TommyKaira did decided in the mid 90s to make their own car with their entirely designed and developed, that is the ZZ.

The TommyKaira ZZ is their first car they developed from the start and it could be recognized as the Japanese answer to the Lotus Elise as it is a mid-engined sports car with a lightweight and small body design with minimal power. Having a relation with Nissan, the ZZ is fitted a SR20DE engine straight from a Nissan Silvia that puts out about 190 HP and its 650 KG weight results with 4 seconds to 100 KM/H, The formula of this really is the same to the Lotus Elise. The “S” variant came along later with a more sportier character and slightly more power, there was a newer version of the ZZ in 2014 with the help from Green Lord Motors which had a much modern design language. However, the originally-planned successor of the ZZ was meant to be the one with the most potential chance for a Japanese mid-engine supercar.

The TommyKaira ZZII prototype came along in 2001 during the Frankfurt Motor Show and it was meant to be the 2nd generation of the ZZ, it had the similar design formula to the outgoing model though it is larger and heavier. Because of this TommyKaira put an engine from an BNR32 Skyline GTR, yes an RB26DETT engine sourced by Nissan has found its way into the 2nd generation of the ZZ, that puts out 542 HP delivered to all 4 wheels, resulting 3 seconds to 100 and the top speed of 338 KM/H. More than that, the bodywork is made entirely by Carbon Fibre with an Aluminium chasis, so the car entirely only weighs exactly a ton. As a whole the ZZII is the most promising and the most exciting car TommyKaira has ever made from scratch, it was essentially is what a mid-engine Skyline GTR would look like if it ever was a thing, though despite this the ZZII never really remembered by most people because it is unfortunate that this car never made it into production due to financial difficulties experienced by TommyKaira itself. In addition to that, just 1 prototype model is created and currently in existence.

Autobachs ownership

In the early 2000s (roughly sometime during/after the ZZII unveiled) a small company named Autobachs Seven bought out TommyKaira and then renamed it to ASL. Their first product was the Garaiya which is basically a more subtle and modernized version of the normal ZZ, only it had a different look and a heavier body (900 KG). The engine for the Garaiya is a more modern SR20VE found from normal Nissan saloons like the Primera, producing 198 HP. This car was even featured in the GT300 class of the Japanese Touring Car series “Super GT” and its driven by Aguri Suzuki, a former Formula 1 driver from the 90s. ASL considered the idea of the amazing ZZII and decided to take the idea to make the 2nd attempt of it, they were planned to create a more powerful version of the normal Garaiya with basically a race-spec car for the road, like the ZZII it would feature an RB26 engine from the GTR and it even has the same ATTESA ETS 4WD system from the BNR34 Skyline. Again sadly, the making of this project has never see the light of production and no further plans were heard or announced.

As a result, the idea of the ZZII from TommyKaira never really caught on due to the fact that it never went into production, and the car itself were not remembered by many people even though it had one of the most famous engines ever existed. The ZZII and also other cars made by TommyKaira and ASL were featured in Gran Turismo games, which is probably where most of us knew about this brand in general. Still, it is an amazing that a tuning company who started out tuning cars and ended up design their own cars from their own ideas and come up with the ZZII…