Keiichi Tsuchiya is one of the most popular racing drivers in the world. He is best known for his work in BEST MOTORing’s DVD series, where Japan’s best tuners bring their best cars to the Gunsai Touge to test out newly developed parts and setups.
It is also now known to many that Keiichi Tsuchiya was given the moniker “Drift King” after he “drifted” his cars in otherwise non-drifting events.
Today we take a look at the Japanese Racing Legend’s Honda NSX-R in Forza Horizon 4.
Keiichi Tsuchiya
Keiichi Tsuchiya is one of Japan’s most decorated racing drivers ever. He has earned multiple wins in multiple categories, such as the All Japan Touring Car Championship, JGTC, and the prestigious 24-hours of Le Mans, where he placed 2nd overall in the Toyota GT-1.
Tsuchiya-san is also known for his efforts in making drifting more popular and mainstream motorsport. He is the founder of multiple drifting championships and is often chosen to judge most major drifting competitions in Japan.
These days, Tsuchiya-san can often be seen as host and test-driver for BEST MOTORing’s DVD series where he and his co-hosts, NOB Taniguchi and Max Orido, take Japan’s best tuning cars to find out which tuner can conquer the very technical Gunsai Touge.
Despite his old age, Keiichi Tsuchiya can still hang around with the young guns and often stays competitive in races where he has the car disadvantage most of the time. This shows just how experienced and technically gifted Tsuchiya-san is when it comes to driving.
Drift-King’s Favorite Cars
Like most street-racers turned pro-circuit racers from the 80s, Keiichi Tsuchiya’s early motorsport career was propelled by pop culture and motorsports classic Toyota Corolla Sprinter Trueno AE86. With the AE86, Tsuchiya-san would often attack the mountain roads of Japan for fun and would often race illegally in the mountain roads of Japan until he rose to notoriety in the early 90s.
Because of this, Keiichi Tsuchiya still keeps his personal Toyota AE86 in his garage, alongside a few classics and a very rare Japanese Supercar: The Honda NSX-R.
Keiichi Tsuchiya and the Honda NSX-R
It is no secret that Keiichi Tsuchiya tends to develop an attachment with the cars he used to race professionally. During the 2000’s season of Japan’s JGTC, Keiichi Tsuchiya drove a bright-red Arta Autobacs NSX alongside his co-driver Aguri Suzuki. Both drivers only managed to secure 13th place overall in the 2000 JGTC.
Because of his brief racing history with the GT version of the Honda NSX, Tsuchiya-san, for the longest time, has kept a Pearl White Honda NSX-R in his garage. His NSX-R can be seen sometimes on BEST MOTORing’s segments, where he pits it against the newer Acura NSX and the previous Honda Civic Type-R.
Forza Horizon 4 thankfully has both the original NSX-R with the pop-up headlights and the late model NSX-R GT. The NSX-R GT looks the closest to Tsuchiya-san’s “regular” Honda NSX-R aside from a few changes.
Keiichi Tsuchiya only swaps wheels now and then to change things up. The closes in-game equivalents are:
- Rays Engineering Gram Lights 57 Optimise
- Yokohama Advan RGII
- HRE P47SC
In terms of engine and suspension upgrades, Tsuchiya-san only changed the coil overs to adjustable ones and swapped out the stock exhaust for a more throaty aftermarket option.
Tsuchiya-san likes to keep his cars in mostly stock form and only really opts for upgrades that can further enhance the current handling behavior of the car. In BEST MOTORing, he often pits his more conservative approach to car tuning versus the other Japanese Tuner’s all-out builds.
Although Tsuchiya-san rarely wins any of the races against the more heavily tuned cars from renowned Japanese Tuners on the Gunsai Touge, he continuously proves that cars do not have to be heavily modified to be fun to drive.
Dori-Kin NSX-R
Drift-King Keiichi Tsuchiya has undeniably good taste in cars. His NSX-R is the best example of an unmolested and tastefully modded Japanese Sports Car Classic. As he mentioned before in one of the BEST MOTORing episodes on YouTube, the only mods he has done to his NSX-R are a coil-over swap and a custom exhaust. The NSX-R is such a good symphony of power and balance that Drift-King himself opts not to change the car’s sublime handling characteristics.
Dori-Kin’s NSX-R is so good it manages to beat out the newer, more technologically advanced Acura NSX at the Gunsai Touge with at least 200 less horsepower. It shows power cannot beat the mechanical engineering marvel that is the Honda NSX-R.
There is not much to change to get the Keiichi Tsuchiya-NSX-R-look in Forza Horizon 4. Wheels, coil-overs, and an exhaust upgrade are the only things you need to change to get the Drift-King NSX-R look, much like the real thing itself. If you want to make the NSX-R more competitive, then a weight reduction and flywheel upgrade will make the car more responsive in both the engine and chassis departments.
