bradc
24-01-2008, 09:20 AM
For some time now I had been wondering why Manual Legnum ST-R's with the V6 engine were so hard to find, and why they all had the boring front bumper on them, rather than the prefacelift style VR-4 bumper.
In case anyone isn't 100% sure on what an ST-R is, it is basically a VR-4 without the turbos and AYC. It has 4wd, dark interior plastics, 5-stud hubs, 16" prefacelift VR-4 style wheels, 2.5l V6 engine and so on.
In August 1996 when the 8G's came out, you could get two models, a 4 speed auto model and a 5 speed manual model. Both of these came standard with the boring bumper.
In September 1997 (13 months) they discontinued the manual model, and upgraded the auto model to have the VR-4 prefacelift bumper as standard. The was continued until August 1998 until the facelift came out and the 2.5 V6 was no longer sold in Jap spec cars, only the 1800 and 2400 GDI's existed (well along with VR-4's of course).
Now considering how few VR-4's are manuals, in a non performance Japanese sedan you'd expect there to be even less manual's. I don't know any numbers, but I can tell you that normally on trademe there are 1-2 25ST's in manual, and sometimes 1 ST-R in manual. At the moment there are none, however there are about 70 ST-R's in auto.
Also only about 20% of those have sunroofs, and while I've seen tiptronic ST-R's with either beige or black leather fairly regularly (say 15% of total numbers) I've never seen a manual with leather at all.
In case anyone isn't 100% sure on what an ST-R is, it is basically a VR-4 without the turbos and AYC. It has 4wd, dark interior plastics, 5-stud hubs, 16" prefacelift VR-4 style wheels, 2.5l V6 engine and so on.
In August 1996 when the 8G's came out, you could get two models, a 4 speed auto model and a 5 speed manual model. Both of these came standard with the boring bumper.
In September 1997 (13 months) they discontinued the manual model, and upgraded the auto model to have the VR-4 prefacelift bumper as standard. The was continued until August 1998 until the facelift came out and the 2.5 V6 was no longer sold in Jap spec cars, only the 1800 and 2400 GDI's existed (well along with VR-4's of course).
Now considering how few VR-4's are manuals, in a non performance Japanese sedan you'd expect there to be even less manual's. I don't know any numbers, but I can tell you that normally on trademe there are 1-2 25ST's in manual, and sometimes 1 ST-R in manual. At the moment there are none, however there are about 70 ST-R's in auto.
Also only about 20% of those have sunroofs, and while I've seen tiptronic ST-R's with either beige or black leather fairly regularly (say 15% of total numbers) I've never seen a manual with leather at all.