He worked as a mechanic and took side jobs modifying cars for extra cash. It was also the place to find the parts and know-how he needed to build his own cars. The city was the center of car culture and had plenty of racing options. So he moved to Tokyo, where he paved a path toward his dream of becoming a racer. Eventually, he was fired from his job due to his obsession with tuning his car during work hours. The roads were dangerous and the conditions harsh, but Smokey kept pushing his car to its limits. He drove his car, a new but tricked-out Toyota Celica, in the Hokkaido mountains, where he explored the limits of his vehicle and tested out different modifications. Then he got a job from the shop owner and began to learn the ins and outs of car modification. This let him drive the car to school and got him expelled as he was an underage driver. He tinkered with it, but couldn’t fix it, so he went to a local Toyota shop and asked the boss to help him. He also developed the same thirst for speed as his father as he watched him race on the unpaved roads near his house.Īt 15, he bought a Mitsubishi Galant GT, his first car. He began working on small engines at an early age and soon discovered that he had a real knack for modifying them. Living on farmland, he didn’t grow up seeing many cars, but from a young age, he was fascinated by machinery and its potential, mainly because his father was a fast driver. Kuzuhiko “Smokey” Nagata was born in 1964 and raised in Hokkaido. The Early Years of Smokey Nagata The Birth of His Love for Cars
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