Japanese car enthusiast and apparent technophile Stan LeJay has a Subaru GC8 with a few tuner mods, but the most interesting by far is his home-made infotainment system that cranks Initial D Eurobeat music when the throttle opens up. Hilarity ensues.
Not that I endorse breaking the speed limit, but I do love seeing combinations of artistic and technological creativity, so I’m into this.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Initial D anime, manga and movie, it’s basically about tuner cars buzzing around Japan’s mountain roads. (And if you are familiar with it, you don’t need any more of an explanation.)
LeJay’s car here has been retrofitted with a double-DIN infotainment system that’s wired into the car’s computer to give it gauges, and also, be able to respond to certain parameters.
Like, for example, if he wants the music to hit when the throttle gets to a certain position in a certain mode. Which is exactly what happens. Albo Agunday’s video here takes you through a little bit of how the system works, but if you really want to dive in, LeJay himself wrote a pretty comprehensive guide and posted it online it back in December 2018.
He has the car set up to drop beats when he wants to go fast, or enter “Now I’m Pissed mode” as he puts it, and play downtempo anime “slice of life” tracks when he’s chilling.
The setup took “about 11 months” to bring online, but it looks like LeJay’s efforts paid off–this is certainly an amusing car mod.