The Calsonic March
I never thought this day would come. After nearly ten years of writing articles about other peoples cars on this website, I never thought id be putting together a feature about one of my vehicles. Its a little strange to be honest, I’ve spent years travelling around Ireland trying to root out the better side of Irish car culture and its funny to see this little blue nugget getting some attention.
I wanted to launch this feature in conjunction with the two-part vlog where we turned the green machine into the Calsonic blue nugget in just under four days, but unfortunately, I’m only getting around to it now.
I had been designing this thing for about a year in photoshop and moving it into illustrator, moving stuff around, I was trying to find the best balance for an R32 livery repurposed for the smaller body of a K11 March. At the time, I had no idea an actual k11 Calsonic March existed, so I decided to create one. I had seen an Impul kitted k11 done with a smaller set of Calsonic stickers on Noriyaro many moons ago but not completed to look like a full-on race car.
After purchasing the first K11, I started venturing down the rabbit hole on various Japanese blogs and websites. I Very quickly found out that there used to be a race series held for this K11 chassis, a car that I had otherwise assumed was the mode of transport for the elderly.
In Japan they race everything, from the Yaris/Vitz to the March/Micra, they have a one-make cup series for many cars, and this got me pretty damn excited. I could find heaps of photographs from the next generation of k12 Marches, but there wasn’t a whole lot of photos from the era where they raced the K11.
After months of digging, it hit me one day. I wanted to put a race livery on a mundane car that was sold domestically in Ireland. The March was sold in Europe as the Micra, it was a cheap reliable get around, and it sold quite well, winning the car of the year back in the 1990s.
These K11’s go forever and are still everywhere on Irish roads along with the Toyota starlet. The only thing that kills the March/Micra is rust. There are so many K11’s driving on the streets here from the ’90s and early Millenium; they have outlived many other cars from that era, a true testament to their reliability.
I’ve said it before, and ill repeat it, Gran Turismo ruined my life. Being a very young car enthusiast, I could name every model on the surrounding streets. I was proud of my car knowledge; as a nine-year-old boy, my family were impressed with my skills for calling out whatever vehicle passed us on the road. I thought I knew them all.
My world collapsed on Christmas 1997. A game called Gran Turismo came out for the Playstation, and my mind was unable to cope with all these new cars, my little nine-year-old brain was trying to process every version of the S-chassis in the used car section. There were more new car names than my mind could handle. I had to learn everything!
The Calsonic R32 ventured into GT2 left a permanent mark on my brain. I was fascinated by the blue and white paint job. Gran Turismo was incredible because each mundane machine had a full-on race version. You could pay 80,000 credits, and the car transformed into whatever race version of that car existed at the time. The K11 March in GT2 got a cool number on the door and a windshield banner! So many otherwise bland machines had an epic final form if you had the cash.
In 2016, when I returned home from Canada, I wanted something super cheap and reliable to get back on my feet and get around. It was a toss-up between a March or a Starlet.
I have always had a soft spot for little underpowered Japanese nuggets and 90s race cars, so I figured why not merge both, I got the job at JDMDistro when I landed back in Ireland, and this only fuelled my want to build a Calsonic race-inspired March.
After a few months of working there the auctions started to reveal a ton of really cheap parts, the coilovers were listed as junk, and we picked them up for just under 100 euros, the same scenario happened with the cage which just happened to be that Calsonic shade of blue. I picked up an RSR Panhard rod for 70 Euros.
I wanted some 14’s, they ran 13’s in the March cup on the K11, but 14’s were more common on the street, and I’d have a hard time finding decent 13 inch tyres for the road. I got incredibly lucky on this set of Wedssport RS5’s. They were also listed incorrectly on Yahoo and came with these meaty Potenza tyres for just under 300 euros. The white would be perfect for the Calsonic build. Potenzas were ideal as they were the main sponsor for the Calsonic team. The March build was falling into place.
I sat on the parts and the March design for just over a year, waiting until I had enough money to make it happen. I sat on the idea much longer than I would have liked, mainly due to the massive distraction that is the AE86 build! Not that I’m complaining, but people were laughing when I said I was still going to go ahead and paint the March, and do the livery, no matter what I was keen to make this happen.
I wanted the car to look as authentic as possible so the paint would have to be as close to original as we could find. Tamiya did colour for the Impul Calsonic model car kits, so I ordered this colour from Japan. Once it landed, we used that colour to make a sprayout-card and got a paint shop to match that colour. It was the best we could get.
For the design of the car I meshed the R32 Skyline with the P11 Primera, using brands which were common at the time, Ichikoh makes the lights for the March, and these stickers were on the P11, so these logos were perfect for the bumpers.
I love the Wakos oil logo and remember seeing these logos on a Calsinic R32 somewhere on the net. I decided to change out the Number 12 on the door for 11, the chassis code for the March is K11, so we switched it up for a bit of fun. I added the March logo to the top of the door number and did the same for the sun visor. I copied the R32 Skyline sun visor but mixed it up by adding the March graphic instead. I think they look pretty good.
There was total excitement in turning something mediocre into a neat little eye-catching nugget. Seeing that Iconic blue paint with those white stickers for the first time excited me to no end.
Under the hood, there are no real engine mods; the car is a daily driver, a dodgy little HKS mushroom and a Cusco strut brace is all that’s you will find. I blame Duggie for this entire situation. When I had one of the very first March’s back in the day, he purchased the Cusco strut brace from Yahoo auctions and gave it to me as a gift and sparked my interest in modifying a K11.
I drive this thing about 1000KMs a week with a Fixed back bride Zeta one fitted to a modified EG civic Bride rail. At first, the seat was a little tough to deal with on long journeys, but now I love it. The steering wheel is an ATS Sprint which was tossed on a shelf in a friends garage, it’s tatty, but it suits the car.
The only real item which I probably shouldn’t have purchased was the Impul shift knob, this was pricey enough but working with Yahoo auctions Monday to Friday, it’s hard to resist this sort of stuff. After the shift knob, I told myself that was enough stuff for the K11. I’ve tried to focus on the AE86 ever since.
Sure there are diffs, anti-roll bars, all sort of parts just waiting to be snapped up on Yahoo. I could turbo it, throw a bigger engine into it, there are so many ways I could go with the car, but I’m quite happy with its current configuration.
The hood pins and rear catches were bought online, along with the front tow hook, I tried to match everything to how the Skyline looked. Josh made a rear tow hook and welded it to the original one on the body. I put the names of the drivers who piloted the Skyline and the Primera.
This thing is super cheap, super reliable, decent on fuel and nippy enough to give me a laugh when I’m tearing along a windy road. It’s the perfect little runabout. I still walk out of a supermarket and laugh when I see a little blue blob in a sea of silver mundane Cross overs.
People want to talk about it, a lot of people are ashamed to admit they enjoy the car because it’s a March/Micra. Still, it just goes to show with a little imagination and some creativity; you can turn pretty much any car into something interesting.
Engine:
1000cc’s of pure fury
HKS Hot air intake
Suspension & Handling:
Cusco Coilover kit fitted to k11 strut.
TRD Yellow short stroke inserts
TRD blue AE86 rear suspension
RSR Panhard Rod
Cusco strut brace
Cusco half cage
Exterior:
Calsonic blue respray
Cool dude stickers
Tow hooks front + rear
Wiper and read boot lock delete
Bonnet pins
Rear boot springs
Wheels
Wedssport RS5’s
Potenza RS504 tyres
Interior
ATS Sprint steering wheel
5 Zigen horn button
Impul shift knob
Bride Zeta 1 Seat
Bride Rail
Sabelt harness