Tokyo show 2011: the racers are back

God bless the Japanese. Hard to imagine how tough it's been this year, but their hearts still beat a little faster for cars, faster still for racing cars. Here's a Super Touring take on the Subaru BRZ. Super Touring is the cradle for Godzilla racers, the place where Gran Turismo comes to live. This will fit right in.

The Japanese understand better than most that cars should evolve in one direction only - faster. So the Nissan Leaf begat the Leaf Racer which begat this, the Esflow making its J-debut. The fact it's not been put back in the cupboard tells us Nissan is committed to put this into production. It's handsome. And fast.

Just as we told you, Honda's Tokyo sports car is not a Boxster rival, but a little Kei-Car. Tiny and fun then. It's all-electric and not made of unobtainium, so cheap too. News from Tokyo is that it also previews Honda's new design language for its sports car, so you might be looking at a scaled-down new NSX.

Can you get enough of this? We can't. You know all the mechanicals and the simple, flat-four 197bhp base spec'. Focus on 'base'. In the US this Eight Six will go out through the Scion channel. Scion specialises in selling its customers tuning kit, direct from the factory. So expect to spend many hours on specmy86.com next year.

And for those that missed it, here's the Eight Six's brother-in-arms, the Scooby BRZ. We already know there's an STi version imminent, Subaru showed us that last month in LA. So a warm welcome, finally, then to the cars that will wean a generation of supermarket car park pilots off four-wheel drive. Could be interesting.

And to make the point, here's what is meant to be the apogee of the total traction movement, from the factory's point of view anyhow. For this generation Impreza. For now. Ahem. The STI Impreza 206, with 316bhp from it's ‘enhanced' double-scrolling Turbo. We think we know what they mean by enhanced.

We know a bit more about the Daihatsu D-X. Like the fact that it's pronounced ‘D-cross' and the reason is that those panels are designed to change it into a coupe or a little wagon. Like you dreamed you might one day be able to do to a Smart. Remains to be seen whether two-cylinder turbo power is the stuff of dreams.

Eh? Wasn't this supposed to be Jukezilla? Don't know about you, but we were expecting a little more GT-R DNA to be splattered across the face of the Juke. Don't get us wrong, Jukes are a guilty pleasure around here, just the car didn't match the hype. A slightly more pokey 1.6-litre turbo and a bodykit. Ho hum.

Audi keeps trying to make the A1 as funky as a Mini or a Fiat 500 by painting them up lurid but we like this one in the colours of Japan's national football team. And fair play we say, don't think anyone here can imagine what a year the Japanese have had. Audi showed the five door A1 too. But this one is much cooler.

New Honda NSX (not at the show, but in The Avengers...)

You read it on TopGear.com first, but Honda's supersportscar, aka the NEW NSX, will make it's debut at the Detroit show, or if Marvel studios keeps leaking like it is, in the next trailer for The Avengers. Any car cool enough for Tony Stark will, we reckon, be more than cool enough for us. We can't wait.