Ok. We're at a bit of a standstill. I think it's time to consider more mods, or a new car.


Let's see if Miami has a Shop


: There's probably no shop in a tourist spot like this.



Well that's disappointing, I guess we'll have to go somewhere else…


: But then I realized that there was. It's a shop!



Oh, ok then. Way to fake us out there Hiro...





: Welcome.



Well this all looks familiar. Our mustacheod Miami friend here also is a big fan of rockabilly music, like all shopkeepers seem to be.

We've got the standard tuning and new car options here...





It doesn't seem that there's any appreciable difference in the parts here, nor are the prices any different than other places. Sunny is fully tuned, so let's have a look what new cars are available...


Let's have a look at the cars:

Ooh! There's even more cars available!





And here we have the Levin variant of the AE92, aka the supercharged Corolla. Interestingly we've had the Trueno variant available in LA - I assumed these were functionality identical other than the exterior, but this one is slightly more expensive, with 10 extra bhp.





The mighty Twin Turbo Toyota Supra! This is the third generation 1980s MA70 model, which was replaced this year (1993) for the more well known / sought after JZ80 Mk4. But it must have missed the window for this game.





The Eunos Presso. I'd never heard of this badging, but I did know the car under another name - The Mazda MX3. This little guy has a V6 motor in it, though it’s not particularly powerful.





And it’s bigger, older cousin, the MX6. Since the MX-5 / Miata has endured so well, we tend to forget it had these bigger cousins.




In America in particular, when people think 1990s JDM culture, they think of this guy. The Honda Civic SiR!

They were cheap, powerful and had a huge aftermarket scene.

And finally…


…


*Angelic choir music*








The holiest of holy, the Toyota MR2 GT Turbo is in this game!

Yes, it took just about all my strength not to just ignore everything and buy this car.

I mean, why would anyone want anything else?


So with these 5 new cars, there's a total of 43 unique cars in this game thus far. Somehow I don't think we've seen them all yet either!

But... We’re not buying a new car just yet. We’ll be patient for a little while longer…

What we will buy… is a Hyper-Charger.

What is a Hyper-Charger?

Well. I don't know actually. Let's ask the shopkeep:


: This is a hypercharger. The power is incredible.


: At high speeds there is a lot of resistance.



Why are we buying this? Because. Confession time. I can’t beat her.


I tried all sorts of combinations of less powerful parts, more powerful parts. Different cars… The ‘Wet Race’ of it all, threw off my rhythm. She's just consistently that little bit faster.

At this point, Hiro's received so many sloppy wet kisses, he can barely function.

To defeat her, I need some combination of power bands. A small turbo for the low end, a large turbo for the upper end, and the hypercharger for the middle.




Fitting the hyper-charger in between our Big Turbo and our Mid Turbo seems to have evened out the power band. Or at least, that's the theory...

With this in place, let’s head back out to the outskirts of town.





: Oh, I’ve been waiting for you, come in ♥


: Got it, so let’s get started.


: It’s still cold as ever.






Ok... So here we are again... I don't think Hiro could take another kiss....





And finally, finally we did it! It took a bunch of different times, and a lot of effort feathering the throttle and hitting the gear changes just right.

11.18 vs 11.45...





: Yay, I won! There’s no way I’m going to lose.






: I lost. Do as you like...



Well, this time we didn't get the kissy sound effect. I think she's offering us a kiss as a reward. We've gotten enough of those already...


: Aaah! Stop it!! That's gross!!! If I could win the Zero-Yon that's fine!


: What? That's boring.I don't have any medals or items.



What's with us defeating all these people and them never having heard of Zero4 Medals? Did Typhoon just make the whole thing up?


: I'll tell you something good.



It seems the only thing we ever win is is advice. Why can't we offer that up instead of losing all our items or our cars?


: Wet course only in Mexico City. They sell great items.


: If you want to get a medal, buy it.



Hey, this is almost exactly what that teenager said in Winnipeg. She didn't have anything to offer us, but told us we could buy a medal in Anchorage. Three days of driving later, and all we had was a bunch of items and no medal.


: To get to Mexico City. We're heading down the coast from Houston.



And wait. Mexico City? That's not on our map either! This must be another hidden city, accessed from Houston.


: By the way, I don't do zero-yon.


: And I'll give you a word of warning: New York is a dangerous city. It's scary. The gang boss is on the top floor of the building.


: Thank you. I'm going home now.



Well. I think it's time for us to think about our next location and our next car. I'll follow up with some points about it soon.

But in the meantime, let's see if we can find out how to visit Mexico City!