In the 1970s and 1980s, prior to there being UpGarage, Autobacs and Yellow Hat shops all over Japan, individual tuning shops thrived. There used to be a lot more shops where you could buy used cars along with wheels, tires, steering wheels, body kits and other accessories. Sigma was one of these shops. Another famous shop that more of you might recognize that also did something similar, offering used cars, then parts and body kits is Hiro Motors.
On top of just being a tuning shop, they also had a few drag racing cars. In the 1980s, there was a Volkswagen tuning shop from America called “Scat” in Yoga, Tokyo. They put on a series of drag racing events at Fuji International Speedway. This event would later be called as RRC or “Roadrunner Racing Club” and was an official JAF organization.
Sigma had a Chevrolet Camaro driven by Itsuo Obara ( 小原逸男 ) that broke the American car class record at the Scat Drag Race in 1981 for a time of 11.72 seconds. Mind you they run 0-400m races which is just shy of a 1/4 of a mile.
Another car they had was a board over L series. The engine was an L28-based 3.2-liter with a full
tune. It had Southern Way wheels with 290/575-14 size Dunlop racing slicks.
They also built an S30z with a Chevrolet 350 V8 that was able to do 13.87 0-400m.
There was also an S130 drag car that was also built with over 400 horsepower.
Kaminari Z
Sigma was also the importer for the American company Kaminari Aerodynamic‘s S130 body kit. They originally build these body kits in the 1980s along with supplying a lot of body kits in the 1990s. They still produce a lot of body kits today, but unfortunately it seems like they no longer produce this one.
Sigma was also able to coordinate with the Japanese government to allow these body kits to pass shaken inspection.
The Sticker
Now the real reason why we are here. The Sigma logo along with their sticker is famous because of the characters used. Instead of using katakana like シグマ for their shop name, they used a combination of kanji characters 死喰魔 which sounds like “Shi Gu Ma” when read. These characters together have the translated meaning of “Death Eater”, making it a very aggressive sticker design. The shop’s phone numbers are located at the top and bottom, with their Tokyo and Miyazaki stores.
This is just another small feature you might find on today’s kaido racers showing a glimpse of the past. Something that is period correct that people remember fondly.
source:
https://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/13787506/
https://ameblo.jp/maga-radi/entry-12231505880.html
https://twitter.com/1991express/status/1500368714675671040?lang=bn
https://carview.yahoo.co.jp/news/detail/d1b07ee5bc1f9396829a601e5bcee9569b22fdc9/
https://ossanauto.com/archives/6147
