Author Archives: Ricky Silverio

QotW: How should Japanese carmakers honor their history?

Last week, Nissan opened a long-overdue permanent heritage gallery at the heart of their Yokohama headquarters building, allowing millions of casual visitors to experience the company’s history. Some carmakers have museums, some have hidden collections, some have heritage parts programs. … Continue reading

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MINICARS: Tomica is coming to Walmart

There’s some great news for fans of Japanese diecast. Tomica cars will soon be available in the United States, at Walmart stores. “Having sold more than a half a billion units around the world, Tomica is known for luxury premium … Continue reading

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MINICARS: The Hot Wheels Street Tuners set is absolutely stunning

The latest batch of cars from the Hot Wheels’ premium Car Culture pays homage to the paradigm-shifting Gran Turismo generation. It’s almost amazing that it took this long to get a collectors’ series dedicated to icons of the Japanese tuner … Continue reading

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MINICARS: Hot Wheels Nissan Hardbody D21 minitruck

Hot Wheels has definitely been on a roll these days, with lots of Skylines, Hondas, and assorted Japanese-market goodness. The latest release, however, covers a styling trend in which Japanese vehicles were extremely popular, but had uniquely American origins: the … Continue reading

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MINICARS: Hot Wheels X JNC Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R

We at JNC are proud to announce the next Hot Wheels car to bear our logo, the legendary R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R. This is the first casting beyond the chrome-bumper era to wear the mark, and we couldn’t think of … Continue reading

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MINICARS: The new Matchbox Subaru SVX was a designer’s dream

Hot Wheels designer and Osaka native Ryu Asada is beloved around the world for infusing the popular toy car line with brilliant Honda castings. With his catch phrase “Honda for life!” Ryu has not only been responsible for the majority … Continue reading

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MINICARS: Hot Wheels celebrates Nissan’s 50th anniversary of Z and GT-R

Hot Wheels is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Z and GT-R nameplates this year. There’s an entire Nissan-only series in the main line, a first for a Japanese marque. On the official Hot Wheels YouTube channel, each series gets … Continue reading

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MINICARS: Hot Wheels is making an EG Honda Civic

In what is certain to be one of the most earth-shattering bits of diecast news this year, Hot Wheels has revealed that it will be making an EG Honda Civic. Hondas have been the logical go-to for attainable classics as … Continue reading

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MINICARS: Hot Wheels is making a Subaru Impreza 22B STi

Hot Wheels is at long last making a Subaru Impreza 22B STi, and it looks incredible. The car has been translated extremely well into 1:64 scale, with an extremely high level of detail in the front fascia, especially the grille … Continue reading

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VIDEO: Jun Auto Mechanic’s assaults on Bonneville

With last month’s passing of Junichi Tanaka, founder of JUN Auto Mechanic, our minds have been on some of his company’s greatest achievements. The tuning house accomplished so much, in such a wide variety of automotive pursuits, that it’s hard … Continue reading

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MOTORSPORT: Everyone’s swapping 2JZs into the new Supra

A few of Japan’s professional drift teams have already gotten their hands on the new A90 Toyota Supra and are building them for competition in D1GP. In a new Option video, Notable AE86 aficionado and Toyota works driver Akira Iida … Continue reading

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MINICARS: A new first-gen Toyota Celica diecast is coming

There’s a new first-generation Toyota Celica miniature car coming, and the source may surprise you. It was revealed at the Nuremburg Toy Fair in Germany earlier this month, and comes from French company Majorette. Apparently the A20 Celica is becoming … Continue reading

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MINICARS: Behold the most detailed Toyota Celica model kit ever made

Starting today, fans of scale model kits in Japan will be able to buy what is likely the most detailed miniature Toyota Celica ever made. Measuring over 20 inches long and over six inches tall in 1:8 scale, the Celica … Continue reading

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KIDNEY, ANYONE? Team Taisan R32 Skyline GT-R, a Drift King’s dream come true

One of the most iconic R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R race cars is going up for auction this Saturday. The Team Taisan GT-R competed in the Japan Touring Car Championships during the era of the R32’s utter dominance of the series, … Continue reading

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JCCS Spotlight: And the JNC Award goes to Kevin Truong’s NA Mazda MX-5 Miata

Our final installment of JCCS coverage spotlights the car to which we gave the JNC Award: Kevin Truong’s first-generation Montego Blue Mazda MX-5 Miata. Our pick coincided well with JCCS’s expanded eligibility of cars up to model year 1995. The … Continue reading

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MINICARS: A beginner’s guide to JNC Legos, Part 03

In the final installment of our beginner’s guide to Lego JNCs, we are going to focus on the prevailing style of builds in Japan. In Part 01 we admired highly complex creations comprised of hundreds of pieces where the sky’s the … Continue reading

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MINICARS: A beginner’s guide to JNC Legos, Part 02

With the popularity of Legos showing no signs of slowing, it’s a good time to get into building custom JNCs out of these little Danish bricks. In Part 01 of our beginner’s guide, we took a look at some highly … Continue reading

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MINICARS: A beginner’s guide to JNC Legos, Part 01

The popularity of Legos had exploded in recent years, leading to many fans going beyond off-the-shelf kits and building their own custom creations. We’ve posted about Legos before, starting from back in 2013, and while the Lego renaissance was already underway … Continue reading

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MINICARS: Rio Red will be the first color of Hot Wheels’ EF Honda CRX

We’ve been pretty excited at the prospect of a second-generation Honda CRX ever since Hot Wheels released a teaser pic. That photo was in black and white, though, but now we can reveal the first color that will adorn the … Continue reading

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MINICARS: Hot Wheels second-gen Honda CRX teased

The designers at Hot Wheels recently revealed a teaser image of the next JNC to make it to their minicar lineup. It is the unmistakable silhouette of the second-generation Honda CRX. Unlike the first-gen CRX, this one appears to mostly … Continue reading

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