Alexi, a good friend of mine runs the excellent Nori Yaro - Japan Car Life Blog. An expat Australian in Japan, Alexi’s living the life drifting and immersing himself in grassroots car culture over there.  Last weekend, he spotted this nostalgic ride at a local drift meet at Nikko Circuit. More details and pictures here.

C’mon Ben, your wagon’s cryin’ out for this treatment!!  Check out Nori Yaro too, it’s the next best thing to living there.

According to one Datsun Enthusiast who was visiting relatives in Pakistan, one of the most prestigious taxis around is the Datsun Sunny B110 4dr. Yes, we’re talking currently, not 20-30 years ago.

Here’s a nice example that was spotted last year:

If you’re not B110 savvy, this is a JDM GL spec “face lift” specimen, circa 1971.

Sure, it’s a little beat up, but considering it’s haunts, it could be a lot worse. Most importantly, the car is precious to its owner; it’s not just another piece of metal. Read the rest of this entry »

What a way to start off the year. Politicians are at it again. Remember buybacks? These were programs offered by states like California and Texas that paid owners for their old cars. The lawmakers claimed taking these vehicles off the streets would prompt the purchase of newer ones that pollute less and get better mileage. And as for the cars turned over to the state, many of which still had miles left or could have been used as parts to keep other oldies on the road, were simply being crushed!

We’ve been following California’s program since last May and now we are sad to report, as we predicted with similar CA laws, it has gone national. Congress now wants to expand buyback programs by bundling it with an economic stimulus package. Right now, states are not allowed to use federal money for their buyback programs, but this bill, if passed, will give them the authority to do so, and give states without such programs an incentive to start one.

It’s true that modern cars do emit fewer greenhouse gases because of better fuel efficiency and emissions control. But, as we calculated in Issue 2 of JNC magazine, the typical 4-cylinder 70s Japanese import would need to be driven many years to break even with the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by factories in the construction of a new car that the states are encouraging owners to buy. Not surprisingly, auto manufacturers (who don’t make money if you don’t buy new cars) are in full support of these laws.

This issue affects owners of vintage Japanese cars particularly, because the majority of owners do not consider them valuable. The payouts offered by states often seems reasonable to the average non-enthusiast, and this will lead to a lack of parts and project starting points when it comes to nostalgics!

Fortunately, we have SEMA to lobby on behalf of enthusiasts and the automotive aftermarket industry. But it’s vital that you contact the Congressional representatives from your state as well and make your objections known. Reader NSR_S30 has posted a great set of talking points a great set of talking points to make your letter a breeze to write.

Full SEMA press release after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

A few months ago, we put the spotlight on Auto Service Machinaga, a Kobe bodyshop that not only did great work in restoring JDM classics, but also had the presence of mind to record their restoration process in photographs, presented in nifty slideshows on Youtube no less.

Here’s another one: Carcraft Yabusaki from Ibaraki, about 2 hours north of Tokyo.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bride seats are one of the mainstays of the JDM tuner scene.  They come in loud, lairy colours like bright red and blue, and would be the perfect addition to something like a turbo Silvia or modern GT-R (with the matching grey and charcoal trademark Bride fabric on the door cards and rear seat of course).  However, for classics, unless you’re going for the resto-mod look, Brides are they’re a little bit too out of character for our old classics.

Until now.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, forget the pair of Bluebirds we posted on just a few hours ago. Here’s what we really want instead, a 1965 Nissan Silvia CSP311! It’s on sale at Dallas Dream Cars for a whopping $50,000 obo. Obviously this blue wasn’t the original color as it was never offered by Nissan, so that would have to go. The engine bay reveals that the original color was gold. Nissan made only 554 of these, each one of them hand built, and only 5 or so are in the whole US so you don’t have to worry about pulling up next to one at the stoplight. It looks a bit rough around the edges, though. You can read all there is to know about the car in this thread on the JNC forum.

[BAT]

Does the passing of another year make you feel old? Well look on the bright side, it’s nothing compared to how your dog feels! But what about man’s other best friend, the automobile? Here’s an amusing and easy math problem to calculate how old your car would be if it was a person, courtesy of Blue Donut. Just take take your car’s mileage and divide it by its model year.

That makes our JNC wagon (a 1986 Cressida with about 109,000 miles) 55 years old. Don’t feel bad, wagon. 55 is the new 30! How old is your car?

[Blue Donut via Jalopnik]