I often get folks asking me if I’ve got any good wallpaper-sized photos of classic JDM cars. I run a site devoted to the genre, so you’d think I’d have some good stuff, right? I wish! There seems to be a real lack of good-quality good-sized photos on the net that would be suitable as a desktop background.

Right now, I’m using this beautiful shot, though it’s technically a little small for my desktop - it does the job. So, do you have anything you’d like to share with your classic JDM fans? Hook it up! You can email them to me if you like, or you can upload them to somewhere like Photobucket or ImageShack. Share the love chums, share the love.

It’s a retrospective bonanza! Hot off the heels of our profile on Mike McGinnis about his days working at a Datsun dealership in th 1970s, Automotive News has published an article about Toyota’s early years and the many hardships that almost caused them to fail miserably in the US market.

Accompanying the piece is a video interview with several members of the SR5 Club, a group of Toyota retirees who hold their meetings at the Toyota Museum in Torrance, CA. It’s interesting to note that although companies like Toyota and Nissan now seem impossibly massive, in their heyday it was still easy to catch the ear of upper management, as both McGinnis and these retirees can attest to. The stories they recount are entertaining to hear, and the one in which the former employees asks where the “bay of pigs” is located illustrates a lot about why Japanese automakers have come as far as they have.

Autoblog has returned with their “Reader Ride of the Day” feature after a brief hiatus, and are kicking it off with a 1972 Datsun 240Z. With only 40,000 miles and some funky pinstripes, the car was undergoing a restoration when the owner, Victor Vazquez, sadly passed away. Now the car is in the care of his brother, who carries on the torch in Victor’s spirit.

In the past, Autoblog has asked readers to vote for their favorite ride at the end of the week. We know we don’t even need to see the rest to know which one we’ll be punching a chad for.

Mazda was one of the many car companies that paid Dr Felix Wankel and the NSU car company to buy a license to produce the rotary engine. And while many other licensees (including Citroen and GM…and eventually NSU itself) struggled to make the rotary a viable engine for a production car, Mazda saw it as the key to a glorious future, and is the only car company to remain loyal to the design after so many decades. Mazda was so bullish about the prospects of the rotary that it once said that “the rotary engine is a young 24 year old man with great promise, whereas the piston engine is an old man”.

History would later prove the folly of those words as keeping the rotary viable was a burden that nearly bankrupted Mazda itself.

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Our latest Profile has been posted. I’m sure those in the Z Car community have heard of Mike McGinnis, Z-car restorer and guru extraordinaire. He’s a great guy who has witnessed a lot of interesting stuff in his lifetime, including the humble beginnings of Nissan’s dealerships.

The japanese hold some awesome classic car meets (gotta go to one one-day) but the JDM events in the USA run them pretty close in terms of quality, if not quite quantity.

Here’s a sublime slideshow of an event in 2006, at Long Beach, California. Feel the Nissan love! The site for the event is here and the next one is scheduled for October 07.

One of the rarest cars in the US is going up for auction on eBay: a 1965 UP10 Toyota Publica Deluxe. Only four are known to exist here, and according to its current owner, Steve Kopito of TORC, the other two were in junkyards and the third was sold for parts to restore a Sports 800 with.

The Publica came into existence when Toyota conceived a car to comply with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry decree for a People’s Car and named it by combining the words “public” and “car”. In stock form, its 697cc two-cylinder boxer engine produced 28hp, and came in a variety of body styles, including a convertible, wagon, and El Camino-esque pickup. The racier Sports 800 was derived from this platform.

Thanks to the Classic Toyota Town group for the tip!