“Oh you!”

If you’re hoping to jump into the classic JDM market and snap up a bargain, one possible obstacle could be the ol’ ball-and-chain. Otherwise known as the wife. Some of us are lucky enough to have understanding partners (and some of us can just buy them off - “car for me, diamonds for you, engine for me, shoes for you!”), but for those who aren’t, this seller on eBay has got just what you need.

What better way to convince the other half that buying a bit of classic J-tin is the right move, than to show her how great she’d look in it? “Look honey, this chick looks great in the car, so you probably would too!” Okay, a little more tact perhaps.

[eBay link]
[grandJDM mirror]
[Thanks to DatsunFreak for the link!]

A super clean, duper mean Nissan Laurel Hardtop. [LINK]

A thread at the www.auszoku.net forums the other day reminded us that Nissan South Africa still makes the B121 Nissan Sunny truck. Called the 1400 Bakkie, it is a 1971 Nissan design that you can still buy new today.

So it prompted us to think about older JDM rides that you might still be able to buy new.

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In 1985, Nissan stunned everyone by releasing a mid engined prototype called the Mid4. The first thing you notice of course is that it looks a hell of a lot like a Ferrari 308. Back in the day, this was quite a bone of contention and the Mid4 designer Hiroshi Itoh received some criticism for it. However the really exciting thing was that Nissan had made several prototypes that were quite fully engineered and were convincing, driving cars. These were not just stylish concept cars built to look good on car show stands: Nissan invited car journalists from all around the world to its test track in Oppama to give its small fleet of fully engineered and trimmed prototypes hell and everyone was blown away.

The vibe at the time from all the car magazines around the world was that, here was a revolutionary high tech supercar that was just about to go into production.

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By far one of the more bizarre automotive dalliances was the very short lived alliance between Alfa Romeo and Nissan in the early 80s. Alfa Romeo needed a small and cheap new model to accompany it’s new Alfa33 compact, and Nissan needed a way to break into the European market.

Back in the 1980s, JDM manufacturers were subject to import quotas in most Europoean countries, which limited the number of cars they could sell in any given market. Today, Japanese manufacturers all have plants in Europe anyway, so the import quotas are no longer an issue. But back in the early 80s, Nissan saw a way around the quotas by tying up with Alfa Romeo. And Alfa Romeo would begin to manufacture Nissan Pulsars in its old Alfasud factory near Naples, and that plan was that Nissan would have golden opportunity to expand its European market share, free of the constraints of import quotas.

Well…..it didn’t quite work out that way.

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Remember the M. Yokota Collection, the vintage car museum/chocalatier/squirrel zoo in Gumna Prefecture? Clearly, a mind as active and eccentric as that of Mr. Yokota’s cannot be easily calmed. The latest manifestation of his love for nostalgics is the M. Yokota Fall Rally, one of the many car shows and rallies that he organizes. Open to Showa Era cars only, the rally had over 200 entrants and started at the Skyland Amusement Park near Mt. Haruna, the geological formation that served as Shuichi Shigeno’s inspiration for Initial-D’s Mt. Akina. Click on over to Urban Racer to see a hachiroku dicing it up with 2000GTs and Ferraris and the rest of their coverage.

Open a new car magazine and you’d be hard pressed not to find some sort of speculation regarding upcoming sporty Toyotas. Here’s a rundown of the rumors so far:

Supra - a version of Lexus’s upcoming LF-A supercar

Supra - the production version of Toyota’s FT-HS hybrid concept

MR-2 - a disguised mid-engined sports car spotted on a Toyota car transporter in Japan

Corolla GT-S - a true, $13,000, 100hp, successor to the AE-86

And now, there’s a report that Toyota intends to return the Celica nameplate to Europe in 2009. Of all places, this was only briefly mentioned in an Automotive News piece about Toyota’s opposition to placing a speed limit on Germany’s autobahns. There are no further details.

Could this be one of the above mentioned cars branded as a Celica for the European market, or something completely unrelated that could also make its way to the States? Only time will tell, but with this many rumors floating around, there must be some truth in at least one (and hopefully all) of them.

[LINK]