Ages ago Van made a post about the legendary DOHC, 24 valve cylinder heads made by OS Giken in the late 70s for the Nissan L-Series. And while there are countless Nissan old school fans who would gladly sacrifice a few internal organs for a Giken TC24 head, it won’t do you any good, since they’ve been out of production for more than 20yrs and the casting moulds are damaged beyond repair.

So it’s so nice to see not one, but a few of these restored, and in action at Office Tomitaku.

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In 1981, one of the better products in the Honda range was the City. Bigger and wider than a traditional kei-car, it was also more powerful and substantial, with a 1.3L 63ps motor and a curb weight of 675kg. It did quite well in many western markets.

But one of the interesting “options” for the Honda City in Japan was a tiny little motorbike called the Motocompo.

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We took NWA, but the food wasn’t very good. If you have a choice, we recommend Public Enemy Air.

Our man in Japan Satoshi picked us up in his slammed 1995 Mitsubishi Delica Space Gear Super Exceed. It’s got 0 bump stops, 2 tones, 3 fewer inches in ride height, and 5 sunroofs.

Here’s Dan doing the Akabou mascot pose next to a Subaru Sambar kei-sized delivery kei truck.

After a quick ramen meal, we went to the apartment where we’ll be staying, and we’re about to pass out. It’s already morning in the US, and we’ve been awake about 24hrs. We’ve reserved a rental car for tomorrow, and we’re headed out to Tochigi and Honda’s Twin Ring Motegi. Wonder what rental we’re gonna get! Good night.

Since there’s quite a bit of interest here on Japanese culture, we’d add a regular segment for little snippets of JDM life. The first cab off the rank is….JDM PARKING! Once thing you notice when you travel around Japanese cities is that even in the suburban areas, space is very scarce. And for some reason, even though many houses have a space in front, it’s often not actually big enough for something like say….a car.

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One of things we can never wrap our heads around is the fact that in Japan, it’s already tomorrow. By the time you read this, we’ll be crossing the International Date Line in a 747 headed to J-land to meet up with friends, slurp down bowls of delicious ramen, and most of all, to see the 2008 New Year Meeting, the largest classic car show of the year. Oh joy of joys! We can hardly contain ourselves. If we don’t succumb to an adrenaline overdose, jetlag, or dehydration via excessive salivating, we’ll bring you updates - from the future! Stay tuned to this blog. We also have a few other surprises for you, including the private warehouse of a certain manufacturer. Tee hee! For coverage of the 2007 New Year Meeting, click here.

A few days ago, we posted up a link to JDM old-car dealer Harfee’s (here) and one of our readers expressed a little surprise at the prices that some classics fetch in Japan.

Of course, nobody would be surprised that things like a Hakosuka would fetch good money in Japan. But surprisingly, there are many cars which are worth very little in western markets, yet are worth a pretty penny in Japan. A couple of examples like the 280ZX (here’s one at Red-Megaphone for Y2.2mil, about A$23,000) or a 510 coupe for not much less. So we got to thinking about relative values, and dug out some 1997 classic car magazines, and compared the going prices for popular classics compared to today. The results are surprising.

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In conjunction with Mooneyes Japan, Enkei has re-released five of its 70s-era wheels: the Dish, the Baja I & II, the Mojave and the 5-Spoke (pictured above). More details here. Prices start at about Y29,000ea (about A$300ea) and they come in suitably low-offset dished sizes up to 10in wide.

More evidence (if any were needed) that the old-school movement in Japan is gathering strength in a big way.