We’re not sure how we became unhealthily obsessed with automobiles, but having kind parents who bought us Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars probably helped. It’s hard to believe that the little metal furniture scratchers will be 40 years old this year, but it’s true. And to celebrate, Mattel issued a Designer’s Challenge to stylists from actual car companies to come up with vehicles that represent the spirit of Hot Wheels.

We first saw them at the SEMA show last November, where one in particular caught our eye – the Honda H Racer. The red on Championship White paint job and tangle of exhaust pipes instantly evoked Soichiro’s F1 racers of the 60s in our one-track minds. Designer Guillermo Gonzalez also gave it a generous sprinkling of other Honda cues like red valve covers topping off the dual cams of a monster V10. In fact, the entire car is shaped like a Honda logo, with a driver and navigator sitting in each leg of the H. Time to break out the orange track.

Here’s a bummer of a leftover from our NorCal photo reel. This billboard for California’s Bureau of Automotive Repairs, DriveHealthy.com, was spotted in San Jose and features a clapped out Datto Sunny as an example of a polluter. It turns out that The Man will give low income drivers up to $500 towards a repair if their car fails a smog check or, scarily, $1000 toward “retiring” (read: scrapping) the offending vehicle. Poor little Datto.

UPDATE: More discussion in our forums here.

Once in a blue moon, something comes along that makes you want to sell your organs to black marketeers. In 2007, we saw a 1966 Toyota Corona sedan with 8700 original miles sell at auction for $16,740.

Now, a similarly mint mint green 1969 two-door model is on eBay with only 28,699 original miles. According to the seller, it’s always avoided inclement weather, which is quite the task considering it’s from New York. The two-door models are rarer and sleeker than the sedans, and this light green color suits the period perfectly. It was listed before, but it looks like the winner backed out. Amazingly, the reserve was met at only $5500. A bargain! Anyone want to buy a kidney?

[eBay via BringATrailer]  Thanks to Alex K. for the tip.

Congrats to Daniel and Zeb, who correctly guessed that two of the cars we were photographing for an upcoming issue of JNC were a Datsun 1600 Fairlady Roadster and a Dodge Challenger (aka Mitsubishi Galant Lambda). Actually, Kev’s post was a big clue for the second one . Your mystery box Bow’s Art Puzzle and back issue of Japan’s Kosoku Yuen will be arriving in the mail shortly, along with some JNC stickers.

Thanks to reader “Agent T” for donating the puzzles!

We’ve been in NorCal manning the JNC booth at Motoring J Style and doing some photo shoots for upcoming issues of JNC magazine. We’re back now and, as promised, here’s a report from the show. There’s more photos in the forum as well. Thanks to all the JNC’ers who stopped by say hi in person. It was great meeting all of you!

One of the challenges (hoho pun) for the keen internet JDM-hunter who is translating all of those wonderful JDM websites using Altavista Babelfish or Google Translator. But try this, and you’ll see that there are lots of words that don’t translate…but the beauty of the Japanese language is that these untranslatable terms are usually modified versions of the English equivalent. Our good friends at J-Spec Imports have a kooky sense of humour, which might explain this Google-translated offering on their mailing list: http://www.j-spec.com.au/list/index.php?ID=12827

So here’s the contest. once you get past the rather bizarre opening sentence about chocolate and body shaving, the challenge (hehe) is to translate all of the words in caps. For example DATCHICHARENJA = Dodge Challenger and obviously BIKKUBUROKKU = Big Block!

So get translating guys! If anyone gets a lot of the correct answers, we may put up a prize

A couple of weeks ago we travelled to Japan to take in the Tokyo Nostalgic Car Show and quite a fine event it was too. Check out our coverage in the forum here. But the event organisers haven’t been resting on their (Nissan) laurels and have released their own coverage.

Check out the official photogallery, a promotional vid and here’s some vids we found of their awesome “Engine Start Demonstration” (in which I am sure you will agree they went a little bit further than just starting the engine).

There are quite a few events around Japan on the Nostalgic Car Show calendar throughout the year, so if you’re planning a trip to Japan, why not plan it around a show?

Today we were all over the place, from Concord to San Fran to San Jose. The most exciting moment came when one of our subjects’ cars ran out of gas on I-280 and coasted to a stop in the middle of the right lane. We helped the owner push it onto the almost nonexistent shoulder as SUVs flew by at 80mph and went off to buy a gas can and some fuel. When we returned, one of California’s finest was offering to shove the mint nostalgic to the next exit with his standard issue CHP Crown Vic’s push bar. Luckily, we were able to gas the car up and drive it under its own power. The whole experience was quite scary when you think about all the cars that get hit while pulled over.

Anyway, here’s another sneak peek at an upcoming JNC magazine feature car, which is not the one that ran out of gas. Again, first one to guess the car (make and model) wins a prize when we return. Tee hee!

Today we went up to beautiful Marin County to photo shoot a nostalgic for an upcoming issue of JNC magazine. First person to guess the make and model of the car will win a prize once we return to JNC HQ.

Just before were were about to leave for the Motoring J Style show on Friday, the official JNC wagon experienced a technical malfunction. As a result, in a frenzied last minute decision we had to take a decidedly un-nostalgic car to the show via a another all-nighter drive. Here’s a picture of yours truly at our booth attending to a loyal new subscriber with only 3 hours of sleep. Thankfully, MJS organizer David Swig graciously lent us the Euro-spec 18RG ‘75 Celica Liftback so we’d have some eye candy at the JNC booth. Even though the weather didn’t cooperate, the event itself was great, and we got to see some fantastic cars (pics coming shortly) and meet Peter Brock. We’ll be hanging around the Bay Area for the next few days to do some photo shoots for the magazine and we’ll have a full article and gallery when we get home.