Our poor little JNC Wagon! It’s like the Giving Tree of cars. It relinquishes every ounce of pull we demand of it and yet we just keep asking and asking for more. It hauls loads of magazines and our booth to car shows, makes runs to the junkyard, and even jaunts down to Wal-Mart when we need new socks.

Sometimes bits of the ol’ girl just can’t hold out any longer and conk out, but she always makes sure we’re within walking distance of salvation. (more…)

A bone stock 1986 Cressida Wagon is a lanky beast, in desperate need of a slam. We’ve had low-down springs on our JNC Wagon for a while now, but 23-year-old shock absorbers meant we were bobbing like a Halloween apple over every undulation in the road. It was time for some new shocks.

Old Japanese wagons are downright bitchin’, but they can also be a bitch to find parts for. We wanted some no-hassle off-the-shelf parts that were guaranteed to fit. Unfortunately for us, the MX72 isn’t exactly a common platform for aftermarket goodies here in the States. When all else fails, though, going with an old school JDM giant is a pretty good bet. Tokico’s been around since 1937 and, wouldn’t you know it, they’ve got plenty of support for old Toyotas and other nostalgics as well.

A couple of weeks later, the UPS man dropped off a fresh new set of Tokico blues. What followed was a moderate-difficulty upgrade that almost anyone can do, with only one instance of blood drawn when an errant alligator lizard ran into the garage (technically not part of the install).

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Doesn’t it seem like 1998 was not that long ago, when in fact it’s been over 10 years already? Back before the formation of D1GP, drag racing was still all the rage in Japan. Drifting was on juuust the verge of bursting out from its underground roots but until then, the tuning giants were throwing down at the drag strip. (more…)

This is probably not going to be of any interest to most of you, but we’re jumping out of our seats right now because we just got an email from Toyotageek informing us that the JNC wagon is now available in 1/43 scale!

Here it is, the DISM Toyota mark II Wagon, available in white, silver, and – wait for it – dark blue! DISM is a line of 70s and 80s diecast cars from Aoshima, the toy company known by many JNCers for their plastic scale model kits. At approximately $40 per car we can’t afford to collect these but we just might have to make an exception. Some more pics from different angles and such after the jump. (more…)

Remember the Jack Safro collection we told you about last month? One of the cars at the Mecum auction was an original 8,769-mile 1966 Toyota Corona so new the plastic wrap was still on the door panels. Back in 2007 when JNC was only a month old this exact car sold for just $16,740, a record price for its time. But when the gavel dropped this time the highest bid was a whopping $36,000. With the economy the way it is, a better deal than AIG stock! The value of nostalgics is really going up. (more…)

May 17, 2009, Mission Bay, San Diego, CA

Southern California hardly ever disappoints for the sheer number of nostalgics it contains. Case in point is the Old Skewl Meet today in gorgeous (overcast) Mission Bay in San Diego. This was just a get together, a free event, but it attracted not only locals, but a few guys from Los Angeles and even the Bay Area!

510’s and Ae86’s always show up to these events, but there were a few other surprises as well. (more…)

If you happened to see a blue Cressida wagon and blue AE86 pulled over on the 710 by the California Highway Patrol on the way to Toyotafest last Saturday, that was yours truly at JNC. We were running late and, shall we say, briskly, but an irate Officer Poncharello thought we were street racing. Somehow, we were able to convince him we weren’t and made it to the show to take the photos in this gallery. Unfortunately, each of us still got one of these: (more…)

On a trip to California in the late 60s, Jack Safro was introduced to the RT40 Toyota Corona, a car then unheard of in his native Wisconsin. But everyone in California seemed to know it, and a dealer told him the quality was so good customers weren’t even bringing them in for the 1000-mile service. Before long, Safro had his own Toyota dealership back in Milwaukee.

According to this article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, his franchise sold just 42 Coronas their first year, but it was enough to make Safro Toyota the midwest’s largest Toyota dealer.  (more…)

They say that the goose-step, ridiculous and inefficient as it may seem, became the march of choice for dictatorships around the world specifically because of its silly appearance. After all, only a terrifying madman could force thousands of able-bodied soldiers to walk that absurdly in precise formation. It’s a method of instilling both awe and fear simultaneously.

That pretty much sums up the feeling we get when we see this horde of bosozoku cars. Cantilevered lip spoilers, double-wide fender flares and yard-long exhaust pipes look insane when parked, no doubt. But get caught in a swarm of them wreaking havoc on the expressway and suddenly it all begins to make sense, even when a dude dressed head-to-toe in a tiger costume rides a convertible’s door sill as his mohawked associate maniacally twirls a baseball bat in the air. It makes one wonder, are they’re launching a siege on Bartertown or something? It’s probably best not to ask questions and just get the hell out of their way.

One more completely deranged pic after the jump. (more…)

The Japanese Classic Car Show has come and gone. It was a phenomenal event, as always. We are going through our mountain of pics and will post them later tonight, but there’s one very important pic we forgot about: our JNC booth!

Dan and I were taking turns manning the table – selling magazines, stickers and T-shirts, trying to get people to subscribe, etc. – while also trying to scout the show for potential profile articles, talking to potential advertisers, and of course, taking hundreds of photos for you guys!

So thanks to Toyotageek, who snapped this pic, or we wouldn’t even have one of our wagon at the show! You can see more of his photos at his Flickr page. Also, a special thanks to everyone that stopped by. It was great meeting all of you JNCers in person. Arigato!