Subaru’s 50th Anniversary tour, the Fan! Fan! Festival, recently made a stop in Osaka, Japan and the 360s came out to celebrate. That WRC Blue pedal car is probably not much smaller than an actual 360.
The Tsukuba Summer Meeting is one of many Japanese vintage car events in which owners actually use their classic machines in the way their creators intended - on the track. There really isn’t much to say about it, except for the fact that we’ve wanted to go very, very badly for several years now. But with the magazine’s budgetary and time constraints, it’s just on possible. Maybe next year. In the meantime, check out these glorious photos on Speedhunters.
Here’s something for the Subie heads. Last weekend Fuji Heavy Industries officially celebrated the 50th anniversary of its automaking arm with the Fan! Fan! Festival, held in Yokohama. Here’s the only shot we could find of some truly old school Subes, a Sambar and a 360. Currently, the festival is touring across Japan. Incidentally, this year is Subaru USA’s 40th anniversary. Where’s our party?
This has always been a dream of ours, to take one bad ass nostalgic and go drifting, one of the few motorsports where style matters just as much as speed. The problem is, we’d never have the nerve to actually do it because 1.) we can’t drift our way out of a used kleenex and 2.) we couldn’t bear to see the toll this would take on hard-to-find body panels and trim. Luckily, Hideo Itakura and HDO Racing Service have no such reservations and have been campaigning this SR20-powered Celica Liftback in Japan’s D1GP drift series. Note the intercooler masquerading as a grille. That’s total awesome right there.
Fuji Heavy Industries is throwing a 50th birthday bash for its automotive arm Subaru next month at the Red Brick Building in Yokohama with the the Fan! Fan! Festival! Exclamation point! Cars on display will include its earliest classics (brought out from the company’s Japan museum) to the latest and greatest motorsports machines like the brand new 2008 WRC Impreza WRX STI. The event will be held July 5 to 6 before going on tour throughout the rest of Japan. If anyone attends, please send some photos our way and we’ll send you some prizes for your efforts.
Ok, we have no idea what this Japanese gathering is really called; we’re just cutting and pasting into Babelfish like everyone else. So until someone who reads Japanese can come along with some better ideas, Face 1 Meeting 2008 it is. All we know is, there are some seriously bitchin’ rides in this slideshow. Nissan Skyline Japans, Toyota Mark IIs, Laurel Hardtops, Celica XXs and even some plastic model kits. Enjoy.
This may look like an ordinary stuffed bear, but what we have here is the convergence of at least three wildly popular Japanese trends - cuteness, robots, and completely useless technology. Meet Japan’s robotics firm iXs Research’s latest product, the teddy bear navigation system.
It may bear (har har) a striking resemblance to Teddy from A.I., but its main purpose, like any navi system, is to guide you to your destination via polite auditory direction. However, because it has the added bonus of arms, it can gesture and point too. A built-in alcohol sniffer will even prompt it to ask, “You haven’t been drinking, have you?” if it detects an excessive amount of sake on your breath.
