No, it’s not Friday yet but this Tomica-filled car chase could not be chained back. Imagine an alternate universe that has Smokey and the Bandit fused with the cars and violence of Seibu Keisatsu. It’s The Fastest Yellow & Red by our old friend LUXE37.
The scene opens reminiscent of this Seibu clip, but pretty soon machine gun-wielding baddies in a Firebird Trans-Am lead the new police issue KDR30 Silhouette Skyline and S130 Fairlady Z on a carnage-packed chase through the city. The final showdown is like a who’s who of sports coupes, circa 1980.
Seriously though, the storyboarding and pacing are absolutely brilliant. This chase could teach 1:1 scale scenes coming out of Hollywood a thing or two.
Forget Tomicas and Choro-Qs, those are nice toys but the real money’s in J-Tin. No, not that J-tin, but actual toy cars from the 60s made of real tinplate. Most have friction motors inside that can move the car if you rev it up a little.
They go for big money among toy collectors, as demonstrated by these S30-generation Toyopet Crowns made by Asahi and Bandai. Seriously, even the “low” end $3800 is more than the combined cost of service, parts and the car itself for our daily driver JNC wagon. We’re not sure how rare these Crowns actually are, and although four figure price tags are by no means uncommon, these are the highest amounts we’ve seen on a tin toy. More pics after the jump.
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…)
We like to check out what’s going on at the Datsun Heritage Museum every couple of months or so, as they’re always changing the cars around and adding more cool exhibits. On our most recent trip there we spotted this cool little 280ZX-shaped go-kart on display. (more…)
Like, OMG. Back in July, we reported that a vintage import was on its way into the Hot Wheels lineup. Well here it is, the Datsun 510! And it looks fantastic, with a BRE-style front spoiler, fender flares, and perfect proportions. Damn, this is sexy, if a toy car can be such a thing. Click through for more and a rear view. (more…)
When were were young all we got in terms of radio controlled vehicles was a crappy G.I. Joe-branded Jeep that broke within three hours of its emergence from the box. It sat there, mocking us with its uselessness, for the rest of our childhood and was probably the reason we never got into hard core r/c-ing. Fortunately, not all of our readers had such poor experiences with their EM wave-guided minicars.
From the JNC Tasmanian Devil Bureau, seventhskyline brings us news that the Tamiya 3-speed Hilux is back. We have to admit we didn’t even know it was here the first time, but apparently it had such a following that even after it went out of production it was still trading as high as $1200 Australian, which at today’s exchange rates equals about, oh, $1200 American. Then stationwagonguy went and dug up this awesome vintage commercial in which 14 Tamiya Hiluxes pull one 1:1 scale Hilux. Dammit, G.I. Joe Jeep, see what you made us miss out on?
Also, first JNC’er who can name the white car in the Tamiya building parking lot gets an invisible cookie.
To celebrate our recent magazine launch, we’re giving away a few little trinkets that we picked up from our trip to Japan. Nothing special, just a few super deformed pullback cars that fly across your kitchen floor like a startled roach. Those who have subscribed to the magazine will see another contest in the pages of the first issue whose prizes are valued at $100
The three larger ones are mystery boxes from the History of Celica & Supra collection, and their unknown contents can range anywhere from a TA22 Celica to a JZA80 Supra. The three smaller cars are Choro-Qs, a white Datsun Cherry Coupe X1-R, beige Toyota A40 Supra Liftback, and gold Honda N360.
Just send us an email to the feedback address at the bottom of this page with “CONTEST” as the subject and your name and address where you’d like the prize to be sent (which will be kept strictly confidential). On Friday, April 18 at 11:59pm US Eastern Time, we will randomly pick the winners and send out the prizes on Saturday, April 19. If you have a preference as to which car you’d like, put it in the email but the first winner will have first choice. Thanks and good luck!
No, we haven’t come to an untimely death by offending the wrong yakuza lieutenant, accidentally driving down the wrong side of the wangan, or eating ill-prepared fugu. Much to the chagrin of some, we are very much alive, but our last day in Japan was largely uneventful. We spent our single day of downtime meeting up with friends, collecting JDM brochures and getting fingerprints all over the cars at Toyota’s Amlux showroom in Ikebukuro and Nissan’s showroom in Ginza.
Amlux is a 10 minute walk from the JR Ikebukuro station. Exit on the Seibu side. You have to cross under an elevated highway to get to it, so this is the best exterior shot we could manage.
Six stories of Toyota goodness.
The Nostalgic Car set of R/C vintage Skylines at a Japanese Toys R Us.
Nissan’s Ginza showroom. Beware, weary traveler, for there are two Ginza showrooms. This, the smaller one, is near the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line station. It’s only big enough to house two cars and a gift shop.
This is the real showroom, which is a 10 minute walk or a quick shuttle bus ride away. Blade Runner on the outside…
… Logan’s Run on the inside.
Ben stinking up the GT-R. This is the first one we’ve seen in person that wasn’t silver. Red looks mighty purdy on this beast.
In Japan, white taxis (usually with blue stripe) are privately owned. This cabbie clearly loves his Cima (Infiniti Q45). We wanted to jump in and and say, “To Yokohama, stat!” just to see how quickly he’d get us there.
We went to sample some local fare with our friend Kats. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell us that one of the fares was beef colon soup from the Kyushu region. In case you’re wondering, it’s gamy, chewy, and not something we’d order again. Fortunately, we had several pints of smooth, delicious Suntory beer to wash it down. JNC: sampling the beef colon so you don’t have to!
Fun fact: 80% of Tokyo’s mass consists of vending machines, convenience stores, and arcades with coin-operated capsule dispensers. This is all an effort to drive the sales of mystery boxes, which ranks 4th in Japan’s top 10 industries, right between consumer electronics and shipbuilding. For the uninitiated (consider yourselves lucky), mystery boxes are little collectible toys with a common theme and several different items to complete the series (in the case of vending machines, the toys come attached to your refreshing beverage). But, rather than doing something useful like actually showing you what you’re going to get, the box is sealed, making the entire enterprise a lottery, like baseball cards or things at the bottom of cereal boxes. Of course, the ultimate goal is to get you to buy ever more mystery boxes and to drive OCD types insane.
While stopping into one of Japan’s 9 billion 7-11s, lo and behold, what did we find but a Nissan Skyline 50th Anniversary mystery box. As you can see from the packaging, we had only a 1 in 6 chance of getting something really cool and nostalgic, and for 500 yen (about $5), they weren’t exactly a cheap gamble. Nevertheless, we bit. And check out what we got on our first try:
It was a great start to a day filled with Nissans that all began behind this nondescript door.
This is the Zama warehouse, where almost the entirety of Nissan’s automotive and racing history is kept. It was like the lost Nazi-looted Russian Amber Room, Bruce Wayne’s garage, and the room at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark all rolled into one.
After that, we ate lunch at the Nissan employee cafeteria. The food was pretty damn good. No rubbery pizza tiles here!
We also stopped by Honda’s showroom in Aoyama Itchome, which you may recognize from the Tokyo Route 246 track in Gran Turismo 4.
More to come…
Special thanks to Mr. “Itchy” for being our guide!
Fun fact: 80% of Tokyo’s mass consists of vending machines, convenience stores, and arcades with coin-operated capsule dispensers. This is all an effort to drive the sales of mystery boxes, which ranks 4th in Japan’s top 10 industries, right between consumer electronics and shipbuilding. For the uninitiated (consider yourselves lucky), mystery boxes are little collectible toys with a common theme and several different items to complete the series (in the case of vending machines, the toys come attached to your refreshing beverage). But, rather than doing something useful like actually showing you what you’re going to get, the box is sealed, making the entire enterprise a lottery, like baseball cards or things at the bottom of cereal boxes. Of course, the ultimate goal is to get you to buy ever more mystery boxes and to drive OCD types insane.
