Keen students of the JDM car scene will be familiar with the name Mitsuoka. Best known for a Nissan March/Micra based Jaguar Mk2 conversion called the Viewt (above) a highly popular item in Japan, with over 1,000 sold (have a close look at the Japlish slogan in the picture above!). But Mitsuoka is also known for quite a lot of other wacky stuff.
We came across Love Ear Art the other day, an airbrush artist in Japan who does a lot of work on JDM classics in a true 70s style. Check out his Blog for more of his awesome work.
After our piece on bosozoku biker tribes a few weeks ago, one of our readers brought it to our attention that the Weezer video clip for Dope Nose features some Kyusha-kai bikers in it! So it got us to thinking about what other oddball JDM video clips we could find.
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.
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.
A few weeks ago we profiled Tokyo Hakosuka tuner Victory50. But Japan has quite a few Hakosuka/Old Nissan tuners as you would expect, and a particularly notable one is Auto Classica.
Located in Yokohama, Auto Classica is decked out like a high-end home stereo store, complete with cafe.
Apologies in advance for a bit of a quiet period on GrandJDM over the next couple of days, be we’ll be incommunicado for a short while because we’ll be travelling to JDM-Land for the Tokyo Autosalon.
Of course we’ll take lots of pictures while we’re there, so we’ll see you in a couple of days’ time with our Autosalon coverage!
JDM tuners are nothing if not enthusiastically competitive, and today, that manifests itself in the regular Super Lap time trials at Tsukuba raceway. It’s where all of the major tuning houses pit RX7s, Lancer Evolutions, Imprezas and Skyline GT-Rs against each other. Back in the day, it’s interesting to note that Option Magazine played an important part in fostering these friendly rivalries, which in turn played a big part in forcing the JDM tuning houses to raise their game to stay competitive, and in doing so, building the most professional tuner scene on the planet.
Many months ago we brought your attention to an excellent series called Legend of Option. It’s a series of magazines, which go over the good old days when the JDM tuner scene was very much in its infancy. The series goes beyond just reprinting old articles from the era, but rather it’s a freshly written retrospective.
While searching for something completely unrelated on the googles, I stumbled across this Kareha leaf t-shirt.
What it says, I have no idea – presumably something like “old driver for please be watching out” – but it’s cool nonetheless. Nice price, I think I will buy.
It hardly seems like a whole 6mths has passed since Van, Lachy and I started GrandJDM, and it’s been a blast. We’d like to give our heartfelt thanks to all you readers for supporting us, and we hope you’ve gotten as much fun out of old JDM iron as we have. We’re all looking forward to bringing you more in 2008 (boy, do we have some surprises in store!) and we’d like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.
Apologies in advance for a bit of a quiet period on GrandJDM over the next couple of days, be we’ll be incommunicado for a short while because we’ll be travelling to JDM-Land for the Tokyo Autosalon.
While searching for something completely unrelated on the googles, I stumbled across this 
