This backyard stash of J-tin was just sitting about on a quiet suburban side street. The owner of this trove may not want to be revealed so I won’t mention any names, but he did say that the majority of these cars will, one day, be restored. A few are too far gone, like the black S30 Crown and the blue Sports 800, but the rest should keep him busy for a while. Amazingly, he said that the neighbors don’t complain at all. Instead, they think it’s cool to see the old cars. Nobody tell them about HOAs.
We’re still trying to go through the hundreds of SEMA photos we took, but in the meantime here’s a small set of photos from Satoshi, our man in Japan, from one of the Morning Cruises sponsored by Barracuda. Here are twomore galleries from some of their past cruises in our Events Section. (more…)
The interior of this 1982 Toyota Lite Ace makes us wish we were kids again. Why? Because it has bunk beds! The lower level is formed by folding the rear seats flat, while the upper bed is suspended from the high roof and rests on the front seat backs. This reminds us of the treehouse we would have built if building a treehouse hadn’t been, you know, hard.
Stay tuned afterwards for a bonus commercial featuring Roger Moore in a Corona, possibly with the missile launcher behind headlight option.
Alas, our journey to Japan has come to an end. This morning we packed up our 10,000 lbs of brochures, some low down springs for the Cressida wagon, and 500 mystery boxes into Satoshi’s lowered 1995 Mitsubishi Delica Space Gear Super Exceed and headed out to Narita Airport.
The road to Narita.
Before we part, let’s take a look at his van’s endearing but typical excesses of Japanese badging.
Here’s the first pic we took waaay back on Day 1. From left to right, it says “Mitsubishi”, “Delica” and “Space Gear”. Fine. We’ve got the make, model, and sub-model established.
On the B-pillar a small badge tells the world this is no mere base trim specimen, but a “Super Exceed”.
As mentioned before, this cruiser has five sunroofs, one of which is causing much glare in this photo, but trust us, the label says “Crystal Lite Roof”.
On the rear flanks, the engine is identified as a “24 Valve V6 3000″.
However, this plethora of badging would not be complete without one last item. Here’s Ben and Dan vandalizing the Space Gear with a JNC sticker.
JNC representin’ Tokyo!
Sayonara, Tokyo, it’s been a blast. Thanks to all our friends, old and new, for showing us around and guiding us through nostalgic car heaven! Jya-ne… For all you JNC readers, we’ll see you stateside.
We took NWA, but the food wasn’t very good. If you have a choice, we recommend Public Enemy Air.
Our man in Japan Satoshi picked us up in his slammed 1995 Mitsubishi Delica Space Gear Super Exceed. It’s got 0 bump stops, 2 tones, 3 fewer inches in ride height, and 5 sunroofs.
Here’s Dan doing the Akabou mascot pose next to a Subaru Sambar kei-sized delivery kei truck.
After a quick ramen meal, we went to the apartment where we’ll be staying, and we’re about to pass out. It’s already morning in the US, and we’ve been awake about 24hrs. We’ve reserved a rental car for tomorrow, and we’re headed out to Tochigi and Honda’s Twin Ring Motegi. Wonder what rental we’re gonna get! Good night.
Over at online magazine Winding Road, they’ve posted the pages of a 1967 Toyo Kogyo brochure. If you’ve been paying attention, that’s the manufacturer Mazda was formerly known as, and it made corks. Each company had its humble beginnings. For Toyota, it was looms; for Subaru, planes; and Honda, motorcycles. Hey, someone had to supply Hiroshima with sake stoppers. By 1967, however, the company had moved quite a bit beyond bottle bungs and had expanded their lineup to include Luce 1500s, Familia 1000s, vans, trucks, buses, three-wheelers and their pièce de résistance, the brand new rotary-powered Cosmo Sports. Fun times!
Over at online magazine 
