Yesterday we did a post on some of the more recent cool toy releases from TakaraTomy.  But that was just scratching the surface of their rather massive range of products.  Here’s a sample of the rest of their offerings.

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RS-Yasu is another restoration shop out of Tochigi Prefecture, Japan that does beautiful restoration work. Their most recently completed masterpiece is a sanitora, a portmanteau of “Sunny Truck.” Despite it looking like an early 70s B110 Sunny (Datsun 1200 in the US), Nissan continued to build the pickup version long after the passenger car bodies had been discontinued. This is a 1989 model. Check out the resto process page.

[Banpei]

One of the cool things about going to Japan is just walking into a suburban toystore and spending a few hours discovering all the cool JDM toys (and also rediscovering the fact that you may not be as grown-up as you think you are as you stumble to the checkout with an armful of children’s toys for yourself).

And probably the biggest JDM toymaker is Takara Tomy (just check out their huge range of products)!  There’s constantly something cool being released.

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I think the heat may have gotten to Kev. Having Christmas in summer can do that to a bloke, so here’s a North American seasons greetings from JNC. Well, technically this photo was taken in Japan, but whatever. May you find something this cool under your tree. Happy Holidays!

From myself and all the JNC members, we’d all like to wish all our fellow JNCers a very merry Christmas, wherever you may be.

JDM Santa will bring you that hard-to-find part you’ve been looking for, and may all your days be rust-free!

…hey, that rhymes…

Our hopes for a return to RWD Toyotas have been dashed on account of the drastic worldwide economic downturn. The lightweight coupe, widely assumed to be a RWD Corolla successor, has been in the works since August 2007 but according to this article the project has been put on hold until at least 2012. This comes with the news today that Toyota has posted its first operating loss since 1938, its first year in business. But those are just the beginning of woes that are slamming the Japanese auto industry. Read the rest of this entry »

These low-res scans of an early 1970’s Toyota publicity brochure tell an unbelievable story: “To heck with a Land Cruiser; we’re tackling the frozen wastes of Greenland in the New Carina!” Read the rest of this entry »