Monthly Archives: March 2016

VIDEO: A key part of Japanese industry now lost

Here’s a video, perhaps in the same grade-school documentary series as the one about Japanese industry in the 1970s. It has no cars, but you can still learn a thing or two. In particular, there’s a scene showing a family-owned sewing business (6:19 in the video … Continue reading

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EVENTS: Marikina Old Schoolers East meet

Perhaps unbeknownst to most Americans, the Philippines has an incredibly strong tradition of classic car enthusiasm, especially with Nihon steel. Due to the nation’s proximity to Japan, it was one of the early export markets and received many models that … Continue reading

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EVENTS: 2016 New Year Meeting, Part 03 — This is Japan

A life-size Gundam robot towers above the trees. Giant windowless shopping centers operate like small cities. In this snapshot of a hyper-futuristic metropolis floating on a man-made island in Tokyo Bay, tradition comes in the form of a parking lot teeming … Continue reading

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Happy International Women’s Day from JNC

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VIDEO: Watch loads of JNC goodness in this documentary about Japan in the 1970s

The video you’re about to watch is what American schoolchildren were taught about Japan in the 1970s. Throughout it all, there are brilliant scenes of Showa Era Japanese streets and the cars that populate them. 

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QotW: What’s your best tale of JNC indestructibility?

One of the greatest things about owning a JNCs is its reliability. Think that’s boring? Well, while macchine nostalgico Italiano owners are leaking vital fluids, Deutsch nostalgischen auto owners are trying to figure out why you need to remove the transmission to change a bulb, … Continue reading

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GRAND TOURING: Driving across Japan in a JNC, Day 02

In Part 01 of our once-in-a-lifetime road trip, we set out from Nagoya and headed to Maizuru City via Lake Biwa. Our car was an Isuzu fresh off of a head gasket change, and while Day Two was yet another day of … Continue reading

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KIDNEY, ANYONE? Mazda RX-7 rally car with Group B power

It’s been said a thousand times: Group B race cars are among the most iconic, exciting, and outrageous in motorsport history, tearing through dirt or tarmac in outlandish style and manner. However, fans of Japanese sports cars may feel a … Continue reading

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EVENTS: 2016 New Year Meeting, Part 02 — The Parking Area

In Part 02 of our New Year Meeting coverage, we delve into the parking area to unearth gems as good as anything inside the show. Some of them aren’t able to make it simply because of the age cutoff, others perhaps … Continue reading

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EVENTS: The Mazda Ice Academy explains why Mazdas are so darn fun to drive

The Mazda Ice Academy’s main reason for existence was to show off the Hiroshima automaker’s newfangled all-wheel-drive system. That was good, as we’d marveled before at how they managed to give a mid-size crossover better handling than many actual cars. We wanted … Continue reading

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EVENTS: 2016 New Year Meeting, Part 01

The New Year Meeting is Tokyo’s premiere classic car show and it takes place at the end of January. You’ll likely never see a gathering of J-tin so diverse anywhere else, and the magic begins with a line of cars at the … Continue reading

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KIDNEY, ANYONE? The finest replica of a Mugen CRX SCCA GT4 race car is in France

In the early 1980s, Honda wanted to show the appeal of its high-performance vehicles to American enthusiasts. It set about building a racing car with the help of its tuning and racing division, Mugen, to compete in the SCCA GT-4 … Continue reading

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DESIGN: Nissan VP reveals challenges of designing with DNA

We recently had the chance to glimpse into the the mind of someone who spends every day thinking and making decisions about the cars we buy, drive, and love. Taro Ueda is Vice-President of Design at Nissan Design America, the automaker’s … Continue reading

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VIDEO: Watch the R32 Skyline GT-R lap the Nürburgring

Nowadays, for any performance car worth their salt, a Nürburgring lap is a spec sheet staple, right there under horsepower, torque, and 0-60 time. But the Nissan Skyline GT-R was doing it before it was cool. Way before. Back in 1989, … Continue reading

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PIXELLATED: Forza Motorsport 6

Welcome to a new series about JNCs in video games. Perhaps you can’t have the garage of your dreams in real life, but you can have it in pixels. One of the best series of all time for JNCs, Forza has … Continue reading

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Does your classic Subaru belong in a museum?

Do you have a classic Subaru? Do you want to display it in the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum’s upcoming exhibit of all-wheel-drive Japanese cars? Our friends at Subaru of America recently alerted us to the fact that they were loaning several of their own cars … Continue reading

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