Category Archives: Question of the Week
QotW: Which marque would you never recommend?
Earlier this year we asked which marque you most often recommend. We presume that, as car enthusiasts, friends and family will ask you about what car they should buy. But what about the cars they shouldn’t buy? What are the … Continue reading
Posted in Question of the Week
17 Comments
QotW: Which JNC has the best-looking rear?
Today, November 4, is Butt Day in Japan. Now as you pick your brains up out of the gutter you should know that the holiday comes from the popular children’s character Detective Butt, who is a crime solver with a … Continue reading
QotW: What’s your favorite animated JNC?
October 28 is International Animation Day, and what better day could there be to ask about your favorite animated cars? We’ve always had a soft spot for a certain white FC RX-7. Among the legendary Takahashi brothers, the older Ryosuke … Continue reading
QotW: How do you clean old stains from floormats and carpets?
I’ll admit this QotW is purely for selfish reasons, but we are trying to do a deep clean on my AE86 and the carpets have very old stains from an unknown substance. We’ve tried everything — a Bissell carpet cleaner, … Continue reading
QotW: What is your favorite form of motorsports, and what car would you compete in it with?
Today, October 14, is Sports Day in Japan. It was created in 1966 to commemorate the opening of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, an event that set off a massive infrastructure program — bullet trains, expressways, satellite broadcasting — that helped … Continue reading
Posted in Question of the Week
9 Comments
QotW: LED headlights, yea or nay?
Today, October 7, is National LED Light Day. One of the easiest mods to update a vintage car is LED lights. They instantly improve night time visibility and vision with technology decades newer than old school sealed beams. However, one … Continue reading
QotW: What complete JNC body shell should be reproduced next?
The AE86-osphere went kind of nuts last week when it was revealed that they can buy a complete unibody Sprinter Trueno shell on Alibaba. The iconic drift sled is a good candidate for this treatment, as the majority of original … Continue reading
Posted in Question of the Week
16 Comments
QotW: What’s the most 90s car?
As someone who lived through the 1990s, I feel like the decade is hard to pin down. A lot of what is called 90s is actually an 80s aesthetic, and everywhere you look there are claims that 90s fashion is … Continue reading
QotW: How would you make a Mazda ad?
It’s hard to make a car commercial stand out. Beautiful people, beautiful landscapes, the promise of adventure. Every company portrays their wares as thrilling to drive, even when they’re duller than dry dirt. What happens when you have cars that … Continue reading
Posted in Question of the Week
4 Comments
QotW: Have you ever seen Japanese government vehicles outside of Japan?
In the US government vehicles tend to be American. It probably makes politicians look bad if they buy foreign cars, but some slip through. We’ve heard some states have Subaru police cars though we’ve never seen one. The Pentagon used … Continue reading
QotW: Which once-derided Japanese car will make a comeback?
History is filled with flops, but even some of the worst cars get a second chance at glory after some time has passed. There are owners who now love Chrysler K-cars, Pontiac Azteks, Trabants, and other forms of automotive awfulness. … Continue reading
Posted in Question of the Week
11 Comments
QotW: What’s your ultimate hashiriya build?
The announcement of the first Tokyo Xtreme Racer title in two decades dropped last week, just a few days before the anniversary of the Rainbow Bridge’s opening on August 26, 1993. Coincidence? Probably, but it does raise the question of … Continue reading
QotW: What’s your favorite captive import?
On August 12, 1981 Suzuki, Isuzu, and General Motors signed a deal to co-develop compact cars. In hindsight we know that this deal didn’t result in any game-changing products. Instead, it produced a lot of rebadged models under the defunct … Continue reading
QotW: What’s your Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi dream build?
If you’ve been following industry news you might have heard that, last week, Honda and Nissan not only strengthened their strategic partnership, but added Mitsubishi. The alliance is for fast-tracking electrification technologies — and to compete against the Toyota, Subaru, … Continue reading
Posted in Question of the Week
12 Comments
QotW: Which marque do you most often recommend?
We’re assuming that because JNC readers are car enthusiasts, you often get asked by your normie friends what kind of car they should buy. Obviously the recommendation will depend on the various needs of the buyer, but is there a … Continue reading
QotW: What car do you not regret selling or letting get away?
Every car enthusiast has a few stories of the cars that got away. Perhaps it was a car you regret selling when times were hard. Maybe it was a car you should’ve bought but didn’t. On the other end of … Continue reading
QotW: What car(s) from Japan would you import right now?
Let’s say a rich relative you never heard of died suddenly and left you a big chunk of cash. The only condition is that you use it to buy a Japan-market car in today’s rather favorable exchange rate climate. There … Continue reading
QotW: What non-Japanese car would you modify in Japanese style?
The 1973 Lincoln Continental Mark IV we posted for Independence Day is a perfect example of how Japanese customization style can work on even non-Japanese cars. The Linc is a ridiculous car to begin with, and its nearly 20 feet of … Continue reading
QotW: How do you navigate when driving your JNC?
Today is the 10th anniversary of Navigation Day in Japan, started in 2014 by Zenrin, the map company that helped create the world’s first in-car GPS in the Mazda Eunos Cosmo. The date of July 1 was chosen to coincide … Continue reading
Posted in Question of the Week
15 Comments
QotW: Which historic auto industry figure would you visit if you could time travel?
A recently published Japanese novel tells the a sci-fi story of what would happen if Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda traveled back in time to meet his grandfather Kiichiro Toyoda, the man who founded Toyota Motor Co. If time travel were … Continue reading
