Japanese owners of the TE27 Corolla Levin and Sprinter Trueno recently gathered for their annual meeting, held at the Toyota Automobile Museum in Aichi Prefecture in central Japan. Ninety-six cars in total came from all over the country, forming a sea of moss green and orange. Continue reading
Eighty-two years ago today Nissan Motor Company was established. What better way to celebrate than with a slew of photos of its most iconic sports car? Fortunately, the recent Z-Bash show in Anaheim, California had approximately 400 of them. Continue reading
Time for a JNC public service announcement: If you have a car in Japan, and you have an aftermarket exhaust on it, be careful during the month of June. It’s Illegal Exhaust Awareness Month, and authorities will be cracking down on modified cars. Continue reading
Some good news for fans of old Japanese aftermarket wheels: Hayashi Racing is re-releasing the Techno Phantom wheel. The classic rim, one of many old Japanese designs inspired by ninja stars, is now available to purchase brand new for the first time in decades. Continue reading
Not all of us are lucky enough to own the car of our dreams. And even if we do, sometimes that’s just not enough. Do you pore over every volume of Kousoku Yuen ever published? Build your dream garage in plastic model kits? Fill your house with thousands of little metal cars?
How do you live the JNC life?
What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining comment by next Monday will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “What should the next JNC wagon be?” Continue reading
One of the excellent things about a show like Nos2Days is that there are plenty of things for sale. You never know what you’ll come across, which can make browsing the aisles rather dangerous to your wallet. From new-old-stock center caps to a complete, restored DR30 Skyline, there’s something for everyone. Continue reading
In a nod to Godzillas past, Nissan took to the Nürburgring today to debut the 2017 GT-R NISMO. It was only appropriate, since the famed German circuit was the site where its predecessor, the R33 Skyline GT-R, broke the production car record and brought the company worldwide notoriety in the 1990s. Continue reading
In this installment, we take a look at two very different types of cars: original barn finds and restorations whose every last nut is factory correct, and those that were treated like instruments of war. In other words, all the stuff that’s prized by predictably obvious “traditional” collectors. Continue reading
For the final installment of this year’s Toyotafest we share the JNC staff favorites. In a show packed with prime Aichi steel, it wasn’t easy to narrow down the field, making the results probably over-long. But hey, it’s a good problem to have, right? Continue reading
The RT40 Corona was hugely important in the US, saving Toyota’s skin after an embarrassing debut with the S30 Crown. However, that was nothing compared to the way it utterly transformed the Australian market for Toyota when it debuted in 1965. Continue reading
Playstation owners, rejoice! Your racing sim is here. After a console generation of Forza giving Gran Turismo a run for its money, it looks as if Turn 10’s David has not beaten Polyphony’s Goliath. In graphics alone, Turn 10’s Forza franchise appears to have competition again. Continue reading
After 9 years of dutiful service it has come time to retire the JNC Cressida wagon. It has faithfully carried the JNC crew to nearly every Toyotafest, JCCS, SevenStock, Nissan Jam, and SEMA — usually packed to the headliner with gear — for almost a decade, but California’s debris-covered, oil-pan denting roads and incessant sun have not been kind to this increasingly rare workhorse. Don’t worry, we’re not selling it. We’re going to give it a proper reconditioning so it can shine once again.
In the meantime, we’ll need another hauler. It doesn’t have to be a station wagon, but it’ll need to have at least as much cargo space as the Cressida, be somewhat reliable (or easy to find parts for), and be appropriately Japanese nostalgic.
What should the next JNC wagon be?
What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining comment by next Monday will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “What’s the baddest Nissan-Mitsubishi combo?” Continue reading
Keiichi Tsuchiya might be happy smoking new GT-Rs, but he has nothing but admiration for the old ones. In another Best Motoring video uploaded last night Keiichi Tsuchiya climbs into a couple of Victory 50-tuned Hakos and gets ’em slideways like the days when Kunimitsu Takahashi would break loose his bias-ply tires. Continue reading
Power-to-weight ratio is the key in this old Hot Version race in which Keiichi Tsuchiya and Akira Iida pit a pair of Toyota Starlets against an R34 Skyline GT-R and the Kei Office S15 Silvia. The Drift King puts it all on the table in a classic David vs Godzilla battle, but the ending may not be what you expect. Continue reading
The Honda Collection Hall museum at Twin Ring Motegi has just uploaded another several videos to their YouTube channel. Following on the series launched earlier this year, several 80s Honda cars and motorcycles get their turn to exercise their engines around the museum grounds. It’s not quite an extensive a collection as the first round, but we get some sweet Prelude and CR-X action. Continue reading
For our second installment of the 2016 Nostalgic 2 Days event coverage, we’ll take a look at some of Japan’s kyusha tuning houses, beginning with our friends at Star Road. The Tokyo-based specialists of classic Skylines and Fairlady Zs typically holds court at one of the biggest and most eye-catching displays of the show, and this year was no exception. Continue reading
Racing driver Sokichi Shikiba died yesterday, May 17, in a hospital in Tokyo as a result of liver failure. He was 77 years old.
Born to a hospital manager in Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture in 1939, Shikiba grew up with a generation of young men who came of age as Japan’s nascent auto industry was taking off. Carmakers were delving into motorsports to spur development, and Shikiba’s cadre of fellow motorheads — which included legends such as Tojiro Ukiya, Aritsune Tokudaiji, and Tetsu Ikuzawa — became the forefathers of motorsport in Japan. Continue reading
There are three certainties in life: death, taxes, and Toyota trucks. Tales of their indestructibility are told throughout the world, and this year’s Toyotafest saw a variety of Aichi dromedaries from all corners of the globe. Continue reading
Honda has released the second installment of its video series documenting the restoration of the first car it built for the US market. If you’ve been keeping up with the story, the extremely brief video is unlikely to shed any new light on the topic. Still, it’s worth a viewing for any Honda head. Continue reading
As we saw in Part 02, Toyota has had no shortage of grand, powerful machines powered by the legendary straight-six. However, the company built its fortunes on millions of inline-fours. Using its vast production reserves, it has over the years been able to bestow many of these four-bangers into an affordable sports coupe package for the masses. Here are some of them that showed up to the 2016 Toyotafest. Continue reading
