You never know what you’ll encounter at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Meandering through the paddocks, we came across the 1976 Kojima Engineering KE007, a Japanese Formula One car that was poised to become a formidable challenger in F1 a decade before McLaren-Hondas began their domination. It was also funded, largely in part, by bananas. Continue reading
For this installment of JNC‘s Art Corner, we feature another artist from Japan. U井T吾, 27, is a Kyoto-based artist whose day job is in character design for board games and social gaming. Fortunately for us, he’s also an enthusiast of old Japanese cars and bikes, which he renders beautifully in a very Japanese manga-like style. Continue reading
You know it ain’t no ordinary car show when you tilt your head up to see a pair of Mazda race cars in the sky. Twisting on a lattice of white steel, the Central Feature at the 2015 Goodwood Festival of Speed was an homage to racing successes of Mazda at the greatest motorsports festival in the world. Continue reading
Over the weekend Mitsubishi Motors has unveiled the very, very last of the Lancer Evolution line. Fans of the Flanked by other great sports cars from the company’s past, the Final Edition Evo made its debut at the Mitsubishi Owners’ Day event at the firm’s US headquarters in Cypress, California amidst thousands of dedicated Mitsubishi fans that had arrived from all over the west coast in Starions, 3000GTs, and even Delicas. Continue reading
If July could be a color, it would be yellow. With the golden light of our sun shining brightly as ever, beating down on us, and giving Superman his powers, it is perhaps time to ponder a hue not so common on cars as they once were. One of the most distinctive shades of yellow ever created was simply called 112 Yellow in Nissan’s palette. Like a highlighter on wheels, it set Datsun 240Zs aglow, but you don’t have to take our word for it.
What’s the best shade of JNC yellow?
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, “Which nostalgic feature should be brought back?” Continue reading
Take a gander at what is likely the lowest-mileage AE86 hatch for sale in the world. Listed for sale in Osaka, Japan, this true JDM Toyota Corolla Levin GT Apex reads only 18,260 km on the odometer, or 11,346 miles. Continue reading
There’s a relatively new anime called Maido! Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku (毎度!浦安鉄筋家族). Featuring extremely short episodes — like under two minutes short — and story lines that are monkey tits insane, but the main characters are from Urayasu, Chiba and drive an S54 Skyline taxi. Though not all the episodes have cars in them, when they do you can often spot things like a Honda S800 or a Tekamen R30 in the background. The YouTube clips aren’t great quality, but you can spot the cars pretty easily. Apparently it’s hilarious if you understand Japanese. Watch some of the videos below. Continue reading
Last week we showed you Australian insurance company Shannons’ video about the collectability of the first-gen Toyota Celica. Here’s an earlier one they’ve done about the seminal Mazda RX-3, and it features one of the most stunningly original examples you’ll ever see. There’s also quite a bit of Mazda’s Australian racing history detailed in the video, showing just exactly why Aussies are so crazy about the rotary. Watch the video below. Continue reading
The reasons for our love of JNCs are plentiful. Almost as plentiful as questions about why we’d drive a 30 year old Toyota/Honda/Mazda/Daihatsu rather than a comfortable new car. Many of those reasons, however, are actually good: simplicity in design and engineering, greater outward visibility than a pillbox, endearing pop-up headlights, and oddball stereo controls, just to name a few. It got us thinking…
Which nostalgic feature on should be brought back?
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, “Which JNC is impossible to find stock?” Continue reading
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Rarely do we feature events from the great Northern Midwest but being invited to Team_Nostalgic’s Old School Love, New School Flavor show in Chicago meant leaving my humble Minneapolis abode at 3:30 am on the day of the event. It … Continue reading
Shannons, and Australian classic car insurance company has a great series of videos about collectors cars you should consider. While most feature Holdens and cars you’d see in Mad Max, one recent video is all about the Toyota Celica and its emergence as a sought-after classic. Down Under, its fame was helped greatly by a star performance at Bathurst, a bit of history North Americans may not be aware of. Watch the video below. Continue reading
If you’re looking for confirmation that Japanese classic car culture has truly arrived in the United States, the following statement may or may not provide it: on June 22nd, somewhere between Springfield, Missouri and Oklahoma City, a Nissan Fairlady Z432 was rear-ended by a farm vehicle. We’ll give you a moment to regain your composure before we explain how this calamity could possibly occur. Continue reading
When we last met, dear reader, I told you of my adventures traveling to Nagoya for the 50th anniversary celebration of the Toyota Sports 800, an adorable little car known to many of us as the Yotahachi. That day included a car show at the Toyota Automobuile Museum in Aichi Prefecture where I met many fellow enthusiasts and owners and men responsible for the development of the car. We capped it off with a road trip in a Yotahachi through central Japan’s scenic mountains to Tokyo, where day two of celebration would begin at Toyota’s MegaWeb showroom. Continue reading
Some cars, such as the two Kidney candidates we saw last week, are so welcoming to modifications that for it to survive decades untouched, especially at the affordable end of the blue book listings, is as unlikely as like a baby outlasting the zombie apocalypse.
Which JNC is impossible to find stock?
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 greatest JNC steering wheel?” Continue reading
Leave it to the Canadians to preserve the holy grail of EF Civics. Not only is this pristine example a final-year, top-spec Si performance model, it’s finished in Tahitian Green Pearl, an achingly proper shade of period correct teal considered highly — if not the most — desirable amongst Hondaheads. It even has power windows, a rare option for Civic Si models. Continue reading
The style of this video is precisely what was parodied so well by the recent Car Bros’ Secrets of Japan Revealed sketch, but once you get past the over-dramatized Sheriff John Bunnell narration, there’s still some good footage of badass women on badass bikes. Continue reading
You know what’s up with the 2016 Mazda Miata already. It’s smaller, lighter, and quicker than the outgoing model. No, it still does not have any more horsepower than the outgoing NC. It has fewer, in fact. However, if you think that makes it any less pure of a sports car then I’m sorry, you are not an it-getter. The ND is a throwback to the original Miata, in the truest sense of the word. If you don’t believe us, here are the stats. Continue reading
Toyota USA’s new Plano, Texas headquarters haven’t been built yet but the company has released a rendering of the new campus. It’s massive. It’s comprised of at least six buildings, each with a sleek glass lobby designed to display a wealth of cars. Still think the museum is going to stay in California? Continue reading
Talk to Mazda employees about their cars, past and present, and it immediately becomes clear that the company is comprised of people passionate about what they’ve built. This is no small feat, and we have peeked behind the walls of enough automakers to know that many house a bunch of employees for whom it’s just another job. But, if you don’t believe us just look to their collection of “toys” as evidence. The basement of Mazda’s research and development center in Irvine, California is where some of them reside, a collection of street, track and historically significant Mazdas. After our recent drive of the Eunos Cosmo, we were treated to a tour of this collection. Continue reading
A few months ago I made the claim — publicly and on video — that there were fewer stock AE86s left than Enzo Ferraris. So naturally the gods are going to make me eat my words by bringing every known example out of the woodwork. Be that as it may, about 800 of you sent in today’s Kidney Car, one of the cleanest Corolla GT-S hatchbacks we’ve seen, ever. Continue reading
