Do you wish you could have a 1960s Honda F1 car of your very own? A British outfit called Stuart-Taylor Motorsport is building a life-size replica of the 1968 Honda RA302, an interesting choice considering the original’s morbid history. Continue reading
In 1965, a motorcycle distributor named Pride and Clark became the first company to officially sell Toyotas in the UK. Toyota recently celebrated 50 years in the United Kingdom with a gathering of classics, many of which had their own local flavor and were models never sold in the US. Continue reading
The pop-up headlight: automotive eyes personified, endearing relic, or just two additional unnecessary points-of-failure? Whatever you think of them, they defined an automotive era. I happen to reap a weird, endless joy from that delay between when you flick the switch and when they actually pop-up or retract.
Which JNC had the coolest pop-up headlights?
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 Japanese nostalgic hatchback?” Continue reading
Do you want to see a Lego Land Cruiser set? There’s a 40-series up for evaluation right now, and if it gets enough votes it could become an official Lego kit. Continue reading
The news came down this morning, dropping like a bombshell in the diecast world. For 2016, Matchbox will add two Japanese icons to its lineup. The first is a no-brainer: the ND Miata is Mazda’s latest sportster and the most exciting new car to come down the pike in a long time. The second surprised the hell out of everyone: the Hakosuka Skyline. Continue reading
With a small but passionate maker of sporty cars and oddball engines taking center stage at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, all manner of Hiroshima steel could be found on the show grounds. A seemingly mundane Mazda RX-7 looked like any number of cars you might see at a weekend SCCA race, but this little rotary actually has huge, huge provenance. This very car, back in 1981, outright won the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, Europe’s other backbreaking endurance race. Continue reading
In the first of a series, JNC is teaming up with our friends at Petrolicious to launch simultaneously a video and an article about historically significant Japanese cars. Be sure to check out the excellent Petrolicious and their beautifully shot short films about vintage cars.
Nowadays there are few cars from Japan’s Miracle Years that escape the collector’s eye, but long before every grandma’s Toyota Corona or obscure Isuzu was sought for by street tuner and speculator alike, the Datsun 510 stood alone at the forefront of the classic J-tin vanguard. Continue reading
The hatchback. Loved everywhere in the world but the US. Rather than embrace its practicality, we Americans refuse to date anyone driving one and insist on adding a smaller, shallower cargo area that extends over the rear wheels like a portable bathtub. Luckily, Japan has no such hangups about the hatch, and has created some cracking ones.
What’s the greatest Japanese nostalgic hatchback?
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 best shade of JNC yellow?” Continue reading
In Part 01 of the coverage we exclusively covered Toyotas. It was a pretty big upload and there were probably too many Toyotas to feature all at once. Datsuns were relatively sparse by comparison, but what they lacked in quantity they made up for in quality. If you noticed the teaser picture at the end of the previous installment you saw a Datsun 510 laying down a massive burnout, So lets start with that car. Continue reading
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
