For some reason your flight to O’Hare was diverted to Tokyo instead. You have one day see the one shop, buy the one part, or drive the one car you’ve always dreamed of before you have to fly back across the Pacific.
What would you do with 24 hours in Japan?
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 was the last great golden era Japanese car?” Continue reading
Join us this Sunday at Toyota headquarters for the Street Neo Classics 80s & 90s show. We’ve made a limited edition run of our Made in the 80s shirt to debut at the show. It will be available in the JNC Shop afterwards if there are any left. See you there!
October 21, 2015 was the date Marty McFly flew to in Back to the Future II, the date we were supposed to have things like hoverboards and Mr Fusion engines. And while the film’s hero may have done all his time traveling in a DeLorean, his dream car was a black 1985 Toyota Hilux 4×4. To celebrate this landmark date, Toyota is preparing something special. Continue reading
Mattel has announced the list of 2016 Hot Wheels. Among them are a few new castings that may be of interest to JNC readers. We already know about the Nissan Fairlady Z modeled after designer Jun Imai’s real car and the Custom Acura Integra designed by Ryu Asada (come meet him at the JNC booth at the Street Neo Classics show this Sunday!). But now we know there will be a 2016 Acura NSX (to go along with the 1990 NSX with similar colorways in a “Then & Now” pairing) and, excitingly enough, a Honda Monkey! Continue reading
If you had to rank the social pecking order of JDM performance cars, then the Skyline GT-R would be the king. No matter what marque you favor, it’s hard to argue against the decades of motorsport glory and performance folklore that surrounds Nissan’s finest product. After that, you might have the RX-7 with its seductive curves and turbo rotary cool, and of course the Supra is covered in Paul Walker fairy dust and 2JZ engine mythos. Nissan also has the Z, still such an evocative nameplate even today, especially in Japan. Subaru? Well those guys are steeped in rally lore and so is Mitsubishi with its Lancer Evolution, all sideways and airborne through a Finnish forest somewhere. And that’s it, isn’t it? Continue reading
The last installment of our JCCS coverage was a homage to bone stock beauts, but a huge contributor to the popularity of Japanese cars has always been their tunability. Here are the JCCS cars that were built for street and circuit, not preservation. Continue reading
Sung Kang is perhaps best known for his role as Han in the Fast & Furious movies. Like his character in the films Sung is a car guy as well, and is currently building a Datsun 240Z with the help of Trust/GReddy that will debut at SEMA in November. Here’s a little preview of the car and the story behind it. Continue reading
This Sunday marks the inaugural Street Neo Classics show, an event for 80s and 90s Japanese cars, brought to you by the people who created JCCS. We at JNC will of course have a booth there, and joining us to sign autographs will be none other than Hot Wheels designer Ryu Asada. Continue reading
When Toyota dropped photos of its upcoming Toyota’s S-FR concept, many thought it looked suspiciously production ready. As it turns out, it may be even closer than we thought. As it turns out, it has very specific specifications, and they have been leaked. Continue reading
We’ve admired Glenn Chiou’s Nissan Fairlady Z ever since the moment we laid eyes on it at the 2012 Bayline Gathering. Over the years, we’ve seen it progress into what is quite possibly one of our favorite S30 Z builds in the states. Continue reading
Established in 1977, Trust is an institution in the Japanese tuning world. They produce a line of high-quality exhaust manifolds for the S30 Z and L-series-equipped kenmeri Skyline, but until now those have never been officially offered in the US. Continue reading
This year’s Japanese Classic Car Show seemed to have more diversity in bone-stock rides than ever. We might be reaching a point where fans of J-tin are truly beginning to appreciate unmolested cars. Along with the other time warps peppering our other installments, here are the bone-stock beauties of JCCS 2015. Continue reading
The era of the Japanese performance car is one of automotive history’s great epochs. With everything from kei sports cars to supercar killing sedans, there was seemingly nothing the Japanese wouldn’t build. Despite cars like the Nissan GT-R and Lexus LFA, recent offerings like the Honda S660, and upcoming Tokyo Motor Show concepts like the Mazda heritage concept and Toyota S-FR, it just doesn’t feel the same as that golden era. In honor of the Street Neo Classics 80s and 90s car show coming up this weekend, we ask:
What was the last great golden era Japanese car?
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 red?” Continue reading
We are very proud to announce that in 2016, Hot Wheels has created a new premium collection devoted to Japanese nostalgic cars. Called the Japan Historics line, it will feature celebrated cars from Japan’s automotive past. And of course, we are very excited to tell you that the JNC inkan will be featured on all of them. Continue reading
Here’s a Toyota S-FR photoshopped with a Zero theme, some better airflow, and gunmetal Wats. It was sent to us by a fan that shall remain nameless because he works for a car company that is not Toyota. Let’s hope the S-FR sees production so this can become a reality.
While the Yotahachi-inspired S-FR Concept is getting all the attention, Toyota is actually bringing several other concepts to the Tokyo Motor Show at the end of the month, two of them with throwback styling. Continue reading
Toyota has previewed a new sports car concept ahead of the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show later this month. According to the automaker, the Toyota S-FR “continues the proud heritage of Toyota’s fun-to-drive lightweight sports cars.” Of course, this year was the 50th anniversary of Toyota’s first sports car, and though it wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the official statement, the S-FR clearly looks like a modern interpretation of 1965 Sports 800. Continue reading
At the recent annual Hot Wheels convention in Los Angeles, a new model was quietly revealed for 2016. It’s not quite nostalgic yet, but the Acura Integra was a long time coming.
Continue reading
When it debuted in 1969, the S30 Z promptly redefined the sports car, tearing down any remaining barriers, psychological or otherwise, to owning a Japanese car. It became the first piece of Nihon steel you could own with pride in America, which set the Z on its way to become the best-selling sports car of all time. As such, it holds a special privilege among Japanese classics, sort of like a Corvette among fans of Detroit iron. And as with Corvette fans, some of them are downright obsessive. Continue reading
This year’s JCCS had a higher turnout, truck-wise, than any other in recent memory. Former workhorses that managed to survive — or evade — decades of hard labor showed up en masse on Queen Mary lawn to enjoy their new status as classics. Continue reading
