How do you keep a Toyotaku occupied for days? Well, 2013 is The Toyota Motor Corporation‘s 75th anniversary and as part of the celebration, they’ve released a ginormous interactive family tree that shows every Toyota model ever built. Ever. Sort by model name, body type or engine type, then click on the pop-up bubbles for more information. You can even download a PDF version too. Happy birthday, Toyota!
There’s purists and there’s everyone else. At least that’s how the purists see things. We don’t expect everyone to keep their JNC showroom original, but there are things that simply should not be done.
What’s the worst mod you can make to a classic car?
Our vote goes to upgrading the stereo — holes drilled for amps, wiring harnesses hacked, and worst of all, door panels cut for speakers. See the 1973 Datsun 510 in the above photo for example. It was an original blue plate one-owner car, but the owner decided to cut a big ol’ hole in a piece of un-patchable vinyl that’s now impossible to find. Sadly, this was all too popular a mod during the 80s and 90s.
What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining or inspiring comment by next Monday will receive a toy. Click through to see the winner from last week’s question, “Who’s the Baddest President of a Japanese Car Company?” Continue reading
We sure feasted our eyes on beautiful examples of Nihon steel in Parts 01 and 02 of our 2013 New Year Meeting coverage. The real show, however, is in the spectator parking area, which is packed full of shakotan sleds and kaido racers too scandalous for the event itself. Continue reading
Discovery Channel Japan’s Retro Car Kings has been recut into English. The one-hour show visits several of Nihon’s classic car builders, with styles varied as the cars themselves. There’s a bit of everything no matter what your poison, whether it’s the pure restorations of TA Auto or the wild engine swaps of Rocky Auto or the kaido Porsches of RWB. Info on the cars themselves is lacking, but it’s nice to hear the men behind these tuning houses describe their differing philosophies. Watch the video below. Continue reading
Today’s MiniCar news is another secret we’ve been dying to tell you for months (and would have if had it not been for Mattel’s legion of embargo enforcement ninjas). One of the rarest nostalgic Hot Wheels to be released this year is going to be the Datsun 240Z you see here. Only about 3,000 pieces will be made and first dibs will go to members of the Red Line Club. Continue reading
A car nut can’t get much better a gig than working for Jay Leno. And once you finish building your custom Datsun 510, like Tonight Show prop master Greg Elliot, the boss man himself might even feature it on his web series and pour heaps of praise upon it.
Leno calls the Voodoo Blue Bluebird “one of the most iconic sports sedans of the early Seventies” and more fun to drive than a modern BMW 3-series. However, his highest acclaim is reserved for when he names it “the ’57 Chevy of the future,” encouraging collectors to snap them up because they’ll never go down in value from this point onward. So, JNCers, if you’ve been holding off on that 510 project, better get one while you can. Continue reading
Since Monday was Presidents’ Day here in the States, we thought it’d be a good time to find out which captains of Japanese industry you admire most. From Mitsubishi founder and real life samurai Yataro Iwasaki to current Toyota head and sports car champion Akio Toyoda, history is littered with men without whom the cars we know and love would exist. Therefore we ask:
Who’s the baddest president of a Japanese car company?
Our pick goes to Soichiro Honda, who started his motorcycle company in 1955 and within four years tossed them into the world’s most grueling two-wheeler race, the Isle of Man TT. Two years after that, he won it. However lest you think that was a fluke, Honda also won a Formula 1 race only two years of producing his company’s first real car. Add to that the fact that Honda-san built his first race car at age 16 out of a discarded aircraft engine and has been photographed wearing a muthaeffin’ jetpack, we can think of no one badder.
What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining or inspiring comment by next Monday will receive a toy. Click through to see the winner from last week’s question, “What year was the peak of Japanese car design?” Continue reading
And now for your viewing pleasure, a lowrider 1980 Nissan President. An amalgam of Japano-American style created in the UK. It exchanged hands on eBay for £2,750 (or $4,268 USD) recently, which seems like quite a small amount of dead presidents for a sweet ride like this. Happy Presidents’ Day, enjoy the long weekend, and we’ll be back to your regularly scheduled JNC tomorrow. Continue reading
In Part 01 of our 2013 New Year Meeting coverage, our photogs arrived on the scene in Odaiba, Tokyo. Nihon steel was shot, the swap meets was perused, and legends of Japanese motoring were admired. We see no reason not to continue with formula, stat. Continue reading
A chocolate Tomica is either the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for the car lover in your life or a diabolical plan to drive die-hard collectors insane. You can’t keep this one Mint in Box, but it would sure taste good with some mint. Continue reading
“Forget about minivans. You are now working on the sports car project.” That’s how the Toyota 86‘s chief engineer Tetsuya Tada was brought in to the venture that would transform way automaking was done. According to an article on Toyota UK’s blog, back in 2007, Toyota called an executive board meeting specifically to answer the question of why people were losing interest in cars. It was widely accepted as gospel that sports cars could not turn a profit. Continue reading
We weren’t supposed to show you the latest Hot Wheels car featuring the JNC logo until much later. However, collector sites have leaked the car already so we might as well put up our official announcement. Continue reading
It’s a winter wonderland in Tokyo, but the blinding whiteness did not come from new-fallen snow. Instead, it emanated from the gleaming shiro paint jobs of rows upon rows of kyuusha. Two of JNC‘s intrepid photographers recently braved Japan’s icy winter to bring you coverage of the New Year Meeting. Continue reading
The Japanese auto industry has undergone many design eras — the jet setting Sixties, the techno-boxy Eighties, the lozenge Nineties. But like an old curmudgeon you know there’s a single year in your minds after which everything went downhill.
What year was the peak of Japanese car design?
In 1972 we Japan debuted such greats as the kenmeri Skyline, Mazda RX-4, butaketsu Laurel, and the above kujira Crown. What’s more, gorgeous Hakosuka, daruma Celicas, Isuzu Belletts and Fairlady Zs were already prowling the streets on a regular basis. In our minds everything was golden sparkles of sunlight reflecting off gliding chrome.
What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining or inspiring comment by next Monday will receive a toy. Click through to see the winner from last week’s question, “What’s the greatest video game JNC of all time?” Continue reading
This isn’t the type of thing we usually cover on JNC. Sure, the video spends a large amount of time spotlighting a “hellaflush” EK Civic, but Kanjo racing is a deep rooted part of Japan’s — and particularly Osaka’s — car culture. Plus, there’s also an EF whose owner wears a scary-ass hockey mask. It’s understandable why these illegal street racers would want to keep their identities secret though. As Car Craft Boon founder Kazuhiro Furukawa explains, racers have crashed, been arrested, and died on the Osaka loop. Why do they do it then? Just watch this video from the always excellent XCar and you’ll understand. Continue reading
If you’ve ever taken the JR Keiyo train from downtown Tokyo to Makuhari Messe for the Auto Salon or Tokyo Motor Show, you’ve passed over the former grounds of Funabashi Circuit. Like much of Japan in 1965 Funabashi city was booming, and with its location right between Tokyo and Chiba, city planners had any number of entertainment options. The winner? A 11-turn race track just under two miles long that hugged the Tokyo Bay waterfront. Continue reading
France’s Automobile Club de l’Ouest, the organizing body behind the 24 Hours of Le Mans, recently announced the 10 race cars they believe to be most emblematic of the legendary race. One car was chosen to represent each decade of the 90 years Le Mans has been running. However, it was deemed that the 1990s could not be defined by just one car, and thus the honor was shared by the 1991 Mazda 787B and the Peugeot 905 (the sole Japanese and French cars on the list, respectively). Continue reading
Many of you loved the cars in the last video we posted but found the music controversial. Prepare yourself for the opposite. It’s hard to take offense to a Temptaions-esque free use Motown groove, but the accompanying car is one of Japan’s most revered classics, the hakosuka Nissan Skyline, powered by a 1UZ Lexus V8. Continue reading
Remember to go to DaBox Toys and get 7.5% off any order with the coupon code JNC2013.
If there’s one thing about Japanese collectibles that’ll drive you crazy, it’s the blind box. Found in toy stores and konbini across Japan, blind boxes are packages that are completely sealed so you can’t see what’s inside. All possible contents are listed on box itself, tempting you like diecast sirens, but there are usually so many model and color combos that it’s near impossible to get exactly what you want on the first try. Continue reading
Many readers were plunged into the world of nostalgic cars thanks to Japanese video games. The fact that those machines were made of pixels and polygons rather than glass and steel didn’t make our lust for them any less fierce, and in many cases fueled our passions for the real thing. Therefore it’s about time we ask:
What’s the greatest video game JNC of all time?
Tokyo Xtreme Racer was the English name for Shutoku Battle, a game in which you prowled a highly accurate rendition of Tokyo’s famous Shuto loop and Wangan expressway, looking for street races. Rivals came in teams with wildly creative names like Dreaming Apparition, and once you’d defeated all underlings the team leader suddenly appear in your rear view, headlights flashing, for a showdown.
The cars consisted of everything from Subaru Legacy Wagons to S13 Silvias, but if you wanted to rise through the ranks you’d eventually have to upgrade so an FD or JZA80 Supra. Once all known rivals in the game were defeated and just when you thought it was all over, the end boss to end all end bosses — called NoName (or “???”, depending on the iteration) — would appear in a nearly impossible-to-defeat S30 Z. It was a definite nod to Wangan Midnight‘s Devil Z (and in some versions it even came with an inverted cross and “666” on the hood just to drive the point home), but because the game was released in 1999 few players were familiar with the manga. All they knew after weeks of mashing buttons against virtual R34 GT-Rs that the numero uno top dog killer was a classic Fairlady Z.
What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining or inspiring comment by next Monday will receive a toy. Click through to see the winner from last week’s question, “Which car should Japanese automakers sell again exactly as they were?” Continue reading
