It should surprise no one that this year’s SEMA show revolved around a single car, the Scion FR-S. The neo-hachiroku has injected new life into the “sport compact” aftermarket, and this week you couldn’t swing a dead cat inside Las Vegas Convention Center without hitting one. Continue reading
In the automotive kingdom there exists only a handful of models that can inspire a car show at the national level. We’re not talking about marques here; we mean a single model so iconic and beloved that its devotees have formed a national governing body, with regional chapters across the US, and a yearly convention. Continue reading
From Hokkaido to Kagoshima, Japan has some of the coolest highways and mountain passes known to man. We live vicariously through Skorj’s Grand Touring stories, in which he travels across Japan looking for nostalgic cars “in the wild.” Though he owns a Honda S800 it is unfortunately not the most practical steed. So on his excursions he takes a late-model Honda CR-V instead, which begs the question:
What car would you drive across Japan?
What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining or inspiring comment by next Monday will receive a random toy. Click through to see the winner from last week’s question, “Which nostalgic car makes the perfect daily driver?” Continue reading
What’s it like to drive the first Toyota ever built? Jay Leno answers that question. Leno’s been on a whirlwind tour of Japan. First he stopped by the Nissan design center to drop hints about the 2014 Fairlady Z and take a spin in a 240ZG. Then he swung by Fuji Speedway to take a lap in the Lexus LFA. Next stop, Aichi Prefecture to drive Toyota’s first car, the 1936 Toyoda AA. Continue reading
Many readers have asked JNC contributor Mark “ScaleMaster” Jones exactly how he adds his amazing detail to the custom Hot Wheels he’s shown you how to build. In Today’s article he’ll explain exactly how to do just that by turning the Hot Wheels hakosuka into Kunimitsu Takahashi’s 1971 works racer. —Ricky
This is another “how to” article using a Hot Wheels C10 Skyline to create a tribute to Nissan’s 1971 Japan Grand Prix winning Skyline GT-R. It will contain mostly information about the decals and how to make your own using commonly available tools, materials and computer hardware/software. Continue reading
It should be no surprise by now that the Japanese Classic Car Show continues to grow each year, but we still weren’t quite prepared for just how much bigger and better it was for 2012. Let’s recap some of the highlights and favorites from this year’s event. Continue reading
Some of us are blessed with enough parking to house multiple cars. Others must choose only one to fulfill all their practical, reliable and/or economical reqs while maintaining a veneer of old school Japan cool. Therefore we must ask:
Which nostalgic car makes the perfect daily driver?
As it happens, we have to haul a lot of gear around to car shows. We’d love to rock a comfy new crossover, but we gots to keep it real on the nostalgic tip, yo. We’ve taken our 1986 Cressida wagon all over SoCal, to Vegas for SEMA, and up and down the western seaboard. Here it is at California Speedway a couple weeks ago for 86Fest wearing faded AE86 steelies. The JNC wagon swallows more cargo than many modern SUVs, draws plenty of power from a nearly indestructible Toyota straight six, and most importantly, has passed that 25-year-or-older threshold. Who could ask for anything more?
What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining or inspiring comment by next Monday will receive a random toy. Click through to see the winner from last week’s question, “What’s the greatest Japanese racing livery?” Continue reading
You know the drill. Boy meets Fairlady Z, boy restores Fairlady Z, boy learns Fairlady Z is possessed by a need to kill its owner. Wangan Midnight, the story of the Devil Z and its rivalry against the Blackbird Porsche has been told and retold in manga, anime, live action and video game form. Christine this is not, but you do wonder who is the one possessed, the Z or its owner. Continue reading
Some of you may be wondering what the deal with the two-door sedan is. Isn’t that just a coupe, and didn’t we already see the classic coupes at JCCS? The answer to that is, confusingly, no. Continue reading
Formula D isn’t the kind of event we here at JNC normally cover, but in recent years stateside drifting has grown tremendously, and with that growth it has welcomed with open arms the nostalgics that made all this tail-sliding possible. Continue reading
Graphics. Livery. Warpaint. Originally meant to identify the country of origin and visually distinguish fast-moving cars on the track, they are now the domain of corporate sponsors. Either way, there have been some darn cool ones. Therefore we ask:
What’s the greatest Japanese racing livery?
As tempted as we are to score another one for the Mazda and the 787B’s so-garish-it’s-cool Le Mans scheme, we have to go with the Honda RA272‘s simple red circle on white. Not only did it invoke the hinomaru, but after Honda won the Mexican Grand Prix in 1965 Championship White became the color of choice to distinguish Soichiro’s foremost feats of engineering from plebeian conveyances for the masses.
What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining or inspiring comment by next Monday will receive a random toy. Click through to see the winner from last week’s question, “What’s the best sequel?” Continue reading
God Speed You! Black Emperor by award-winning director Mitsuo Yanagimachi is a documentary following junior members of Black Emperor, the infamous bosozoku gang, or “touring club,” as they prefer to call themselves. This is not a car movie by any means. However, if you can tolerate the subtitles and plotless, meandering pace, you might be able to catch glimpses of Tokyo’s automotive landscape circa 1976 — everything from kujira taxis to shakotan Celicas — captured in raw 16mm. Continue reading
Today’s guest writer David Lovett lives in Japan and works at Classic Car Nagoya. Here is a dispatch about what it’s like to be employed at what most of us would consider the ultimate dream job. Enjoy. —Ben
Just about halfway between Nagoya and Toyota City is the town of Togo, home to a little shop called Classic Car Nagoya. As the name implies, CCN specializes in classic cars. It’s very much a family run operation with six full time employees, three of whom are related, plus one part time gaijin — me. Continue reading
Thought we were done with our barrage of 2012 JCCS photos? Think again! From mini trucks to land crushers, trucks have been part of the Nihon nostalgic scene for decades. And like their car counterparts, they have just as many varying styles of build. Continue reading
At the 1972 Tokyo Motor Show, Nissan unveiled what would become the next generation of the famed Skyline GT-R racers. The KPGC110 in racing livery and gold RS-Watanabes was intended to carry on the winning tradition of the previous generation’s famed touring cars. Unfortunately the 1973 Oil Crisis and emissions regulations forced Nissan to reevaluate its racing program and the GT-R itself, leaving behind the show car as a stark reminder of what could have been. Many replicas of it have been built; here’s JNC and Mark “ScaleMaster” Jones‘ take on it. —Ricky
Thank you, Ricky, for the intro and for providing the direction and reference for this piece. I used the Hot Wheels Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R released in 2011 for this project. Mattel made it in only one color, pearl white, and it quickly became my favorite nostalgic casting. Continue reading
Rarely is the follow-up better than the original, but when it is, it’s not just slightly better — it blows the original away. That is why we ask:
What’s the best sequel?
We just spent a weekend at 86Fest, so there was much AE86 and Scion FR-S co-mingling. However, it remains to be seen whether the latter will out do the original in the annals of history to come. Our choice is Toyota Supra. It only got better with each of its four generations, from quasi-luxurious GT to paradigm-shifting sports coupe, to turbocharged Wangan beast to supercar-destroying icon.
What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining or inspiring comment by next Monday will receive a random toy. Click through to see the winner from last week’s question, “What’s the best Japanese car emblem?” Continue reading
We all know why the BRE Datsun 510 rules, but what’s it like to actually drive? In this fantastic video by Road & Track, professional IndyCar racer Alex Lloyd gives viewers a seat-of-the-pants rundown on what makes the car so magical. This is likely the closest most of us will ever get to driving the magnificent beast ourselves, and the ridealong is absolutely soul-stirring. Continue reading
As the name implies, SevenStock was originally a gathering for Mazda‘s iconic sports car, the RX-7. Over the years it’s evolved to include all rotaries, and this year they teamed up with MazFest to throw one giant celebration of all cars flying under the zoom-zoom banner. Continue reading
It’s no secret that many of us on the JNC team are certifiably nutty about wagons, yours truly included (There are a couple that aren’t, and they look at us as if we’re the weird ones when it’s clearly the other way around. Sheesh.). The Wagon section is always my favorite part of our JCCS coverage, so let’s jump right in like an excitable dog through the rear hatch. Continue reading
Mazda likes to brag that on any given weekend there are more of their cars on America’s road-race circuits than any other marque. It’s true that Mazdafarians love wringing their cars out, and MazFest has been one of the best events to offer them cheap track time. SevenStock, on the other hand, has been one of the premier rotary-themed car shows in the US for 15 years. For 2012, the two joined forces for one massive shindig. Continue reading
