Even up until the mid-2000s Japan was swarming with sleek, souped up performance machines that would give any JDM nut seizures of joy. A stroll down any major street was like tracking a pre-race establishing shot from Tokyo Drift. The current and former AE86 owners on the JNC staff were waxing nostalgic about videos like the one above, with Keiichi Tsuchiya going hell for leather on a winding road in a pretty stock hachiroku.
But talk to anyone embedded in Nihon’s car culture today and they’ll give you the same doom-and-gloom scenario: the Japanese auto enthusiast is dying. Sports cars are too expensive for kids today, who are mostly interested in cellphones and electronic gadgets anyway. Continue reading
