There’s one more Hot Wheels car we have to mention, and that’s the 2011 Holiday Hot Rods Datsun 240Z. Each year Hot Wheels selects a few castings to don Christmas themed apparel, and this year the Datsun 240Z made the cut.
It’s finished in red, green and white livery with gold wheels, and the #25 is obviously a nod to the Christ-man’s birthday. Best of all, this is one you don’t have to wait til 2012 to get. It’s available right now at a Wal-Mart near you.
Happy hunting!
As the holidays descend upon us visions of toy cars are dancing in our heads. In addition to the Mazda RX-7 appearing in the 2012 Hot Wheels main lineup, there’s even more excitement for fans of old school Japanese cars in store.
The 2012 Hot Ones series will feature even more nostalgics from the 1980s. The list thus far includes new castings such as the 1985 Honda CR-X, Subaru BRAT, Plymouth Arrow (Mitsubishi Lancer Celeste) Funny Car, ’87 Toyota (which is likely a pickup), ’85 Yamaha V-Max, and a retool of the original A60 ’82 Supra.
Back in the 80s, the Hot Ones were cars fitted with special gold wheels, thinner axles and flexing “suspension” that made them faster down an orange track. These features eventually spread across the entire Hot Wheels line. In 2011, the Hot Ones made a comeback as a collector series that featured special packaging and detailing, bringing back many of the 80s castings fans like us grew up with. However, some of the cars were new castings that didn’t exist in the 80s, and it looks like we’re about to get a face full of Reagan-era Japanese awesomeness.
2011 was a banner year for Japanese nostalgics in the Hot Wheels lineup with the release of both the hakosuka and kenmeri Nissan Skylines, as well as the BRE Datsun 510 in the Vintage Racing line. We at JNC were proud to have teamed up with Mattel for the hako, and we are very excited to announce that in 2012 this partnership will continue with the Mazda RX-7! Continue reading
Okay, so you’re unlikely to see an S800 at the Norm Reeves Honda show tomorrow, but what about the E-AT Civic? The third-gen Civic is a wholly under-appreciated chassis among hipster Honda kids, despite the fact that it was largely responsible for kicking off the Honda tuning scene. Continue reading
Like we said yesterday, the Honda S800 was one of the premiere Japanese race cars of the Sixties. The yellow-and-red 1968 S800 RSC is the most famous, but many more have buzzed down Suzuka’s main straight. Some of Japan’s most famous drivers got their starts driving S-cars, including Nissan‘s Moto Kitano, Toyota‘s Hiroshi Fushida, and Mazda‘s Yojiro Terada. And one of the most prolific S800 tuners was Hideo “Pops” Yoshimura. Continue reading
In a quiet corner of the Honda Collection Hall at Twin Ring Motegi circuit sits what is arguably the most famous Honda S-car of all time, the 1968 Honda S800 RSC. As any collector of Japanese diecast or player of Gran Turismo knows, the famous yellow-and-red race car has been immortalized in countless forms. Continue reading
This past Saturday some of the JNC crew strolled down to Toyota Speedway at Irwindale to join the annual Mooneyes Xmas Party. Although the car show/drag race caters heavily to domestic hot rods, lead sleds, and kustoms of every stripe (you can see coverage from our friends at Motormavens soon), there was J-tin represented in the form of this lone Subaru Sambar pickup. Continue reading
Actually, for the extremely reasonable price of $1,500 this 1977 Datsun 710 Wagon may not require a vital organ at all. The green goon, lovingly named “Kermit” by its seller, appears to have been well cared for and sparingly operated. If our third-grade-level math skills haven’t failed us, it has a not-low-but-not-beater-status 72,000 miles on the clock and a full scrapbook of maintenance records. Most importantly, we’ve seen a small number of Datsun 610 and 810 Wagons, but when was the last time you saw a 710 in any body style?
Hat tip to Alex K.
And now for something completely different, various clips from Japanese film and teevee, in which cars that are not Nissan Cedrics get blown to kingdom come. If you have a weak stomach for rare nostalgics — Centuries, hakosukas, kujira Crowns, or even an Isuzu Florian — going up in flames, it’s probably best to skip it and go on about your weekend. For the rest of you sadists, click on through to the video. Continue reading
We’ve been on a new car tear, reporting on neo-hachirokus, retro Honda kei cars, and even classic bikes from the Tokyo Motor Show. And that’s left you handcuffed to a bedpost with the shakes, hankering for some old school smack. Well this lavender hako flies in the face of all that modern nonsense, washing away that new car smell like a dunk tank full of industrial-grade bleach. And look, there’s the sublime Celica in the background that we posted on a few weeks back, so let’s once again enumerate the ways this Skyline epitomizes vintage Japan. Continue reading
Our final report from the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show looks at another retro-styled concept from a Japanese manufacturer. The Yamaha Y125 Moegi is a lightweight motorcycle designed after the 1955 Yamaha YA-1. Its 125cc SOHC four-stroke single-cylinder engine gets 80 km/l, or an astounding 188 mpg. Continue reading
With all the hubbub surrounding the Toyota 86, another car banking on the nostalgia of its predecessor was largely overlooked at the Tokyo Motor Show. The Honda N Concept 4 is a near-production-ready evolution of the Honda EV-N from 2009. Continue reading
Hot Wheels‘ “Cars of the Decades” is a special edition series that selects one iconic model to exemplify the decade in which it was born. Each car comes in special packaging and paint schemes reflecting that period — flower power for the 60s, art deco for the 40s. Cars like the ’32 Ford, ’57 T-Bird and ’67 Camaro have embodied their respective eras, but next year the Toyota AE86 Corolla will represent the 80s. Continue reading
Tonight we round out the new Toyota 86 with the launch of its third brand, the US-spec Scion FR-S, in Hollywood, California. Why have we been dedicating all week to a brand new car? Because the reborn Toyota hachiroku is one of the most important cars to be released in the last ten years. It’s definitely important for Toyota, possibly even more so than the Lexus LFA supercar, as it returns Japan’s automotive giant to its sporting roots. Continue reading
The Tokyo Motor Show is under way and we were on hand to bring you the first live, in-the-flesh shots of the Toyota 86 and Subaru BRZ, as well as initial reports on what it actually feels like to sit in the driver’s seat. Continue reading
Hot on the heels of the Toyota 86 (pronounced “Toyota hachiroku”), Fuji Heavy Industries has unveiled its counterpart, the Subaru BRZ. As expected, differences are minute. The front fascia is cleaner, headlights smokier, taillights redder, the “86” fender badge is now a faux vent, and any triple-oval badges are now the Pleiades system. Continue reading
So it’s happened. A nickname coined by gearheads based on a chassis code uttered among only the otaku-est of drift/touge/rally nerds has been plucked from obscurity to become its own actual model name. Over the Thanksgiving holiday ToMoCo announced that the car we’ve known only (in Japan at least) as the FT-86, new FR Sports, or “new lightweight sports car,” will, after much speculation, be called simply the Toyota 86. Continue reading
It’s time for our yearly commemoration of Doukoho. On November 22, 1978, over 3000 bosozoku motorcycles and cars swarmed the streets of Tokyo, cruising, parading, revving and generally causing a ruckus. They were out to celebrate the end of an era. Continue reading
