American Honda's Official 50th Birthday Party

Posted on June 13, 2009 by Ben Hsu

honda_cr-x_50th_anniversaryIn honor of American Honda’s 50th anniversary we’re bringing you bonus Honda coverage this weekend. Yesterday American Honda held a little shindig at their corporate headquarters in Torrance, California. According to eyewitness accounts, there were more two-wheelers than four, and not many nostalgics present.

That’s probably why this little black number is a 1985 Honda CR-X Si caught our eye. Rolling on Mugen CF48s, it’s the car that kicked off the whole Honda tuning scene. We love how Hondas of that era denoted performance trim levels with that thin red line wrapped around the bumpers.

Check out the rest of the cars and bikes in Autoblog‘s gallery.

Posted in honda | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Hondells' "Little Honda"

Posted on June 12, 2009 by Ben Hsu

In celebration of American Honda’s 50th Anniversary here’s a bonus Friday Video. Put your hands together for The Hondells and their 1965 hit, “Little Honda”.

Posted in honda | 6 Comments

Cash for Clunkers Bill Passes Senate

Posted on June 12, 2009 by Ben Hsu

mitsubishi_galant_sigma
Well that was quick. The national Cash for Clunkers bill just passed Senate largely in tact, except senators chose to cut the funding from 4 billion dollars to one billion. Now it moves back to the House for review and then onto Obama’s desk, where he will probably sign it into law.

[Detroit News, Jalopnik]

Posted in laws | 7 Comments

Friday Video: Nissan Laurel vs. Datsun 720

Posted on June 12, 2009 by Ben Hsu

We’re not even going to begin to guess what is going on in this Seibu Keisatsu clip. All we know is that there’s a C130 Nissan Laurel being chased down by a Datsun 720 pickup and that a kenmeri Skyline makes an appearance at the end. As per Seibu Keisatsu rules, heavy Nissan and Enkei sponsorship abounds.

Posted in datsun, nissan, seibu keisatsu, trucks, Video Games | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Honda Celebrates 50 Years in the USA

Posted on June 11, 2009 by Ben Hsu

honda_n600 On June 11, 1959, a tiny motorcycle company set up shop on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. It had only sprung to life in Japan eleven years earlier, but its founder, Soichiro Honda, was not known for taking the easy road. Continue reading →

Posted in honda | 4 Comments

Event Horizon for Weekend of June 12-14

Posted on June 10, 2009 by Ben Hsu

hawaii_old_school_jdm
Images from last weekend’s Coast-to-Coast J-tin shows are still rolling in, including some we didn’t know about in our last Event Horizion. Here’s a snap from the Hawaii Old School JDM Meet & Greet. And here are some from Texas Nissans’ 2nd Annual Meet. Read on to see what fun J-tin related activities are available for you this weekend. Continue reading →

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Cash for Clunkers Not as Bad as We Thought

Posted on June 10, 2009 by Ben Hsu

toyota_corolla_te28_wagon_junkyard
Well, the House of Representatives approved the Cash for Clunkers bill last night. That means drivers trading an older car for a more fuel efficient one can get up to a $4500 toward their new car from the government. But what’s this? Congress squeezed in a couple of provisions squeezed that make it perhaps not as catastrophic as we had feared. Continue reading →

Posted in laws | Tagged | 13 Comments

10 "Cheap Fun Rising Sun" Cars from Hemmings

Posted on June 9, 2009 by Ben Hsu

isuzu_impulse
Hemmings once again turns their gaze to J-tin, this time choosing 10 cars that provide “Cheap Fun under the Rising Sun” (subscription required). The bravest pick is a tie between the Isuzu Impulse (shown above) and the Nissan NX2000, which we heartily applaud. Continue reading →

Posted in datsun, isuzu, mazda, media, nissan, toyota | 5 Comments

Honda Recreates 1959 Storefront in HQ Lobby

Posted on June 8, 2009 by Ben Hsu

Honda's Pico Building
Honda’s 50th anniversary in the US is fast approaching. The magic date is June 11, but in preparation for that they’ve remodeled the lobby of their Torrance, CA building to recreate the first Honda USA storefront.

This is what it looked like in 1959. It would be many decades before the Ridgeline (Honda’s first pickup that bigger than kei-size) so they used a 1960 Chevy Apache to deliver SuperCub 50s! What did you expect, a Datsun? Who would have guessed that 50 years later, the little bike builder would be making jets and the manufacturer of that pickup would be in bankruptcy?

Photos of the recreated storefront after the jump. Continue reading →

Posted in honda | 10 Comments

Worldwide J-Tin Meets' Photos

Posted on June 8, 2009 by Ben Hsu

mazda_r100_rx2
Sadly, the weekend is over, but at least you’ll have plenty of J-Tin to ogle as assorted galleries from this weekend’s gatherings roll in. Pictured above is congregation of Mazdafarians from the Vintage Mazda Owners Club of NSW in Sydney, Oz. Down in Melbourne the Toyota Owners Club of Australia had their own little shindig. And then let’s hop on over to the northern hemisphere for the Bay Area Classic Meet and the Texas Classic Japanese Car Meet.  Happy browsing!

Posted in events, mazda, toyota | 1 Comment

Torrance Old School Japanese Car Meet

Posted on June 6, 2009 by Ben Hsu

torrance_old_school_meet15
Oh look, here are some photos from a jam-packed weekend for J-tin enthusiasts. We hit up the Torrance Old School Japanese Car Meet last night and witnessed this sexy party of nostalgics going on.

As much as we’d like to take credit for this oh-so-rebellious act of vandalism to the No Loitering sign, the gathering was actually quite the civilized summit of mutual automotive appreciation. Honest, Officer, it was like that when we got there!

Anyway, Let’s let Dan’s camera do the talking. Continue reading →

Posted in datsun, events, nissan, toyota, trucks, wagons | 12 Comments

Friday Video: Seibu Keisatsu Pursuit Car Bonanza

Posted on June 5, 2009 by Kevin San

If there was one video, one single clip, with the Skyline Japan Machine-X, the 280ZX Super-Z, and not one but three DR30 Skyline Machine-RS pursuit cars in it, would Youtube… nay, would the fabric of the internet itself be able to withstand so much awesomeness in one place?

Will your PC stay hard, like a Sgt Daimon stare? Or will it flip over and spontaneously combust like a black and white C230 Cedric?  Close all other open programs and click above to see.

While we’re on the subject of Seibu Keisatsu, did you know there was a 2004 movie that tried to remake the series for our troubled modern times?  Click past the jump for more info!

Continue reading →

Posted in datsun, nissan, seibu keisatsu, toyota, Video Games | 8 Comments

Silhouette Racing Glory Days

Posted on June 4, 2009 by Ben Hsu

silhouette_racersLet’s see, we’ve covered the Japan Grand Prixs of the 60s and the Touring Sedan Cup battles of the 70s. How about we finish off our racing vids series with some 80s-tastic silhouette racing? Kev has written about Group 5 before so we won’t rehash the details but if you click this link you can see some of the cars that inspired the bosozoku/kyushakai craze in all their glorious action.

Posted in datsun, mazda, nissan | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Event Horizon: Coast-to-Coast J-tin Meets

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Ben Hsu

Just a quick reminder, there are lots of Jtin events going on this weekend no matter where you are. Continue reading →

Posted in events | Tagged | 3 Comments

Japan Grand Prix, The Early Days

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Ben Hsu

japangp
Continuing on the motorsports theme, our next stop is at the Japan Grand Prix. This one comes by way of banpei and appears to be a DVD about the race. Unfortunately embedding was disabled so you’ll have to click on the links below to watch the videos. Continue reading →

Posted in datsun, isuzu, motorsports, nissan, prince, toyota | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

TS Class Warfare: Civics, Sunnys, Starlets, RX-3s

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Ben Hsu

Here is the first of a series of vintage race videos that we’ll be posting this week. We stumbled upon this while catching up with beoneoneoh, who can always be counted on to unearth the Sunny-related. This is footage from a race that took place at Tsukuba Circuit almost exactly 32 years ago, on May 29, 1977.

In the hotly contested TS Class all the major players came to the fight: Nissan with the Sunny, Toyota with the Starlet, Honda with the Civic, and Mazda with the Savanna RX-3. Sunnys saw much success in the series and this race was no exception. According to the video’s notes, factory Nissan driver Kenji Tohira took first place in the No. 15 Sunny 1200GX.

Continue reading →

Posted in datsun, honda, mazda, motorsports, nissan, toyota | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Holdin' It Down in Chi-Town

Posted on June 2, 2009 by Ben Hsu

mazda-rx3-sp_chicago
JNCer lwrdr2121 just posted some pics from last weekend’s Chicago-area old school Japanese car meet. Head on over to his photo album to see the rest.

Posted in events, mazda, toyota | 4 Comments

New Nissan Heritage Collection Website

Posted on June 2, 2009 by Ben Hsu

nissan_zama_heritage_collection
Ready to kill off a few hours? Nissan has created a user-friendly, navigable catalogue of their legendary Heritage Collection (see coverage in JNC #3), simply called Nissan-Heritage-Collection.com. The Zama warehouse is still not open to the public, but here’s the next best thing. Continue reading →

Posted in datsun, nissan | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Hot Wheels Datsun 510, Now in Brown

Posted on May 31, 2009 by Ben Hsu

First it came in metallic blue, which was so scarce we never actually found it in stores. Then you could buy one in whatever color you wanted, as long as it was black. Now Hot Wheels is releasing what I personally think is the coolest color of them all for the Datsun Bluebird 510, metallic brown! Keep your eyes peeled and if you see one, let us know where you found it.

Posted in datsun, minicars, nissan | Tagged | 13 Comments

Honda Z600 Appears in Sprint Commercial

Posted on May 31, 2009 by Ben Hsu

We’ve been waiting for the Palm Pre to go on sale so we can ditch our horribly outdated five-year-old Sony Ericsson Z500. And even though Sprint’s “Now Network” campaign is now on heavy rotation, we didn’t realize that it was for a product we actually want until we caught this Honda Z600 (not to be confused with our P.O.S. phone) in the latest commercial and started paying attention. Funny how that works, isn’t it? This isn’t the first time some vintage J-tin has shown up in an ad, and we’re sure it won’t be the last.

Posted in cm, honda | Tagged , | 2 Comments