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
Honda Celebrates 50 Years in the USA
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Event Horizon for Weekend of June 12-14
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
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
10 "Cheap Fun Rising Sun" Cars from Hemmings
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
Honda Recreates 1959 Storefront in HQ Lobby
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
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Worldwide J-Tin Meets' Photos
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!
Torrance Old School Japanese Car Meet
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
Friday Video: Seibu Keisatsu Pursuit Car Bonanza
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!
Posted in datsun, nissan, seibu keisatsu, toyota, Video Games
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Silhouette Racing Glory Days
Let’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.
Event Horizon: Coast-to-Coast J-tin Meets
Just a quick reminder, there are lots of Jtin events going on this weekend no matter where you are. Continue reading
Japan Grand Prix, The Early Days
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
TS Class Warfare: Civics, Sunnys, Starlets, RX-3s
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.
Posted in datsun, honda, mazda, motorsports, nissan, toyota
Tagged datsun 1200, honda civic sb1, mazda rx-3, mazda savanna rx-3, nissan sunny, nissan sunny 1200gx, toyota starlet, ts class, ts cup
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Holdin' It Down in Chi-Town
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
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New Nissan Heritage Collection Website
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
Hot Wheels Datsun 510, Now in Brown
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.
Honda Z600 Appears in Sprint Commercial
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.
Friday Video: Unmarked Toyota Crown vs. Rambler American
So perhaps Toyota fans are feeling a bit left out, what with all the Nissan-heavy chases from the likes of Seibu Keisatsu, Abunai Deka and this still-unnamed film. Well fret no more, thanks to JNCer a121 we have another Japan vs. Detroit showdown! This time, it’s an unmarked Toyota S50 Crown police car in pursuit of some gunmen in a Rambler American. And because this film, whose title we sadly know not, takes place in the Philippines there’s plenty of Toyota and Mitsubishi background candy for you to ogle. Happy viewing!
Posted in toyota, Video Games
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Toyota 2000GT in Hemmings
This month’s Hemmings Sports & Exotic has a Toyota 2000GT on the cover with the title “Bullet Train.” How appropriate! It emerged from the same boom era as the Shinkansen and made just as big an impact. Besides, more press on the most sought after piece of J-tin in the world can’t be a bad thing. Unless you’re saving up for one, we suppose.
[Source: Toyotageek]
Posted in media, toyota
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SEMA x ToyotaFest
SEMA’s most recent e-newsletter included a link to an article about Toyotafest! This should be of particular interest to those of us in the nostalgic car scene, as the Specialty Equipment Manufacturer’s Association is always keeping a pulse on where the car hobby is headed.
Posted in media, toyota
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