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]
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.
Before the Toyota Starlet became a hot RWD hatchback, it was part of the Publica line, chassis code KP40, like the Celica Supra. Before that, there was this, the KP30 Publica Coupe, sold as simply the 1000 in Europe.
Why is it that most classic car enthusiasts love station wagons? Is it because they’re symbolic of a time gone by and all but extinct from new car lots? Do we just fondly remember going on family road trips? Or maybe it’s the car-like stance combined with the practicality of an SUV. Many of us at here at JNC are certified wagon nuts and so are the guys at Hemmings. We hope their Wagon Snippets become a regular part of the blog, and we’re stoked to see them start off with some J-tin, a 1979 Honda Civic!
We’ve been so hung up on the Mazda T2000 that we almost forgot that today was MazFest 2009! Imagine rolling into the car show with that behemoth. Or better yet, taking it on the road course at Fontana’s Auto Club Speedway! Actually, we were content just to observe and report on the cars that were there. Continue reading
This video has all the signs of Seibu Keisatsu, such as a fleet of Nissan Cedric police cars led by an S30 Z, but it’s not: Daimon doesn’t make a heroic appearance at the end to dispatch the enemy with a single blast of his shotgun. Our closest guess via Google Translator is that these are scenes from a movie called Big City, or something like that. Whatever it’s called, it proves that nothing can stop a big steamrollin’ Nissan President except maybe lighting its gas tank on fire. Have a great weekend!
Since we reserve most of our drool for Fairlady Zs and TE27s here at JNC, some of you may have wondered why we went ga-ga over the Mazda T2000 that appeared on eBay earlier this week. Well, because it was a monster. Continue reading
For those of you in the Lone Star State, Texas Nissans is having a meet in Austin on June 6. It’s a Nissan meet but they want some Datsuns to represent old school! The car show will start at 10am and there’ll be a cruise through scenic Austin afterwards. You can find more details here.
On Sunday, June 7 This Old Honda will be hosting a Honda & Acura Car Show at Formula H Motorworks in Middletown, New York. It’ll be the perfect opportunity to check out classic S600s, JDM Beats, and more! Doors open at 10am. For more information visit the links above. Admission is free!
In the early 80s, the dawn of the personal computer age, no form of electronic gimmickry was considered too pointless. The family coach for a friend of mine was none other than a 1982 Datsun 810 Maxima wagon, nearly identical in appearance to the Cressida wagons I love so dearly today, except it had one very important feature: the Maxima spoke! Continue reading
This could be the coolest thing we’ve seen on ebay in months. Three-wheelers were the workhorses of choice in 1950s Japan and the Mazda T2000 was king of the road. You aren’t gonna be popular with the ladies in this behemoth – in fact, if there was such a thing as chick repellent a 50-year old mutant tricycle with a nice sheen of rust would surely qualify – but it is so unbelievably rare it makes hakosukas look like Camrys. Continue reading
Remember the Jack Safro collection we told you about last month? One of the cars at the Mecum auction was an original 8,769-mile 1966 Toyota Corona so new the plastic wrap was still on the door panels. Back in 2007 when JNC was only a month old this exact car sold for just $16,740, a record price for its time. But when the gavel dropped this time the highest bid was a whopping $36,000. With the economy the way it is, a better deal than AIG stock! The value of nostalgics is really going up. Continue reading
While Matt was down at the imG Old Skewl Meet in San Diego yesterday yours truly was at the Z-Car Club of Inland Valley‘s annual car show at Quality Nissan in Temecula. Despite the name of the club all manner of Datsuns were welcomed with open arms, and the results are here: Continue reading
May 17, 2009, Mission Bay, San Diego, CA
Southern California hardly ever disappoints for the sheer number of nostalgics it contains. Case in point is the Old Skewl Meet today in gorgeous (overcast) Mission Bay in San Diego. This was just a get together, a free event, but it attracted not only locals, but a few guys from Los Angeles and even the Bay Area!
510’s and Ae86’s always show up to these events, but there were a few other surprises as well. Continue reading
If you thought the one thing missing from Pixar’s Cars was some JDM flava, then this is the video for you. In this animated short Mater and Lightning McQueen hit the mean streets of Tokyo for some street racing action with a plot following the tails of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift as closely as the best tandem drifters. There isn’t much of a nostalgic car presence unless you count the fender mirrors on the big sedan that is some kind of Century/Cedric mashup but it’s still entertaining. Enjoy, you import punks!
Well it was bound to happen. The Cash for Clunker program has hit the motherload, in the motherland of our favorite cars. Japan is now offering citizens ¥250,000 (about $2500) towards the purchase of a new car if they trade in any car 13 years or older.
When we first started following the Cash for Clunkers saga the program was a misguided attempt at ecology. But then the world economy turned to poo and any environmentally minded pretense was flushed down the toilet faster than a spider in a tissue. Continue reading
In my never ending effort to source old school Mitsu material for you guys, I came across these random images of Galant Lambdas ready to find new owners.
Unless my mind is playing tricks on me, I believe I see a “Challenger” badge on the fender. If so, then these were meant for the States, or some other export country where the car was badged as such. Continue reading
If you happened to see a blue Cressida wagon and blue AE86 pulled over on the 710 by the California Highway Patrol on the way to Toyotafest last Saturday, that was yours truly at JNC. We were running late and, shall we say, briskly, but an irate Officer Poncharello thought we were street racing. Somehow, we were able to convince him we weren’t and made it to the show to take the photos in this gallery. Unfortunately, each of us still got one of these: Continue reading
We get a lot of strange letters in our inbox here at JNC headquarters and most of them just leave us scratching our heads. But once in a while a shining gem rises above the chaff to make our bellies ache with laughter. Marcus H.’s rant was so well-written and funny that we cannot improve on it at all, so we’ll just print it in its entirety: Continue reading
