It’s Tokyo Auto Salon time again, and you know what that means. All the weird and wacky custom cars of Japan come to Makuhari Messe in Chiba to show their stuff. Reports are filtering in all over the web, but NoriYaro has a posted a few cellphone shots.
Let’s start with the craziest one first, this may look like a normal Toyota 2000GT, but walk around to the side and you see… Continue reading
In 1959 Honda established a US subsidiary. They wouldn’t sell cars for another decade, but at the time they moved plenty of motorcycles. Now, a half century later, they’re the second best selling Japanese brand in America.
On New Year’s Day 2009, Honda sent a 50-foot robot to destroy all humans kick off its 50th anniversary year at the Rose Bowl Parade. Today, they released this logo accompanied by not much else in terms of info.
We’re hesitant to get too excited about what this birthday party may entail, because with the state of the auto industry right now, Honda probably can’t afford much celebrating. It’s already pulled out of F1 and killed the next NSX. Earlier this week, plans for future rear-wheel-drive models like V8 luxury sedans and an S2000 successor were rumored to have been axed as well. But then another rumor said at least some of those projects were on again. Only time will tell, but even if Honda isn’t quitting enthusiast cars old turkey, we’ve been disappointed before.
It kind of sucks to start what should be a momentous year in such a downer mood, so we hope that we’re proven wrong. Happy anniversary, Honda!
What do you do when regular pudding just isn’t enough? You get Giga Pudding. What do you do if Nissan’s AWD twin-turbo supercar that everyone is calling “Godzilla” just isn’t enough? You get the GT-R SpecV. The spiritual successor of the hakosuka hasn’t even cooled down from its Nürburgring laps yet and Nissan is already unleashing a more nutso version.
Here’s a great little article on a car that rarely gets any love, the Mitsubishi Colt. But it’s not the Colt you’re thinking of. While the US was getting Mitsus branded as Dodges and Plymouths, Australia got these exports straight from JDM-land. The US market Dodge Colts were called by other names like Lancer and Galant in Japan.
This car debuted in 1965 in as the Mitsubishi Colt 800 due to its 800cc motor. It was a sporty two-door coupe with styling inspired by the jet age. By 1966 the engine grew to 1000cc and it became known as the Colt 1000F. Finally, in 1969 it got another 100cc bump and was called – you guessed it – the Colt 1100F, which is the white one pictured here. You can see several posts in the JNC forum from our Aussie readers regarding these cars, including the sedan version. For more information, check out OldColts Australia.
Alexi, a good friend of mine runs the excellent Nori Yaro – Japan Car Life Blog. An expat Australian in Japan, Alexi’s living the life drifting and immersing himself in grassroots car culture over there. Last weekend, he spotted this nostalgic ride at a local drift meet at Nikko Circuit. More details and pictures here.
C’mon Ben, your wagon’s cryin’ out for this treatment!! Check out Nori Yaro too, it’s the next best thing to living there.
According to one Datsun Enthusiast who was visiting relatives in Pakistan, one of the most prestigious taxis around is the Datsun Sunny B110 4dr. Yes, we’re talking currently, not 20-30 years ago.
Here’s a nice example that was spotted last year:
If you’re not B110 savvy, this is a JDM GL spec “face lift” specimen, circa 1971.
Sure, it’s a little beat up, but considering it’s haunts, it could be a lot worse. Most importantly, the car is precious to its owner; it’s not just another piece of metal. Continue reading
What a way to start off the year. Politicians are at it again. Remember buybacks? These were programs offered by states like California and Texas that paid owners for their old cars. The lawmakers claimed taking these vehicles off the streets would prompt the purchase of newer ones that pollute less and get better mileage. And as for the cars turned over to the state, many of which still had miles left or could have been used as parts to keep other oldies on the road, were simply being crushed!
We’ve been following California’s program since last May and now we are sad to report, as we predicted with similar CA laws, it has gone national. Congress now wants to expand buyback programs by bundling it with an economic stimulus package. Right now, states are not allowed to use federal money for their buyback programs, but this bill, if passed, will give them the authority to do so, and give states without such programs an incentive to start one.
It’s true that modern cars do emit fewer greenhouse gases because of better fuel efficiency and emissions control. But, as we calculated in Issue 2 of JNC magazine, the typical 4-cylinder 70s Japanese import would need to be driven many years to break even with the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by factories in the construction of a new car that the states are encouraging owners to buy. Not surprisingly, auto manufacturers (who don’t make money if you don’t buy new cars) are in full support of these laws.
This issue affects owners of vintage Japanese cars particularly, because the majority of owners do not consider them valuable. The payouts offered by states often seems reasonable to the average non-enthusiast, and this will lead to a lack of parts and project starting points when it comes to nostalgics!
Fortunately, we have SEMA to lobby on behalf of enthusiasts and the automotive aftermarket industry. But it’s vital that you contact the Congressional representatives from your state as well and make your objections known. Reader NSR_S30 has posted a great set of talking points a great set of talking points to make your letter a breeze to write.
Full SEMA press release after the jump. Continue reading
A few months ago, we put the spotlight on Auto Service Machinaga, a Kobe bodyshop that not only did great work in restoring JDM classics, but also had the presence of mind to record their restoration process in photographs, presented in nifty slideshows on Youtube no less.
Here’s another one: Carcraft Yabusaki from Ibaraki, about 2 hours north of Tokyo.
Bride seats are one of the mainstays of the JDM tuner scene. They come in loud, lairy colours like bright red and blue, and would be the perfect addition to something like a turbo Silvia or modern GT-R (with the matching grey and charcoal trademark Bride fabric on the door cards and rear seat of course). However, for classics, unless you’re going for the resto-mod look, Brides are they’re a little bit too out of character for our old classics.
Until now.
Ok, forget the pair of Bluebirds we posted on just a few hours ago. Here’s what we really want instead, a 1965 Nissan Silvia CSP311! It’s on sale at Dallas Dream Cars for a whopping $50,000 obo. Obviously this blue wasn’t the original color as it was never offered by Nissan, so that would have to go. The engine bay reveals that the original color was gold. Nissan made only 554 of these, each one of them hand built, and only 5 or so are in the whole US so you don’t have to worry about pulling up next to one at the stoplight. It looks a bit rough around the edges, though. You can read all there is to know about the car in this thread on the JNC forum.
[BAT]
Does the passing of another year make you feel old? Well look on the bright side, it’s nothing compared to how your dog feels! But what about man’s other best friend, the automobile? Here’s an amusing and easy math problem to calculate how old your car would be if it was a person, courtesy of Blue Donut. Just take take your car’s mileage and divide it by its model year.
That makes our JNC wagon (a 1986 Cressida with about 109,000 miles) 55 years old. Don’t feel bad, wagon. 55 is the new 30! How old is your car?
[Blue Donut via Jalopnik]
This tip was sent to us by reader supraman215. He spotted this uber-clean 1967 Datsun Bluebird PL411 on Bring A Trailer. It lives in Hawaii, looks to be in astounding shape, and is for sale if you’ve got five grand lying around. We’d love to know the mileage on it. Continue reading
Here’s a rare one for ya – a 1971 Honda 1300 Coupe! It’s one of two known to exist in the US, and it was apparently just imported not too long ago. This excellent piece by Jonny Lieberman is all you need to know about the car.
The few lines of description in the auction is less than confidence-inspiring, but English does not appear to be the seller’s first language. Also, the opening bid has come down from $13,500 to a mere $7000! At these prices, you’d be crazy not to buy it!
[eBay]
Time for some more self promotion! Check out this month’s Super Street magazine for an article by everyone’s favorite moderator, Datsunfreak! His real name is Bruce Wayne John P. Roper, and those are his words and photos schooling y’all on Mike Braaten’s Datsun 1600 Roadster. It’s a 1970, the last model year for the roadsters, but that’s an SR20DE beating under the hood. You can check out the article by following the link or by picking up your very own copy on newsstands now.
Wow, 2008 was a rough one. The broken connecting rod of bad loans punched a gaping hole straight through the engine block of the global economy. Across the board, carmakers’ sales plummeted by 30 to 40 percent, affecting any business even remotely connected to the auto industry.
From the bankruptcy of aftermarket companies like Trust/GReddy to the utter collapse of magazines like Sport Compact Car and Turbo, no one was left untouched. We at JNC are feeling the crunch too, as potential advertisers slash their budgets.
Detroit was hit the hardest, but Japanese companies are feeling the crunch as well. Upcoming supercars like the NSX have been killed as Honda pulled out of F1, and Subaru withdrew from WRC. Even Toyota, a long-time bellwether for the world economy, went from a $28 billion profit in 2007 to a $1.7 billion loss, causing a delay in their return to affordable, lightweight RWD cars.
We also lost greats like Toyota Team Europe rally driver Ove Andersson, Nissan racer Paul Newman, and Toyota designer Tatsuo Hasegawa.
But hey, look on the bright side. Japanese Nostalgic Car launched a print magazine in April. Yes, it was probably the worst time in history to launch a new magazine, but we’re still working hard to give vintage J-tin some cred in the world of classic cars.
This year was also Subaru’s 50th anniversary and Subaru USA’s 40th. Nissan USA also celebrated its 50th birthday, though it did precious little to acknowledge it. But what else is new? At least they recognized their roots when it came to the new 370Z. Honda’s Super Cub also celebrated a half century and an incredible 60 million units sold making it the best selling vehicle of all time.
Anyway, as you gaze upon fireworks exploding above Tokyo’s legendary wangan expressway, remember this: at least there’s 2009! Happy New Year!
[Image: Yakei-Kabegami]
Since Kev has gone toy crazy with JDM minicars and other assorted goods, we might as well continue the theme. Earlier this year we got all excited about how Hot Wheels was introducing a Datsun 510 in their 2009 lineup. They’re even recognizing the JDM name by calling it a “Datsun Bluebird 510”. Olskoolae71 recently informed us they were now appearing on store shelves (go out and get them!) and apparently it’s a popular enough model that a second version is already in the pipeline, this time in black and yellow! Or is that Black Goooold?
One more pic after the jump. Continue reading
Congrats to Team B210 Racing for winning the Index of Effluency award at the 24 Hours of LeMons‘ Arse-Freeze-A-Palooza this past weekend. While technically not car that placed first (that honor goes to a Geo Metro powered by a Honda CBR900RR motor), this award is given to “the team that accomplishes most with the crappiest car.” Continue reading
Yesterday we did a post on some of the more recent cool toy releases from TakaraTomy. But that was just scratching the surface of their rather massive range of products. Here’s a sample of the rest of their offerings.
RS-Yasu is another restoration shop out of Tochigi Prefecture, Japan that does beautiful restoration work. Their most recently completed masterpiece is a sanitora, a portmanteau of “Sunny Truck.” Despite it looking like an early 70s B110 Sunny (Datsun 1200 in the US), Nissan continued to build the pickup version long after the passenger car bodies had been discontinued. This is a 1989 model. Check out the resto process page.
[Banpei]
One of the cool things about going to Japan is just walking into a suburban toystore and spending a few hours discovering all the cool JDM toys (and also rediscovering the fact that you may not be as grown-up as you think you are as you stumble to the checkout with an armful of children’s toys for yourself).
And probably the biggest JDM toymaker is Takara Tomy (just check out their huge range of products)! There’s constantly something cool being released.
