The jobs that had to be done before we could go back for certification was to fit rear belts, convert the front belts to stalk buckles, fix the horn, and raise the front ride height. And some of those jobs more or less fixed themselves, and we’ll soon see.
Back when we were kids there was no Wii, MyFace, or whatever the hell kids are into these days. The bicycle was the king of birthday presents, and the freedom of movement it provided is probably what turned us into car nuts in the first place. And yeah, we’d put our grubby little paws all over sweet rides just like this kid. We didn’t know any better, but it helped fuel our lust for fine automotive machinery. Decades later, boom, JNC!
Here’s a great documentary on the birth of the Z car. It’s a 1995 documentary, and has very much a US-centric focus, but since the US demand was largely responsible for the success of the 240Z, this is hardly a criticism (although I can almost feel the incandescent rage that diehard Z fans will feel about Count Albrecht Goertz getting yet another undeserved credit for styling the car) 🙂
It covers the early history of Datsun in the USA market, and the conditions that led to the introduction of the 240Z in 1969. It also contains great racing footage of the BRE 240Z and later IMSA 280ZX race cars too. It’s rather imaginitively recorded, but well worth the 30mins!
With only 1,519 of the Mazda Cosmo Sports built, it’s rare to see one with heavy modification done, especially to the body. Although some might cringe to see one of these in anything less than original condition, we think this one looks pretty good, especially with what appear to be very low-offset Work Equips and a deep red paint job. Unfortunately, we don’t know any more about this car and could only find this one photo.
[RX-7 Convertible Blog (Japanese)]
Today is Resurrection Day, and as everyone knows, long-dead spiritual figures just love to reveal themselves to the world via pre-sliced bread conveniently warmed by modern kitchen appliance. Toast is the medium of choice, in fact, for the likes of Jesus, Elvis, and even non-dead icons such as the King of Pop and Runaway Bride. The Virgin Mary‘s whole wheat visage pulled in $28,000 on Ebay despite having a bite taken out of it. What then, are we supposed to make of this 1936 Toyota AA that appeared on one slice of this ham and cheese holder?
The AA was Toyota’s first passenger car, and the company is quite proud of the fact that it was engineered and built entirely in-house at a time when many of its rivals were assembling complete knock-down kits. The styling is among several post-Chrysler Airflow designs, one of the earliest based on the principles of aerodynamics pioneered by Tatra designer Paul Jaray. Keep in mind that most cars at the time still featured bolt upright radiator grilles and long, swooping fenders with wide running boards, elements the AA unfortunately somewhat retained. So beauty wasn’t its strong point, but it’s the Toyota that made all the Celicas and Corollas we now love possible.
Anyway, about that toast… Continue reading
California State Senator Dean Florez has proposed a new bill that, if passed, will repeal the emissions exemption on pre-1976 cars in eight California counties. This means your classic car would have to pass California’s emissions test for the life of the vehicle.
Ok, so you might not live in those counties, or even in California, but the state is known for having the toughest environmental protection laws in the nation. Once all the research and debate has been done and the bill passed, it could be easily adopted statewide. Other states have also been known to piggyback on California’s laws. It’s happened before.
For the record, we here at JNC care very much about Mother Earth. It’s the only planet we got, and we should try not to wreck it. We do our best to recycle and conserve, but this bill is ridiculous. Pre-’76 cars, as owned by classic car collectors, comprise so little of the actual pollution going up into the atmosphere that it’s essentially nil. There are far greater polluters out there. For example, poorly designed, non-green architecture accounts for nearly 40% of greenhouse gases. Cow farts make up another quarter. Why penalize cars that, for the most part, don’t even see use on a daily basis?
SEMA believes lawmakers are scapegoating classics. In addition to putting on a big car show ever year, the Specialty Equipment Marketers Association also advocates for car enthusiasts on issues such as this. See their news release and the eight affected counties after the jump. Continue reading
It’s being reported now that the Japanese government is encouraging drivers over the age of 65 to hand over their driver’s licenses. It’s a move meant to reduce congestion in crowded cities and road accidents as well, about 100,000 of which in 2007 were caused by elderly drivers. In return, businesses are offering them things like higher interest rates at banks and discounts on meals, because we all know that if there’s two things the elderly like, it’s saving and meals (probably at 4pm).
Anyway, since our beloved kareha elderly driver’s mark is only required above age 75 (and recommended above 70), could this mean the demise of the orange and yellow leaves?
[Motorcycle Daily via Jalopnik]
You might recall that, in the last (and only!) time I drove the car, the brakes were awful. With the pedal going most of the way towards the floor with little feel or resistance, and not actually doing any braking until just before the pedal hits the carpet. Quite terrifying, actually, and the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that there was something wrong, rather than any inherent weakness with the Hako braking system.
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Continue reading
The long winter of our discontent is over, for today is the first day of spring. If you live in the northern half of the country, rejoice! The temperature is on the rise and it’s actually still bright out at 4:30. Time to get that nostalgic car of yours out of the garage after the long months of hibernation. Southerners, quit rubbing it in! Here’s 10 tips for taking your classic car out of winter storage.
This calls for celebration, so check out these pics of nostalgics and sakura, the Japanese cherry blossom trees that herald the coming season of rebirth. The only question is, which one would you take for your springtime drive – Mazda, Toyota, or Nissan?
[Images: Rotary Eagle, JamesAE86, Seibu Keisatsu]
Ha! You know you’re a true nostalgic nut when the first thing that pops into your head at that headline is, “OMG, A retro car based on the C10 Skyline!” No such luck, compadre. It’s just a new Scion concept based on the xB. In Japanese, hako simply means box, and the hakosuka (hako + suka from the Japanese pronunciation of Skyline) was nicknamed such because of its simple straight lines and pointy corners (at least compared to other cars of the day).
And while we do enjoy the upright quadracity of Japanese 2Box cars like the xB and the Nissan Cube (which appeared at NY in electric form), we wish there was a reincarnation of the 1968-72 Skyline instead. We’re too busy to make it to the NY Auto Show this year, so here’s some visions of what we’re missing out on. Feast your eyes on the Hako, Denki Cube and Hyundai RWD Coupe like journalists feasted on tiramisu at Porsche’s 50th anniversary.
About 6mths ago, we did a feature on the Nissan FJ20 engine, and touched on the Group B rally car that Nissan campaigned in the early 80s: the S11 Silvia 240RS. It was a 2.4L DOHC, 16V four cylinder that ran Weber carbs and made 280ps at over 8000rpm, driving the rear wheels only. A classical rear-drive rally coupe in the old school sense, it had the misfortune of being rallied during the same era as the Audi Quattro, and so the 240RS has largely ended up as a little-known footnote in rallying history. It got a few podium finishes in the early 80s and came 3rd in the WRC in 1982 but that’s about it.
The interior of this 1982 Toyota Lite Ace makes us wish we were kids again. Why? Because it has bunk beds! The lower level is formed by folding the rear seats flat, while the upper bed is suspended from the high roof and rests on the front seat backs. This reminds us of the treehouse we would have built if building a treehouse hadn’t been, you know, hard.
Stay tuned afterwards for a bonus commercial featuring Roger Moore in a Corona, possibly with the missile launcher behind headlight option.
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Welcome back to GrandSkyline! No, not a post about Project Hakosuka today, but rather some old commercials that I found recently. We did do a piece on Skyline ad campaigns a few moons ago, but some of the Youtubes have since been removed. So here are some replacement ones!
By any stretch of the imagination, the Honda City was a small car. It’s smaller than the modern-day Fit, which is still sold as the City in some Asian markets. That’s why it’s even more surprising that when the City debuted back in 1981, you could get one with a motorcycle in the back. However, know that the “motorcycle” was actually a 49cc two-stroker with a top speed of about 30mph, and that it would make any rider over age 12 look like a circus bear. Still, it was the perfect trackside runabout, and folded – nay, transformed – into a tidy little rectangle just small enough to prevent any obstruction in the City’s gaping rear window.
Now, thanks to ebay, a brand new, never used Motocompo that some nut has kept in the original box for 26 years can be yours for the price of $3500, or about the price of a spanking new City back in ’81. Now you might think that’s a bit steep considering the Motocompo cost only $360 then, but for cryin’ out loud, the plastic is still on the seat! We’re sooo tempted to abscond with all that magazine subscription money y’all have sent in and head down to Huntington Beach right now.
[Ebay]
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“When it’s relaxing time, make it…..Suntory Time” Ahh, one of my favourite movies. But it reminded me the other day about Japan’s fascination with western celebrities. It seems that if you are a Hollywood movie star, you may be called to Japan at some time to sell seedless watermelons or washing machines or something.
And the car industry is certainly not immune.
First it was the wakaba mark (also called shoshinsha mark), the green and yellow symbol that new drivers in Japan are required to display on their vehicles for one year. Wakaba marks gained popularity in the US when JDM scenesters began to plaster their cars with them in ironic fashion. Of course since we’re dealing with nostalgics, we opted for the kareha mark (also called fukushi mark), the counterpart for elderly drivers, for our logo and car. In case you hadn’t guessed, the color and shape of the marks represent a spring leaf and autumn leaf.
The four-leaf clover, so frequently seen on St. Paddy’s day, is part of a lesser known yotsuba (or shintai shougai) mark for handicapped drivers. It’s only been around since 2001 and it’s optional. Yeah, it’s not green, but hey, it’s hard to find the luck o’ the Irish in Japan.
Apparently this is quite the hot video meme in Japan right now. We were positively floored by the amazing skills of these Japanese riders, instructors at the Fushimi Techincal Center motorcycle driving school. The Japanese are just as fanatical about their two-wheelers, if not more, as they are about their four-wheelers. During one of our trips to Tokyo in the dead of winter, when our hands were shivering too badly to even take a picture, bikers were flying down narrow Shuto lanes at 70mph, slicing past Hino trucks with inches to spare. Maybe spiking adrenaline makes up for the wind chill. Anyway, if you’ve ever tried to wield a squirrelly, 400lb hunk of steel between your legs, then you know the prowess required to make this video. It takes a while to get started; the good stuff comes along at about 1:30 in. Thanks to yoshi for the tip.
After a quite a long period of firstly waiting for the car to arrive from Japan, and then a seemingly-even-longer period of fixing the various issues that the car came with, it was with a certain trepidation that I fired her up and gingerly backed her out of the garage under her own power for the first time.
Okay, all you brochure freaks, thanks to our dear reader colhogen, you’re in for a real treat. Prepare to whittle away hours of your once productive life at the Catalog Gallery of Automotive Nostalgia, a Japanese blog that has nothing but scan after gorgeous full-color scan of vintage car brochures. If you’ve ever been to the specialty shops catering to old brochure collectors, you know that this is several used cars’ worth of eye candy right here. Bon appétit, or should we say, Itadakimas!
Here’s another speculation about the alleged 2010 Supra found in Japan’s BestCar magazine. Ugly, ugly, ugly. The FT-HS concept looked cool because of its angular lines, but this thing just looks like a piece of hard candy that’s been sucked on for 20 minutes. At least the 370Z resembles the 350Z, which resembles (vaguely) the 240Z. The massive intercooler is nice and all, but it’d be much nicer if the car had some remote semblance of Supras past. If this is indeed in the works, let’s just hope Toyota reaches out to fans before tooling up the sheetmetal stamps.
