Keen students of the JDM car scene will be familiar with the name Mitsuoka. Best known for a Nissan March/Micra based Jaguar Mk2 conversion called the Viewt (above) a highly popular item in Japan, with over 1,000 sold (have a close look at the Japlish slogan in the picture above!). But Mitsuoka is also known for quite a lot of other wacky stuff.
We thought we’d take a small break from the Hakosuka-only programming that we’ve been having for the past 2wks! When I was in Japan, I saw quite a few of these things, and you can see why they’re popular.
If you happen to be in Japan in the next few weeks, be sure to swing by the Nissan Ginza showroom. Nissan’s putting on a special exhibit called “Potential for Your Driving” that will include some of the most legendary Skylines ever built. Everything from ’71 C10s to the 1995 NISMO GT-R LeMans and the latest Super GT GT-Rs will be on display. The event started March 3 and will end on April 7.
This sinister looking kenmeri GT-R was built for Nissan’s 1972 Tokyo Motor Show booth, intended to be the next generation of GT-R racers. Unfortunately, the oil crisis and emissions regulations prevented that from happening and only 197 kenmeri GT-Rs were ever built.
Hey Sugarteats, check out this replica badge from Japanese company M.F.P. Clothing. Remember the the Main Force Patrol? It’s the post-apocalypse Australian police unit Mel Gibson’s character served under in the 1979 movie Mad Max.
Along with The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome, this has always been one of our favorite trilogies, because what’s not to love about over-the-top violence and desert car chases tied together with an actual plot? Dialogue is kept to a minimum too, which probably explains Gibson’s lack of an anti-Semitic rant.
The only drawback is a distinct lack of Japanese iron (although a Mazda Bongo van does bite it in one chase). We always felt that if a fuel shortage had wiped out most of civilization, a 70s Japanese sports coupe would be a wiser choice than a supercharged V8 for mowing down biker gangs. Plus, their mean looks would still provide that crucial rear-view mirror intimidation factor, and Lord knows Australia has plenty of them. We think this Celica or this Laurel would be perfect candidates for Mad Max 4.
M.F.P. Clothing also makes jackets and other accessories that look just like what the characters wore in the film. Too bad the site’s all in Japanese.
Where we left things in the last instalment was that I’d made some attempts to learn to tune the Webers, a task made somewhat harder by the discovery that the engine might be in a somewhat more hardcore level of tune that I’d bargained for.
But for the first time in weeks the Hakosuka came down off the axle stands, and at least it looks good (even if it doesn’t go)!
Greetings, Pleiads! Today we help Subaru celebrate 50 years in the automaking business. What’s that you say? How can Subaru be celebrating their 50th birthday when back in 2003, they already partied hearty and released a slew of 50th Anniversary edition cars? No, there isn’t a rally inspired AWD time machine lurking inside the company’s Shinjuku headquarters, although that would be awesome. 2003’s anniversary marked the formation of Subaru’s parent company, Fuji Heavy Industries, from the remnants of Nakajima Airplane.
Today, on the other hand, is the real deal. Half a century ago, Subaru announced that it would begin sales of a round little kei car, the Subaru 360, that would become one of the most iconic vehicles of its era.
At the time, very few Japanese families owned cars of their own. Available choices were either only suitable as commercial vehicles or, in the case of the Prince or Toyota Crown, priced for the wealthy in mind (note the connotations of royalty in the names). In an effort to get the masses on wheels, the Japanese government issued a standard for a “People’s Car” that could serve as an affordable passenger shuttle and qualify for the 360cc kei car class.
Enter the Subaru 360, a rear-engined little runabout with suicide doors and about 16hp. That, um, power came from a tiny air-cooled two-stroke mounted in the rear and displacing 356cc. That doesn’t sound like much, but the entire car only weighed 850lbs.
When you think of the modern Subaru formula, however, you think of three things: rallying chops, a boxer engine, and all wheel drive. Admittedly, the 360 had none of those qualities, but the company’s next offerings would soon rectify that.
Subaru’s second car was a compact called the 1000. Although they weren’t being very creative with the model names, they were entering it in some of Japan’s most grueling rallies. By 1968, it had won its class at the Japan Alpine Rally. Subaru also entered the US market officially in ‘68.
The following year Subaru began sales of the new FF-1, powered by a four-cylinder boxer engine. Front wheel drive was still considered new and exciting technology, and the FF-1 had the honor of being the first front wheel drive car from Japan, hence its name.
Subaru’s third and final distinguishing trait appeared in 1971, when an all wheel drive version of the FF-1 1300 was shown at the Tokyo Motor Show. The production system debuted in 1972 on the Leone wagon, known simply as the 4WD in the US. In particular, it was this feature that struck the loudest chord with customers, and AWD soon became synonymous with the brand.
The bright blue, dirt-kicking WRXs wouldn’t come into being until 1992, but you can definitely see that the roots were planted long ago. Compared to the other Japanese marques, Subaru is relatively young. And with a small model lineup, it normally doesn’t get a lot of ink on our pages, but today, we’re glad that we could give this innovative automaker some much-deserved attention. Happy Birthday, Sube!
Here at JNC headquarters, our weekends are filled with excitement. And by excitement we mean the things our butlers would be doing if we were filthy rich. Well, at least there’s something to be gained from doing your own laundry. According to Lifehacker‘s recent series of low-budget car care tips, dryer lint is an excellent material to absorb oil spills with. So save up that fuzzy mass. Now if there’s one hitch in that plan, it’s that our rusty heaps hemorrhage a lot more fluids than we slobs do laundry.
Will Jalopnik‘s fascination with dekotora ever cease? We sure hope not. You’ve got the coffee table book, now supplement that with Zenkoku Dekotora Matsuri, a new game for the Nintendo Wii. Piloting a giant chrome truck through the narrow streets of Tokyo has never been this much fun! Navigate low overpasses, add ever gaudier pieces of trim to your classy ride, and avoid running over brake-happy kei cars. It’s even got a Gran Turismo-esque photo mode. The only question now is, Hino Super Dolphin Profia or Nissan Diesel Big Thumb?
UPDATE: Oh Noes! Our resident video game expert MadFlava tells us that the Wii is region-encoded. Cruel Fates, why do you tempt us so?
[Video: GameTrailers]
More Skyline importing news: our friends at Cobb Tuning have received one of the first privately owned R35 GT-Rs in the US. How? By importing their own, of course, and you know what that means: comical scans from the Japanese owner’s manual! This one is our fave. Apparently, it’s warning the owner not to uglify their new purchase with “aero” modifications like a giant spoiler or widebody kit. Take note, Kev (j/k, j/k)! To see more of the GT-R – and more scans – check out the Cobb Blog.
UPDATE: Autoblog picked up on this story and now the image is on a T-shirt. Such is the life of an internet meme.
In honor of Leap Year, here’s a car chase from a 1979 Japanese movie whose title translates as “The Man Who Stole the Sun.” It’s got a plot, but we haven’t seen it, so let’s just cut to the chase (haha).
The guy in the RX-7 (quite the hot new ride at the time) is a junior high school science teacher who breaks into a nuclear powerplant, steals a chunk of plutonium, and makes a homemade nuclear bomb to threaten the government. He’s pursued by a gruff cop in a brown Cosmo and a fleet of the typical inept patrol car drivers that love to crash into things and flip unnecessarily. So where’s the Leap Year tie-in to all of this? Oh, at about 0:58.
So we have a new member of our extended family to welcome. No, it’s not a wedding or newborn child. Even better. A couple of weeks ago, our mate Kev from grandJDM received a very special Valentine in the form of his newly purchased hakosuka Skyline! In case you didn’t know, Kev and Van have been working with us for the last few months on JNC magazine. Not since the ANZUS Treaty has there been a cross-continent collaboration of this magnitude! Sadly, because Kev’s new baby is literally on the other side of the planet, it’ll be a long time before we can see it in person. At least we can follow his exploits on his blog and he has plenty of time to get it ready for our visit. Congrats, Kev!
When we left Project Hako last, the carbs were in, the fuel system was all set up and we were ready to turn the key and see what happens. Of course when you do this, it’s a good idea to wait until a few friends can come over: one to hold the fire extinguisher, one to juggle the throttle to keep the car running, one to stand on the other side of the engine bay to keep an eye out for fuel leaks, and one last guy standing by with the ambulance on speed-dial.
So that’s what we did.
Fresh from the wire, TORC‘s 13th annual All Toyotafest is now open for registration. If you’ve got an old school ‘Yota (or even a new school one) that needs to be seen to be believed, head on over to their website to pour a 40 (dollars) for the show. Spaces are limited and there will be no registration at the door, so get in early on the action. The event goes down May 3 at Veterans Stadium at Long Beach City College. Scions and Lexi welcome!
Several readers have posted this nugget of awesomeness in our forums now, and with good reason. The Celica you see in the pic above is the end result of the most thorough, intense restoration we’ve ever seen for J-tin. It started life as a Group B rally car that competed in the Hong Kong-Beijing Rally of 1985 – when nearly all of that nation’s billion or so people were still riding bikes – enduring 2500 miles of dings and dents on unpaved terrain. Then it was left to rust for about 20 years.
At that point, most people would have written it off, but not the artisans at Makela Auto Tuning of Finland. By the looks of it, every body panel, seam, floorboard and frame rail was recreated from fresh steel. Metal is like putty to these people. We tried to comprehend the amount of effort and man-hours the restoration must have taken, but only reminded ourselves of grade school when we first learned about the concept of infinity. There’s really no point in even trying to describe it, so just check out their gallery. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, that’s over 300,000 words right there.
The best part is that as of January 2008, these mad Finns
have begun work on a second Hong Kong-Beijing Rally Celica. If possible, this car looks to be in even worse condition that the first one, apparently composed of one part metal and 3 parts rust. This time, they’ve cut the car down to the bare frame and are doing nothing short of rebuilding it from scratch. It’s like the Bionic Woman, but with cars.
When we left things yesterday, the brakes were in good shape but the mastercyl needed rebuilding. The carbs had been sent off for refurbishing, but the setup that the car came with left something to be desired (apart from the fact that the carbs were leaking fuel!).
Say you want a blingy whip but an Escalade just doesn’t cut it in the cargo hauling department. Or perhaps it’s just a few acres short on chrome and a few millilumens short on lighting. What’s a ride pimper to do? Welcome to the Japanese phenomenon of dekotora, short for decoration truck. A new book, called simply Decotora, by photographer Masaru Tatsuki delves into the bright, chromey world of these gaudy customized lorries.
The trend began in northeastern fishing towns, where running near the sea and hauling fish pulled from said sea meant that salt water ate away the trucks faster than a shirtless David Hasselhoff masticating a hamburger. Drivers replaced the easily corroded panels with shiny stainless steel and a movement was born.
The stainless steel panels grew more and more ornate, but the dekatora didn’t hit it big until the 1975 film Torakku Yarou about a hard-driving dekotora pilot on the Tomei Expressway. The look spread like wildfire, getting exponentially garish with each iteration. Eventually, these trucks became show cars in their own right, with their own competitions and culture, which did not involve carrying fish at all. Truly grandiose dekotora even had a full blown love shack in the cargo hold, complete with furniture and chandeliers.
By the 90s, the popularity of the anime Gundam, about giant robots who battle in space, began to influence styling direction. Nowadays, however, a wave of nostalgia has caused the dekotora to return to the roots with retro-inspired machines. We can’t argue with that.
With the rust now dealt with, and the clutch now fixed, attention was turned to the car’s running gear. Translation: are the wheels going to fall off?
Well…I hope not.
Where we left things last week were that I’d sent off the carbs to a specialist for rebuilding, and the wayward clutch was fixed. The carb guru estimated that it might take a week to re-do the Webers, so this left plenty of time for little jobs while the Hako was up on jackstands.
A nod goes out to Auto Otaku once again for yet another great find. Here’s a couple of videos of RB-powered C10s, and while I admit I’d rather have an L28 myself, there’s definitely nothing upsetting about these swaps; especially with the ITBs they’re packing. That sound, oh that sound.
Click through to check ’em out.
A few months ago we did a feature on one of the oddest JDM cars ever. The uber-expensive, very limited edition, handcrafted-in Italy Autech Stelvio. Well…there so happens to be on for sale at the moment on Yahoo Auctions: LINK
One of the ugliest cars ever, and as someone said, quite possibly just a big joke being played by the Italians on Nissan, but (to me anyway) it’s strangely desireable and collectible. If you agree…here’s your chance! I can’t buy it, I just bought the Hakosuka 🙂
