Hi all, just a quick note to say that subscriptions for our American and Canadian readers are now available. International subscriptions will be available soon.
From our humble beginning almost exactly one year ago, to our exciting venture into print, it’s indeed been one helluva strange trip in 2007 and we just want to say THANK YOU to everyone who’s been along for the journey.
More to come…
Like, holy frick! You turn your back for one second and Nissan and Chrysler are in talks to join forces. Reuters is reporting that Chrysler, perhaps rebounding from its recent divorce with Mercedes-Benz, is seeking solace, comfort, and a fuel-efficient small car in the welcoming arms of Nissan.
Talk about deja vu! During the fuel crisis, (um, the other fuel crisis, in ’73), Chrysler was caught completely off guard, lacking any small cars in their lineup. Japanese dealership chains were charging across the US like an astronaut in diapers, and poor Mitsubishi was late to the game. Rather than building a network of showrooms from scratch, they cooked up a plan to just rebadge some products and sell them through Chrysler’s stores.
The result was that cars like the Mitsubishi Lancer, Lancer Celeste, Galant Lambda and Forte were sold as the Dodge Colt, Plymouth Arrow, Dodge Challenger, and Plymouth Arrow Truck here in the States. This collaboration continues even today, with the Dodge Dakota/Mitsu Raider pickups. Unfortunately, this arrangement diluted later flagship models like the 3000GT, but the good thing is that we got some excellent cars that we otherwise would have never seen at all.
[via Autoblog]
There’s a virtual lovefest going on today over an unlikely object of affection, the 1985 Toyota Tercel 4WD Wagon (aka Sprinter Carib in Japan). This is probably why Jalopnik is the best automotive site out there today (um, other than JNC, that is). Where else can you find site with 1.9 million readers a month whose commenters pretty much all have good things to say about a 20-year-old station wagon with drivetrain that zig-zags from a longitudinal engine to a V-drive tranny then back under the oil pan and finally to the rear wheels?
Apologies in advance for a bit of a quiet period on GrandJDM over the next couple of days, be we’ll be incommunicado for a short while because we’ll be travelling to JDM-Land for the Tokyo Autosalon.
Of course we’ll take lots of pictures while we’re there, so we’ll see you in a couple of days’ time with our Autosalon coverage!
We know by our hits that the vast majority of you are reading this when you should be working hard. Fine by us! In fact, if your boss is kind of a hardass, then perhaps a Prince Gloria Super 6 will turn him into a more likable guy. After all, this car did usher in age of the straight six luxury sedans, prompting Toyota and Nissan (not yet merged with Prince) to create their own inline six-powered Crowns and Cedrics. Seeing as how this is 1964, however, the ad fades instantly and without irony from the bossman taking a swig of brandy to footage of him rowing his column shifter in Japan’s first overhead cam six with a goofy grin on his face, probably somewhere near the sedan’s 96mph top speed. Now quick, get back to work, there’s footsteps behind you!
Lately we’ve been featuring a lot of lowdown/garuchan cars, and why not? They’re cool and old school. But there is another side of the whole bosozoku scene, and that’s the bikes.
UPDATE: Although Mazda USA and Mazdaspeed are supportive of MOCA and in fact emailed its own members about it, they are not affiliated with MOCA. Except in a love for all things Mazda, that is. Sorry for the confusion!
Heads up, Mazdafarians! On January 4, 2008, Mazda USA announced the establishment of a new organization to support their zealot-like devotees – the Mazda Owners Club of America. They promise events, track time, and “great prizes”. There’s a corresponding website, MazdaOCA.org, that has news and a forum, so brap on over there and check it out!
[via WhoWon]
From now on, whenever we are lost, feeling depressed, or simply in need of a spiritual supercharge, we can turn to Mr. K. Or at least a plastic facsimile of him with a spring-loaded head. You may know Yutaka Katayama as the former president of Nissan USA, the man who put Nissan on the American map, and the guy responsible for both the Datsun 240Z and 510, but now he also comes in handy desktop tchochke form. After watching that barbaric Anglo Saxon/Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson decapitate one of these bobbleheads, we knew we had to have one that was, uh, capitated. To give you an idea of the scale of this miniature Mr. K, he’s standing next to a 1/24 scale Muscle Machines hakosuka. You can order your own at Courtesy Parts. Now we need one of Soichiro Honda.
So, are you one of the people who were pissed off that GM never produced the rotary-engined Corvette? Wanna take matters into your own hands? Wanna show GM how it’s done? If so, then we have a solution for you!
Fasten your safety belts make sure your seatbacks and tray tables are in the full upright position, and all electronic devices are off. We’re going back across the pond to visit Ratdat.com, another British bloke with an absolutely brilliant website. In his latest post, he compiles a positively jaw- dropping list of wheels made for old school J-mobiles, putting our own meager attempt to shame. Well done, Ed!
Just for all you Seibu Keisatsu fans out there, here’s a follow-up to our earlier articles (here and here) on everyone’s favourite 70s Japanese TV cop show. We’ve found some older pics of the crazy modified cars that they used in the series, including interior shots of the criminal-catching gadgets!
While we’re on the subject of the UK and adverts, here’s one of the best, Honda’s “Impossible Dream”. In fact, we can safely say that all artists can just retire now, because never will anything so beautiful be created again. The soaring music, the cinematography, the exhaust note of a 1965 Honda RA272 – it’s all an epic symphony of internal combustion. Seriously, turn up the volume and get your tissues ready because if this doesn’t stir your soul, we’ve got some bad news – you don’t have one. In fact, we like it so much we’re adding it our permanent Video section. Watch the hi-res version here and visit the corresponding website here.
Motorcycle News is reporting that the Honda CB1100F concept unveiled at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show will see production as a 2009 model. In a move that seems contrary to the current trend in motorcycle engines, Honda will stay true to the concept and equip the production version with an air-cooled inline-4. Unfortunately, the article also states that the CB1100R, also unveiled last year at Tokyo, will most likely not make it into production.
According to the article, the CB1100F has been in the works for a long time, with patents for it’s innovative air-cooling system filed as early as 2003. In typical Honda fashion, however, no information about this project was leaked in the past four years. Let’s hope Honda has something planned for us on the auto front as well.
[via Motorcycle News]
Ages ago we shone a light onto a JDM clothing label which had a lot of hot rod influences, mixed in with cool old school JDM car touches. It was Samurai Motor Club. But checking their website today, we find that they have a special on their latest creation in soft indigo denim: the SM5000 GT-R!
Not cheap at A$260 a pair, but full of cool touches like pocket linings with old JDM cars on them.
Yesterday we did a piece on a rarely-seen Hakosuka sharknose, and while we’re on the subject of these of lowdown/garuchan/yankee/bosozoku sharknosed cars, let’s look into the culture a little bit further.
When we see these cars parked up, it’s easy to conclude that they’re just cosmetic projects that are built for a bit of a laugh, just for the look. And it’s easy to assume that these things would fall apart if they so much as exceeded 20km/h. Well, we have some video evidence to suggest that this is not so.
From the Less Is More Bureau, it has come to our attention that JapaneseNostalgicCar.com can be hard to spell rather annoying to type out in its entirety. So for the 2008 model, our weight reduction engineers have put the domain on a crash diet for your added convenience. We’ve purchased the domains jclassics.com and jnostalgics.com, and set both of them to redirect to this site. Or, you could just bookmark it. Either way. Of course, the original full-size JapaneseNostalgicCar.com will still work as well.
Keeping with the fat-cutting theme, the car in the photo is a 1955 Fujicabin 5A (also sometimes called a Fuji Cabin), which was a 1-cylinder, 5.5hp model that was more or less a scooter in a fiberglass shell. While other cars had four wheels, the Fujicabin made do with just three. No need for the opulent luxury provided by two windshield wipers, either. One is plenty. And two headlights? What excess! The Fujicabin sports a single, Cyclopean beam. Even its production run was sparse: Fuji, a Nissan affiliate, built only 85 between the years 1955 and 1958.
In honor of our compadres at Old Japanese Car and the grand opening of their forum, here’s a 1979 Toyota Carina advert. Instead of British Leyland products, which were busy not being built by striking auto workers, blokes wishing to dramatically scale the white cliffs of Dover had a new steed, one that disembarked by hovercraft and scared the crap out of local waterfowl. See, the Carina symbolizes OJC, and its landfall represents the British Isles finally getting their own nostalgic car forums. Okay, so it’s a stretch, but reading meaning into vague symbols is what all of Shakespeare’s works were based on. Tally ho, lads. Best of luck!
Over at online magazine Winding Road, they’ve posted the pages of a 1967 Toyo Kogyo brochure. If you’ve been paying attention, that’s the manufacturer Mazda was formerly known as, and it made corks. Each company had its humble beginnings. For Toyota, it was looms; for Subaru, planes; and Honda, motorcycles. Hey, someone had to supply Hiroshima with sake stoppers. By 1967, however, the company had moved quite a bit beyond bottle bungs and had expanded their lineup to include Luce 1500s, Familia 1000s, vans, trucks, buses, three-wheelers and their pièce de résistance, the brand new rotary-powered Cosmo Sports. Fun times!
Now that 2008 has arrived, the bean counters can go back and tally up the official scores from last year. As it turns out, Toyota has overtaken Ford for the #2 spot here in the US. Honestly, is anyone surprised at this point?
According to the article, this is the first time since 1931 that Ford hasn’t finished the year with a silver medal behind GM’s gold. For the record, Toyota sold 2.62 million vehicles this year to Ford’s 2.57 million.
[via Forbes]
This morning we got an email from Dan Strohl at Hemmings informing us that Sportstyres.net has been scraping our blog. Being the Luddites obsessed with old technology that we are, we had never heard of this new-fangled phenomenon until his warning (Thanks, Dan!).
Scrapers use software to copy posts gleaned from RSS feeds, and in our case, print them verbatim on their site. Unfortunately, because our scraper is located in Poland, we’re limited to what we can do legally. We could deploy our crack team of ninja commandos to Warsaw, but we don’t want to spark an international incident over a few meager sentences about old cars, so instead, we’ll be canceling resetting our RSS feed. In the meantime, you’ll actually have to come to the site, ya lazy bastards. We apologize to all three of our RSS subscribers, and in case this very post is on its way to the Eastern Bloc, we’ll end with this: This post was stolen from Japanese Nostalgic Car.
