Japanese Nostalgic Car

This weekend just past saw the Fuji Speedway play host to the Nismo Festival, an annual event created for Nissan fans to pay homage to the marque that’s been keeping Japanese performance and style fans foaming for generations.

grandJDM might be all about the classic J-cars, but we’ve got no small amount of love for the more recent road-going revelations that Japan has churned out over the years, and there’s no shortage of it to be seen at the Nismo Fest. You can see a whole bundle of beautifully composed snaps at the GTROC forums.

For those loyal readers who wanna see nothing but the classics though, Miguel of Newera Imports snapped shots aplenty of some of the more stunning classics on site, and you can check them out in his GTROC forum post here.

[via JPC News]
[more GTROC photos]
[nismo.co.jp]
[nismo-parts.info]

Here’s a great feature article on Anthony Reid’s Datsun 200B from the unfortunately now-defunct Retro Cars Magazine in England, a magazine which inspired the creation of online communities like Retro Rides, and through such communities were born the likes of JNC and grandJDM for a stronger J-tin focus.

Imported from Australia – one of only two places in the world you could find this 2-litre variant on the showroom floor – this might well be the only one in all of the UK. And what a wee ripper of an example Anthony’s “Datto” is! The interior and body both look brilliant, and the Z31 donor engine must rip holes in planet Earth in a car that size. This baby needs to be brought home—someone down under hurl Anthony a fat wad of cash.

Incidentally, here’s an old interview with the founding editor of Retro Cars Magazine.

[via JNC forums]
[Anthony’s website]

While quickly checking out these great photos of an extremely slick S30Z over at Auto Otaku, I was about to close the page before I suddenly noticed – Hey, that’s not an S30 interior. It’s straight out of an R32 R33. Sneaky bastards.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen an interior swap in an S30, but it’s probably only the third. The first one I saw was the extremely well fitted (and extremely tweaked) RPS13 interior in the Vildini Motorsport “SR240Z”, and the second time was a, well, not so great Z33 swap. But hey, each to their own.

This, however, looks great. Easily as good as the Vildini example. Would I do it? Could I forgo the classic lines and vintage curves of the original interior? It’s a tougher call than I thought it’d be. On the one hand, I love the S30 interior. Love it to bits. But damn, this does look good.

On another note, what do we think of these LED tail lamps for the S30Z? Yay or nay? Again, I’d probably have to say they’re not my style, but they do look good nonetheless.