Japanese Nostalgic Car Magazine

We have a special announcement to make today. In spring of 2008, we are launching Japanese Nostalgic Car as a magazine. First, we want to truly thank all of you for supporting JNC. It really means a lot to us to have you visit our little corner of the web, and to see so much passion for the same cars we love. Seriously, we appreciate it, a lot!

jncmag.jpgA print version has been part of our plan from the beginning, but the website isn’t going anywhere. We will still update the site with unique content and the latest event photos. Nothing’s changing on that front.

Like most publications, the web and print versions will complement each other, and the magazine will have unique content as well (the photo is just a sample mock-up). Though it may seem backwards in this day and age to go from digital to analog, so to speak, there are things a magazine can offer that a website can’t.

This includes large, full-color photos and more varied layouts in a format you can take anywhere, whether it be train, plane, bathroom, patio, beach, or a nice warm couch. Paper and ink aren’t going anywhere, and let’s face it, a hobby with a physical magazine carries more weight. There are multiple titles devoted to vintage British, German, Italian, and American cars, but none for Japanese. Most Americans drive Japanese cars, and yet are woefully unaware of their great history. Japanese cars need and deserve a place on the newsstand. It is our hope that the magazine will fill that void, bring more people to the hobby and prevent these cars from being heartlessly discarded when used up.

Because this is still very much a niche market, we’re starting out small. We’re aiming for one issue each quarter, and if things go well then perhaps we’ll make it monthly. We’re making substantial sacrifices, both personally and financially in this endeavor, but we think it’ll benefit the scene as a whole in the long run. As we grow, we’ll be looking for contributors as well, so please don’t hesitate to contact us if you’re interested in joining, or if you’d just like to give us a suggestion.

As a thank you for being a JapaneseNostalgicCar.com reader, we’ll give you guys a subscription discount. We’re still working on the details, but stay tuned for more. Thank you! [Link to Forum]

Posted in jnc | 25 Comments

The Stig Hoons a Datsun

topgeardatsun.jpgOn the latest episode of BBC Top Gear, Jezza, the Hamster and Captain Slow celebrate the 40th anniversary of British Leyland in one of their famous cheap car challenges. Armed with 1200 pounds sterling, each of them is sent to buy the best BL manufactured car they can find, and then subject it to a barrage of challenges to test speed, durability, and humiliation.

Most embarrassingly of all, the Queen’s honor was put up against a 69hp lime green Datsun 120Y (aka B210, Sunny), complete with honeycomb hubcaps, piloted by The Stig. According to the lads, this model was the car that showed Britain automobiles could be reliable and expected to start on the first try.

The following are the presenters and their weapons of choice:

(May) Let it never be said that Fairlady is a silly, girly name for a car when the English have named a car the Austin Princess despite their first language being, in fact, English.

(Hammond) Or the Dolly Sprint. Well, to be fair, the real name is the Triumph Dolomite Sprint, which sounds like some kind of Olympic track and field event involving blaxploitation but is actually a pretty cool little car. DO-LO-MIIITE!

(Clarkson) The Rover SD1 was equipped with a 3.5L V8 and looks like a Clark Kent version of the Renault Alpine A310. Does it have what it takes to school a 1.2L Japanese four-cylinder of the same era?

We won’t spoil the ending for you, but it’s good to see a country that can joke about its own auto industry, and in the immortal words of James May, “Brown is a seventies color. This is a 1978 car. It’s very interesting.” So without further ado, here are the clips courtesy of YouTube: parts 1, 2, 3 and 4. Thanks to MadFlava for the tip!

Posted in datsun, nissan | 8 Comments

Laurel SGX at JapaneseNostalgicCar

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I’m more than a little in love with this car. After I saw it in the round of photos from this year’s Japanese Classic Car Show, I was stuper keen to feature it on grandJDM. But, alas, JNC had beaten me to it. Those guys! I got an envelope stuffed with powder and their names on it, I tells ya. I kid, I kid.

Wake up, grab a cup o’ caff, and head over to JNC to check this bit out and the great write-up that goes with it. So damn hot.

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Do YOU Come With the Car?

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“Oh you!”

If you’re hoping to jump into the classic JDM market and snap up a bargain, one possible obstacle could be the ol’ ball-and-chain. Otherwise known as the wife. Some of us are lucky enough to have understanding partners (and some of us can just buy them off – “car for me, diamonds for you, engine for me, shoes for you!”), but for those who aren’t, this seller on eBay has got just what you need.

What better way to convince the other half that buying a bit of classic J-tin is the right move, than to show her how great she’d look in it? “Look honey, this chick looks great in the car, so you probably would too!” Okay, a little more tact perhaps.

[eBay link]
[grandJDM mirror]
[Thanks to DatsunFreak for the link!]

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PROFILES: 1976 Nissan Laurel

A super clean, duper mean Nissan Laurel Hardtop. [LINK]

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Old School JDM Rides You Can Buy Today

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A thread at the www.auszoku.net forums the other day reminded us that Nissan South Africa still makes the B121 Nissan Sunny truck. Called the 1400 Bakkie, it is a 1971 Nissan design that you can still buy new today.

So it prompted us to think about older JDM rides that you might still be able to buy new.

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Posted in Miscellaneous | 4 Comments

Mid4: Nissan makes a Ferrari (well….almost)

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In 1985, Nissan stunned everyone by releasing a mid engined prototype called the Mid4. The first thing you notice of course is that it looks a hell of a lot like a Ferrari 308. Back in the day, this was quite a bone of contention and the Mid4 designer Hiroshi Itoh received some criticism for it. However the really exciting thing was that Nissan had made several prototypes that were quite fully engineered and were convincing, driving cars. These were not just stylish concept cars built to look good on car show stands: Nissan invited car journalists from all around the world to its test track in Oppama to give its small fleet of fully engineered and trimmed prototypes hell and everyone was blown away.

The vibe at the time from all the car magazines around the world was that, here was a revolutionary high tech supercar that was just about to go into production.


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Posted in nissan | 6 Comments

Arna: When Alfa Romeo made Nissans

 

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By far one of the more bizarre automotive dalliances was the very short lived alliance between Alfa Romeo and Nissan in the early 80s. Alfa Romeo needed a small and cheap new model to accompany it’s new Alfa33 compact, and Nissan needed a way to break into the European market.

Back in the 1980s, JDM manufacturers were subject to import quotas in most Europoean countries, which limited the number of cars they could sell in any given market. Today, Japanese manufacturers all have plants in Europe anyway, so the import quotas are no longer an issue. But back in the early 80s, Nissan saw a way around the quotas by tying up with Alfa Romeo. And Alfa Romeo would begin to manufacture Nissan Pulsars in its old Alfasud factory near Naples, and that plan was that Nissan would have golden opportunity to expand its European market share, free of the constraints of import quotas.

Well…..it didn’t quite work out that way.

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Posted in nissan | 7 Comments

M. Yokota Vintage Rally

yokotarally.jpgRemember the M. Yokota Collection, the vintage car museum/chocalatier/squirrel zoo in Gumna Prefecture? Clearly, a mind as active and eccentric as that of Mr. Yokota’s cannot be easily calmed. The latest manifestation of his love for nostalgics is the M. Yokota Fall Rally, one of the many car shows and rallies that he organizes. Open to Showa Era cars only, the rally had over 200 entrants and started at the Skyland Amusement Park near Mt. Haruna, the geological formation that served as Shuichi Shigeno’s inspiration for Initial-D’s Mt. Akina. Click on over to Urban Racer to see a hachiroku dicing it up with 2000GTs and Ferraris and the rest of their coverage.

Posted in japan, museum, racing, rally | 1 Comment

Celica May Return

zcars.jpgOpen a new car magazine and you’d be hard pressed not to find some sort of speculation regarding upcoming sporty Toyotas. Here’s a rundown of the rumors so far:

Supra – a version of Lexus’s upcoming LF-A supercar

Supra – the production version of Toyota’s FT-HS hybrid concept

MR-2 – a disguised mid-engined sports car spotted on a Toyota car transporter in Japan

Corolla GT-S – a true, $13,000, 100hp, successor to the AE-86

And now, there’s a report that Toyota intends to return the Celica nameplate to Europe in 2009. Of all places, this was only briefly mentioned in an Automotive News piece about Toyota’s opposition to placing a speed limit on Germany’s autobahns. There are no further details.

Could this be one of the above mentioned cars branded as a Celica for the European market, or something completely unrelated that could also make its way to the States? Only time will tell, but with this many rumors floating around, there must be some truth in at least one (and hopefully all) of them.

[LINK]

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This is a Stick Up!

As you get ready to line up outside of your electronics retailer at 4 AM on Black Friday, we offer the comfort and convenience of ordering from your own home, the best holiday gift you can get this holiday season, second only to De Beers diamonds and Lexuses wrapped up in giant bows, JNC stickers! We’re selling these babies at cost, too. Can’t beat that with a bat. Our shop section is here.

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FEATURES: LA Auto Show

New article up. A couple of classics showed up at the ongoing LA Auto Show. [LINK]

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Sambar: Subaru gets its funk on

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Last week we did a short profile on the funky 60s Honda Vamos mid-engined convertible trucklet.    But like all other JDM manufacturers of the same era, Subaru also had a range of funky little small-capacity commercial vehicles as well.

Subaru’s version was called the Sambar.  The nameplate lives on today in the form of a Kei-class van but the 60s version was quite a cool little miniature version of the VW Kombi.

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Massive Z-Car Drag Race

zcars.jpgSorry about the lack of updates. Our computer suffered a catastrophic hard drive failure that we’ll be slowly recovering from. In the meantime, enjoy this video, in which Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson lines up almost every iteration of a Z-car ever made in one big drag race. The winner, not surprisingly, is a 1990 300ZX twin-turbo, which Clarkson calls an 80s car. Perhaps he was just phoning it in, since the rest of the show looks like the detritus that ended up Top Gear’s editing floor, but it’s entertaining nonetheless. The Z-cars are at 4:13. Thanks to Madflava for the tip!

UPDATE: The operatives at MI6 have taken down the videos to defend the honor of the Queen and the BBC. Luckily, tipster J found this link to the video on YouTube.

Posted in datsun, nissan | 2 Comments

Prince R380: Want One?

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A couple of weeks ago, we touched on the topic of the Prince R380 racecar in our retrospective on the Hakosuka Skyline GT-R. As we take up the story, the S54B Skyline debuted at the Japan Grand Prix in 1964. That day, the Skylines won the Touring Car class easily, but was beaten to the flag by the Porsche 904, a purebred mid-engined tarmac racer. Dr Sakurai, head of engineering at Prince Motors, then took steps to ensure that Prince would have a purebred racing car of its own, to wrest back glory at this most prestigous of all Japanese motorsport events.

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Posted in prince, racing | 4 Comments

Empire Z – Dec 1st

Empire Z will be holding a meet on December 1st.

Empire Z will be holding its First Annual Car Show located at Corona Nissan on December 1st from 9am to 3pm. There will be cars, music, food, raffle prizes, goody bags, and vendors present.

Entry Fee is $25.00 which will include T-Shirt and food. Awards will be given out for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places for each category of Z (i.e. 240Z, 260Z, 280Z, 280ZX, 300ZX(Z31), 300ZX(Z32), 350Z). Datsun Roadsters are also welcomed and an award will be given out for them also.

Come join us for a fun day and great people. If you have any questions or comments please email them to empirezadmin@emiprez.com . Hope to see you there.

Location: Corona Nissan, 2575 Wardlow Rd, Corona, CA 92882

Map Location

So check it out if you’re in the area.

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The Dome Zero Lives On

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Well, at least in pop culture. And even then, only just barely.

Music mixing community The Mixing Bowl are, from what I can tell, in the process of putting together a compilation of mixes from artists on their forums. The album artwork features a Dome Zero on the cover, a car you may remember Kev discussing in some detail not too long ago here at grandJDM.

That’s about the extent of the car’s involvement with the album (unless someone’s decided to write a song about it. Now that’d be something), but I thought it complements the artwork pretty nicely and figured I’d share with y’all.

You’ll need to register if you want to see the forum thread, but there’s not really any great amount of talk about the car itself.  Points go to user “Nifty” though for knowing his shit.

Click through to see the full album cover.

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Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment

Brand New MkIII Supra

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Alright, so this isn’t strictly classic, but hey. It’s a slow news day.

I don’t know much about this car—suffice to say it’s virtually brand new, right down to the plastic sheets and covers over just about everything, and the sparkling new engine. With only 92 miles on the clock, this is probably the most pristine MkIII in existence.

Alas, at the end of the day, it’s only a MkIII. Forgive me if you’re a big fan, but come on. It’s got none of the style of the MkII (even with the shared hood), and it’s got the rubbish engine (which raises the question: Would you swap your old worn out 1JZ for this brand new 7m?). Someone find me a brand new MkII and then we’ll talk.

[dreamsofdrifting.com]

Posted in toyota | 7 Comments

Welcome back to grandNissan

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Hot damn. I swear on your ma, we’re not as biased toward Nissan as you’d think—There’s just a frightening lack of happenings out there for the other marques that are worth mentioning. And as I always say, if we’re missing something fly, you need to be emailing that business to us.

So moving on. Auto-Otaku has gotten his hands on some shots of a bag of classic Neesahns out cruising through the hills of Nihon, with a spot of track time thrown in. If only there were some video of that shiz.

It’s a small bunch of photos, but damn nice nonetheless. Head over.

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RX-3 Redux?

rx3redux.jpgRumors (very, very iffy ones) are swirling in the ether about a Mazda RX-3 revival. Discovered on Ben Kraal‘s blog, Here’s a hideous Photoshop speculation of what such a car might not look like at all. If the platform idea is true, this may be Mazda’s attempt to do battle with the rumored Toyota-Subaru and Nissan lightweight RWD cars. We can only hope that this will spark a touge-drift revival in the next decade. It’s like the 80s all over again, without the frizzed bangs and legwarmers.

[New Now Know How]

Posted in mazda | 1 Comment