The Australian Toyota community Toymods have organised a weekend away in November, so if you’ve got a classic Toyota, jump over to their forums and check it out.
Classic Japanese Show Shine and Swap – Photos
Our man Craig from AutoFix.com.au spent Sunday at the Classic Japanese Show Shine and Swap (which we mentioned back here) up in Queensland, Australia, and snapped a bunch of photos for us. I’ve uploaded them to our spanky new gallery tool, so click through to check them out. I apologise for the tiny photos, I think Craig was trying to save on bandwidth! Who knows, haha. Much appreciated though Craig, always handy to have a man on the scene when we can’t be there ourselves! Looks like it was a brilliant day.
Update: There’s also a great collection of shots in this thread at AusZoku, but you’ll have to register first unfortunately!
Update 2: Here’s yet another AusZoku thread with great photos!
Posted in events, Galleries
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The LA Times on Nostalgics
Another day, another mention of nostalgics in the press. A Los Angeles Times article published today takes a look at the increasing collector values of vintage Japanese cars. To our regulars, this is nothing new, but again, we intend to carefully monitor the hobby that’s so dear to our hearts. Perhaps somewhat ominously, the article is published in the Times‘ business section. The author interviews Phil Skinner of Kelley Blue Book, a used car pricing guide, who was apparently prowling the grounds of the recent Japanese Classic Car Show. Pros: more awareness means more cars available in the open market. Cons: they will cost more. Also of note, our very own forum member Robert Perez, aka PERTANO, is quoted extensively throughout the piece. In honor of that, we use his two Crowns as our photo for this post.
240Z: 1971 (Performance Car Magazine)
One of my favourite magazines was Performance Car, a UK title which sadly closed its doors and issued its last magazine in 1998. Don’t feel too bad, however, most of the writing and photography staff went on to form EVO magazine, which is even better and is going strong to this day.
The great thing about Performance Car is that they weren’t afraid of featuring old cars (a tradition that EVO continues) and here is their feature on the 240Z. Rod Stewart, you sexy beast!
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Featured Car: Ryley Fry’s MkII Supra
Known in the motherland by the far less exciting (and one X short of pornstat status) moniker Celica XX, the MkII MA61 Celica Supra is a front runner in the next generation of cars from the 80s gunning for “classic” status. The second and last of the Supras to be based on the Celica, the MkII stood out as a turning point for the badge. Built as a genuine performance tourer and a true rival to Nissan’s Z cars, the MA61 is as favourably regarded by today’s enthusiasts as it was in the early to mid 80s.
Posted in Featured Cars, toyota
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Toss Some Shrimp on the Bellet
What a way to close out the week. If your Sabbath includes some nice outdoor grilling, check this out. Our forum member Brett, who goes by the handle 1600GT, has created the coolest, if not the only, Isuzu Bellet-based barbecue grill in the universe. In fact, we think it’s safe to say this is the coolest grill, period. The owner of three Isuzu Bellets, including a race car and a Wasp flatbed ute, Brett had a few extra parts lying around after the restoration of his 1600GT, and put them to good use by bringing aestheticism and elegance to what would otherwise be a row of hot metal bars. Not only is it pleasing to the eye, but any Kobe beef steaks to come out of this Bellet boot are sure to be extra tasty. Check out Brett’s Bellets here.
About
Welcome to grandJDM, a website devoted to classic (and usually modified) Japanese cars.
JDM is an acronym for Japanese Domestic Market, a term which technically refers to any product sold in Japan but not elsewhere – for example, the Honda Stream (as far as we know!) or the multitude of kei cars you might see in any Japanese city. Conversely, EUDM means European Union Domestic Market, and USDM… Well, you get the picture.
These days however, JDM has become a popular catch-all term for just about anything that has an origin in Japan – especially cars.
So, what’s the point? grandJDM is all about sharing an appreciation for old skool JDM. Vintage. Classic. Retro. Any Japanese car older than 1980 (with the occasional 80s exception) – so long as it’s been loved and cared for – is welcome here.
So buckle in – if your old skool JDM is equipped with seatbelts – and enjoy the ride!
Meet The Team
Van
Kev sez: “Van is the father of grandJDM. The website is his creation and he is the main source of energy behind it. A respected designer and illustrator, he is responsible for the slick look and feel of grandJDM, and it’s always a buzz to see our words and pictures presented in such a awesome setting. A relative newcomer to the appreciation of classic JDM iron, Van is an ex MkIV Supra owner and his dream car is an S30 series 240Z.”
Kev
Lachy sez: “Kev is a true enthusiast if there ever was one. With a diverse history of car ownership including all of the major Japanese manufacturers, he has grown an appreciation of all classics. The voice of wisdom in the team, Kev never fails to contribute eloquent and unique articles that are truly captivating. He’s undeniably the most experienced in the team and with his seemingly endless car knowledge, we’re lucky to have him in the team!”
Lachy
Van sez: “Filling quite nicely the role of God of Knowledge, Lachy’s proven to be a massive boon for grandJDM. When you need to know every little difference between a 240Z and a 260Z, you can count on this guy to have it stored away somewhere in his head in encyclopedic perfection, just waiting to be pulled out. Stoked to have him on board, that’s for sure. “
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Friends
LINKS
Websites/Blogs
510Garage
AutoFix
Auto Otaku
CarDomain blog
The Drift Scene
Evo Blogs
JDM Insider
Fat Lace
Grip Unit
Hella Flush
Import Jap
Old School Imports
TunerZine
Wheelspin
XtremeStylin’
Communities
This section has been divided into subcategories, to help you find a community best suited to your tastes.
Miscellaneous
AusZoku (Aus/International)
Import Jap (US/Inter)
Japanese Nostalgic Car forums (US/Inter)
JDM Style Tuning (Aus/Inter)
OldSchool.co.nz (New Zealand/Inter)
Old School Imports (US/Inter)
Old-School Japan CarDomain group (US/Inter)
Retro Rides (UK/Inter)
Mazda
AusRotary (Aus/Inter)
Nissan
DimeQuarterly (US/Inter)
HybridZ (US/Inter)
Classic Z Car (US/Inter)
Vic Z Car (Aus/Inter)
Toyota
Classic Celicas (Aus/Inter)
Old School Toyz (US/Inter)
ToyMods (Aus/Inter)
What Else
Here’s a few blogs and websites that we like.
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JNC THEATER: Seibu Keisatsu, Japan’s most popular cop show
Before we were old enough to drive, two things fueled our childhood lust for the automobile: diecast cars and crime dramas. We’d patiently sit through 45 minutes of predictable plot lines and commercial breaks timed to instill maximum agony like some Kubrickian mind experiment — because time passes slower when you’re a kid — just to see a minute and a half of wheeled carnage.
But while we were hooning vicariously through The Dukes of Hazzard and Hawaii Five-O, Japanese youngsters were hyperacting to the cop show Seibu Keisatsu, loosely translated as “Western Police Division.” The series aired on Asahi TV from 1979 to 1984 and was sponsored by, among others, Nissan, Enkei Wheels and Autobacs.
We finally got a chance to watch the episodes that Hirst from Old Japanese Car recently posted in our forum, and boy were they funk-tastic! We couldn’t understand a word of it, but when Skylines, Cedrics and Z-cars are crashing into barricades, each other, and the ground after a balletic leap off a ramp, who cares?
Remember how in the entire series of CHiPs, Ponch and John never once drew their guns, or how cameras in the A-Team always lingered long enough to show the baddies climbing out after a seemingly fatal wreck? Not so in Seibu Keisatsu. The Criminal Investigation Division of Tokyo’s Western wards deals plenty of death here, in both bullet and explosion form. The show has all the archetypes — the ice-cool leader, the gruff chief, the strong but kind-hearted giant, the motorcycle-riding rebel — all of whom smoke a cigarette in every other scene, wear tight pants that flare at the ankle, and sport sideburns the size of a yardstick. You really can’t get much cooler than that. Best of all, interspersed amongst all the perp-chasing, there are city scenes of Tokyo from when the cars we love were still new.
In later years, the series went all Knight Rider, with special machines based on cars Nissan was promoting, like the R30 Skyline, equipped with stuff not found on the option list (um, what’s the trim level with the afterburners and hood cannon?). Today, Seibu Keisatsu still enjoys a legion of fans, who are not adverse to building replicas of the cars in the telly. It also helped sell a Nissan or two.
Posted in datsun, nissan, Video Games
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2000GT: When Shelby raced the Toyotas
With the recent flurry of articles on the Toyota 2000GT (here, here and here), it got us to thinking about the great car’s racing history. Oh sure; it had the usual smattering of victories in JDM races at home, but what may be surprising is that at one time, the 2000GT was the subject of a comprehensive factory-backed race effort led by none other than the great Carroll Shelby.
Le Mans winner, F1 racing veteran, father of the AC Cobra and Shelby Mustang, Carroll Shelby was (and is!) a very canny businessman. And in the 1960s he was the Toyota distributor for the state of Texas.
Posted in toyota
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Luke, I Am Your Father
I imagine that in the case of the 350Z, a 240Z declaring itself as the newer Z’s father would bring more of a “Oh snap, for real? Sweet!” response rather than a whiny little “NOOOO!”, but that’s all I got.
Motive Magazine, in an obvious attempt to score a few hits from grandJDM, have put together an article featuring something of a comparison between the aforementioned coupes. Alongside the beautiful photography accompanying it, this is a great read. I’m not too sure about the electric blue interior on the S30, but hey, those were the days.
Posted in media, nissan
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More grandJDM Wallpaper Goodness
Alright folks, I’ve spent all morning tweaking this one to get it just right for the various resolutions that we’re offering today, so I hope they’re what you’re after! Once again, I was a little limited by the original dimensions of the image, so my apologies to those folks running monitors the size of my bedroom wall! I hope you dig this one, it’s my fave for sure.
Head over to the Downloads section to grab ’em!
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March Madness
Twenty-five years ago, the Nissan March debuted at the 1981 Tokyo Motor Show with the rather inauspicious name of NX.018. The car was a salvo into the hotly-contested compact hatchback segment against the Honda City and Subaru Justy. Nissan opened up the naming of the car to the public, and for some reason the public chose to call it the March.
It went on the market in October, 1982 and soon became one of Nissan’s best sellers, equipped with a 1000cc engine and front wheel drive. The FF layout was still considered new and exciting at the time; Toyota’s entrant into the segment, the Starlet, moved via the rear wheels and wouldn’t adopt the newfangled FF until its next generation.
The K10 platform lasted on the market for a whopping 10 years, spawning numerous limited editions, a couple of turbocharged versions, a one-make cup series, and the famously sought-after boutique cars. There were even tie-ins with clothing companies, which gave the car color options like Cosmo Green, Shell Pink, and Crepe Yellow.
The next generation, the K11, also stayed on the market for a decade, and had the honor of winning simultaneously the Japanese Car of the Year and European Car of the Year awards in its debut year, 1992. Another one-make race series and ever more limited editions, like the black and red-paneled Juke and tartan-upholstered Polka, followed.
In 2002, the K12 debuted, departing from its traditional hatchback shape to a bizarrely-styled cute-fest that could only come from Japan. Having actually had the pleasure of driving one, we can safely say that it’s an excellent small car that far exceeds its economical roots. A Skyline GT-R it ain’t, but it performs well on highways and superbly in the city. Even after being on the market for five years, it still looks fresh, turns heads, and could easily be anthropomorphed into some kind of adorable cartoon corporate mascot. And if that wasn’t reason enough for us to want to bring it home, the color of our car was called, officially, Beans.
To celebrate the remarkable achievement of spanning a quarter century with just two redesigns, the March is doing what it does best – another limited edition, bright colors, and putting it to a vote. The 25th anniversary March will be available only through the internet, with 500 painted in each of three colors split evenly among two trim levels, one of which is AWD. The hues, voted on by customers, are revived colors from Marches past: Chocolat, Paprika Orange, and the winner, Aqua Blue.
[Source: Nissan]
Posted in datsun, nissan
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Honda CR-X Redux?
The wackiest showcase of concept cars on Earth, the Tokyo Motor Show, is about drop. Sure, the big gala at Makuhari Messe is a great chance for Japanese automakers to express, in automotive form, technology, sustainability or speed. But let’s face it, we want to see the nuttiness. You’re not going to find a glow-in-the-dark car with no corners that is not only soft to the touch, but wants to be touched, at Frankfurt or Motown.
Thankfully, the show also makes way for more grounded design studies, and we are particularly thankful for the Honda CR-Z. According to Honda, the moniker stands for “Compact Renaissance Zero,” a phrase that leads us to believe that this concept will signal a rebirth of the sorely missed Honda CR-X. The original pocket rocket ushered in an era of cheap wheeled fun and, eventually, the whole import tuning scene, and Honda seeks to recapture the spirit of that age, calling it a Renaissance. Who are we to argue?
Also, in Japanese parlance, “zero” refers to the idea of returning to the core of whatever it is that’s being zeroed and starting anew from that point. This sounds like some form of tacit acknowledgment that the CR-X’s eventual mutation into the del Sol and its subsequent disappearance altogether was a bad thing, as many of the car’s fans have suggested. So, while the CR-Z is powered by a hybrid engine unlike its predecessors, it should still, in theory, reflect the essence of the original CR-X by being compact, lightweight, and above all, a blast to drive. The Tokyo Motor Show opens on October 26.
[Source: Honda]
Posted in concepts, honda, retro
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The Gray Lady on Nostalgics
We’re always scanning mainstream media outlets for stories on vintage Japanese cars, just to see where we enthusiasts stand in the eyes of the unenlightened. Well, we’ve managed to find another one from the New York Times, a task made somewhat easier by the fact that we(!) got a shout out. Having subsequently sullied the Times‘ otherwise stalwart journalistic reputation, we feel obligated to mention that this is in fact the third time in the six months – preceded by an article on collectible Toyotas and a profile on Brian Baker and his Honda S-cars – that the Gray Lady has turned its attention to nostalgics. Now if only Ben would shut up about trying to get Maureen Dowd’s phone number…
This latest addition to the Times‘ hallowed anthology comes hot on the mudflaps of last weekend’s 3rd annual Japanese Classic Car Show, which grows in size every year and has really helped out our community by providing, among many other things, publicity and awareness of J-classics. Still, there are some non-believers in the comments section of the post. Oh, how naive. We hope for their sake that they wear tasty hats.
[Source: New York Times‘ Wheels]
Posted in events, jnc
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Toyota 2000GT: Bond. James Bond.
Here at GrandJDM, we’re great fans of the Toyota 2000GT, which is pretty well covered in our past articles here and here. Japan’s very first high-end sports car, it has an aura that belies its production numbers of only a scant 337 examples worldwide.
Part of that aura comes from the fact that the 2000GT was one of the few non-British cars given the “hero” role in a James Bond movie.
Posted in toyota
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Paint It, Black
One of the things we love about vintage Japanese cars (although this tends to apply to all vintage cars) is the wild colors that adorned their sheetmetal. In contrast, everything on the road today is “champagne” or some hue between silver and gray.
Japanese colors have a curious history, however. Before Soichiro Honda came along to challenge MITI (Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry), common colors found in the automotive spectrum like red and white were reserved only for emergency vehicles. White eventually became the luxury color of choice, fueled in part by Toyota’s “White Crown” campaign to sell it’s luxury flagship to the emerging class of well-heeled Tokyoites. Naturally, no owner would be caught dead in a black Crown, used primarily as town cars for VIPs, because who wanted to be mistaken for a chauffeur after plunking down the cash for the Lexus of its day?
Unfortunately, many would be caught dead in black cars, because the only other use for the color was on hearses. For the American palette, however, especially on sports cars, black was de rigeur. First-gen Celicas came in Orion Turquoise and Scarlett Prominence, but it took until 1975, after prompting from a Toyota USA exec, for the Celica to debut in black. The story is detailed on Toyota’s Open Road Blog.
Similarly, while Datsun 240Zs were decked out in New Sight Orange and Sunshine Yellow, the first black Z-car didn’t appear until 1978, with the special edition Black Pearl 280Z, which, after a resounding success, persuaded Datsun to come out with the “Black Gold” 280ZXs for 1979.
[Images: Toyota Open Road Blog, Zhome]
How to Make a Rotary Engine
Regulars on this site will know that Mazda celebrates the 40th anniversary of its rotary engine this year. The official birthday was on May 30, marked by the when Mazda’s first pistonless car, the 1967 Cosmo Sport, went on sale four decades ago, but ever since then the non-stop whirlwind of celebration, at venues such as Laguna Seca, SevenStock and JCCS, has rivaled the whirling capabilities of the engine itself.
Throughout, the company itself has been providing a website for anyone curious about its unique and sporting history, and the latest addition is a series of videos taking an in-depth look at the manufacture of a rotary engine. Although much of it is done by giant steel machines, there are still elements of old school craftsmanship involved, especially when a pair of human hands are employed to fit precision parts like the apex seals onto the rotors by feel. Check out the videos here.
[Source: Mazda]
Posted in mazda
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How Obsessed Are You?
I like to think I’m fairly obsessed with cars, old and new, but some folks really put me to shame. I’m not sure I could ever have the badge of my favourite car emblazoned across my skin in anything more than finger paint, so I’ve really gotta dip my hat to those who take that big step of having their automotive love declared in ink. I guess it’s not so unusual though; plenty of peeps get their favourite sports teams tattooed after they win the final, so is this really so different?
Posted in Miscellaneous, nissan
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