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?
How Obsessed Are You?
Posted in Miscellaneous, nissan
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Koich’s F20C-powered TA22
I mentioned Koich’s F20C-powered TA22 (an engine normally found humming away inside the Honda S2000) way back here, but today I came across his Flickr gallery for the car. It nicely chronicles in a massive set of photos the path the car has taken from ordinary everyday oldschool Celica, to the unique and crazy balls out machine that it became. Foamin’ at the mouth.
Check it out. You can also load up his blog here.
Posted in toyota
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Sometimes, Sometimes, Virtual Reality is Okay
Hell, if you can’t own it in out here in the real world, you may as well own it online. And for the cost of a 360 and a few hours behind the wheel—so to speak—it’s a lot cheaper than the real deal!
I am of course referring to the Toyota 2000GT. The only Japanese car to star in a Bond movie has now achieved an even higher accolade; it’s in Project Gotham Racing 4. I’m not sure if any other classic JDM can be found in the game, but my good man Shaneus assures me that if there is, he’ll eat my hat. Wait ’til he sees the hat I’ve picked out.
If you’d like to check out just how amazing this car looks in its virtual form, head over to this thread at the NeoGAF forums, where a user has posted some shots from the “photo mode” in PGR4.
Posted in toyota
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New Car Smell: Subaru Odor Cannon
You know the drill. You find your dream nostalgic but the ad says “Ran when parked” and it’s been sitting in a yard somewhere for the last 10 years. You bring your new baby home only to discover that its funkifying your whole garage with the combined smell of sun-baked mildewy vinyl, rotting leaves, and possibly an animal habitat or two. And while all your passengers can agree that they don’t want to smell a peat bog, what if not everyone is a fan of “Fresh Pine”?
What you need is the SpotScents, a cannon that periodically shoots personalized smells in the cabin of your car. Developed by Subaru and unveiled over the weekend at the Japanese trade show Ceatac, SpotScents blasts two streams that converge at the head of one passenger to give him or her the aroma of their choice. Theoretically, the odor will remain in the general vicinity of one’s head, allowing other passengers to have their own personalized smell. Magnifique!
[Source: CNET Crave]
Posted in japan, subaru
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Z ACTion: Fastest Honda Z600?
After seeing the carbon fiber Honda Z600 that wowed the JCCS crowd over the weekend, we wondered – out loud and to the dismay/puzzlement of other post office patrons waiting in line with us – what is the fastest Honda Z600 the world has to offer?
First, we have “Evil Tweety,” holder of the J/Pro record at the Bonneville Salt Flats with a 99.299 mph run, though its fastest time clocked is 101.5 mph. According to its owner, it retains its naturally aspirated air-cooled 2-cylinder underhood, albeit stroked to 700cc with Electromotive fuel injection, open exhaust, very high compression and a mild racing cam. Ladies and gentlemen, Evil Tweety.
Next up, courtesy of the Gebrüder Dorsch blog, a German entrant that appears to have a jet engine protruding from das boot. We turn to Babelfish to discover that, “These vehicles do hurt… One should possibly drastic penalties, when people of such cultural goods to make a mistake.” We think this means the Brothers Dorsch disapprove of the butchered Z600’s ersatz motor. They continue: “The poor little Honda Z600 a jet engine in the ****.” We would have to agree that jet engines in the **** should be strictly verboten. We imagine that any attempt at turning during full throttle in this thing would be as well.
Finally, we have the latest Frankensteinian Z600, the one that started this pointless line of questioning, a full-on race car built for solo B-mod with a Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle engine mounted between the front and rear axles, precisely in the driver’s right ear. And when you’re rebodying the entire car in carbon fiber, why not go with the widest widebody you can fit wheels under? This also gets bonus points for looking terrifying.
Well, we have no idea which one is fastest, but all of them are probably plenty scary, so we put the question to you, dear reader, how would you rather face death?
1.) Hurtling across the remains of an Ice Age lake ensconced in a 37-year old sheet of tin.
2.) Going warp speed in a home-built jet car that, despite its German engineering, is probably one-use-only.
3.) Snapping your neck with a quick flick of the steering wheel in something possessing the power-to-weight ratio of an electron.
Sound off in the comments.
[Sources: Jalopnik, Dorsch.com]
Posted in honda, suzuki
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Yankees Datsun
We had always heard stories about how Datsun promoted the 1200 Sunny in the US by some kind of giveaway prize at New York Yankees baseball games, but we never could find the photos. Thanks to our friends at Jalopnik, we have visual confirmation of the bogey. Apparently, this was used as a bullpen car in the 1972 season, and later, in a contest where fans could win this pinstriped Yankee Datsun, not to be confused with this Yanky Datsun.
[Source: Yankee Tradition via Jalopnik]
Posted in datsun, nissan
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Old Japanese Cars.
Those daft Poms from Old Japanese Car recently held a small meet – basically just mates getting together to take pictures of their aptly named rides together. Now whilst not all are widely recognised as classics, they certainly all have their certain appeal. Just a small collection of pics but we hope you enjoy all the same. These all are very rare cars especially in such great condition and in the UK!
Posted in Miscellaneous
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[USA] Porsche Datsun Challenge
As Robert Duvall’s character in Days of Thunder said, “He didn’t slam you, he didn’t bump you, he didn’t nudge you… he rubbed you. And rubbin, son, is racin‘.” But to be honest, I don’t think I could ever let my classic JDM – or a classic car of any sort – get so much as a rubbin’, let alone any other form of less-than-loving contact.
Nonetheless, the racing of classic cars continues to be a favourite pastime of enthusiasts around the world, and one hell of a spectacle. So if you’ve got the time and you’re in the area, you need to get yourself down to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway to catch The Porsche – Datsun Challenge this coming weekend. Stylistically and mechanically, these cars are so wonderfully matched, and this should be an awesome day!
Posted in events, nissan, Reminder
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Shootout at the BRE Corral
The racing world is full of legendary rivalries – Chevy vs. Ford, Porsche vs. Ferrari, even Ford vs. Ferrari, and now, Porsche vs. Datsun. In the early days of Datsun’s entry into the US market, the BRE 510s and 240Zs went doorhandle to doorhandle with the boys from Stuttgart. Now, the Vintage Auto Racing Association seeks to reignite the clash with its annual Porsche-Datsun Shootout at the Jeff Saltman Memorial Race in Las Vegas, October 13-14. For photos from last year’s event, look here.
[Sources: grandJDM, VARA, classicracingphotos]
Seibu Keisatsu video clips
Kev nicely covered this badass Japanese cop show back here, but this week Hirst from oldjapanesecar.com unearthed the first two episodes, as well as a few clips from episode 38. I thought American cop shows from the 70s and 80s were about as hilariously stupid as the genre gets, but these are just phenomenal in their awesomeness. That’s right, awesomeness. Check ’em out!
Posted in Japan Stuff
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Brian Baker in the New York Times
You may remember Brian Baker from an article we did on his Honda T500F. One of the most passionate enthusiasts we’ve had the pleasure of meeting, Brian Baker was the first person to come to mind when Richard Chang of the New York Times approached us, looking for a subject to profile for his series, “Auto Ego.” It’s great to see Brian get the recognition he deserves (he also previously appeared in Road & Track when the S2000 first launched), although we like to think that appearing in Japanese Nostalgic Car was the greatest honor of all.
Be sure to check out the audio slideshow for great pictures and to hear Brian take his S600 to a 9500rpm redline we thought would never come.
[Source: The New York Times]
Posted in honda
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The JCCS Rundown
Well, while two of the three grandJDM staffers were up somewhere in rural Australia thrashing various Japanese cars both new and old at a motorkhana, the Japanese Classic Car Show was taking place on the other side of the world in California, USA. We can’t say we didn’t have an awesome time, but we can pretty safely say we wish we’d been at the JCCS instead! Maybe we need to start advertising here, so we can afford flights to the US for all these awesome events, haha.
So, since we can’t bring you firsthand photos ourselves, here’s a bunch of links to galleries and reports on what looks like an awesome event. Hopefully we’ll be there ourselves next year!
Posted in events
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EVENTS: Japanese Classic Car Show
The 2007 Japanese Classic Car Show in Long Beach! It’s no just an important event for vintage J-cars, but it also marks a whole year since we’ve been slogging our sorry selves all over the place to populate this site with our galleries. Time flies! To anyone who is interested in nostalgics, this is the place to be.
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grandJDM wallpaper, at last!
Well folks, here’s our very first wallpaper. The model that was gracious enough to pose for us, is Lachy’s C110 GT-R replica. We’d love to know what you think of it, so shoot us an email with your comments, or comment on it in this post. It’s available in 1280×1024 and 1024×768. We’re hoping to offer larger resolutions for future wallpapers.
Head over to the Downloads section to grab it!
Posted in wallpapers
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Did You Know?
Here’s a new feature on grandJDM for you; the “Did You Know?” post! Exciting stuff, huh? Alright, probably not, but let’s move on!
Here’s a little Toyota trivia that I stumbled across earlier today. Toyota used variations of the name Crown for models other than the Crown that we all know. For example: the Corona, which is latin for crown, or the Corolla, which is latin for small crown. There’s also the Camry (often regarded jokingly as a playful twist on “my car”), which is an anglicized pronunciation of the Japanese term “kan-muri” meaning crown. One of Toyota’s first cars sold in the US was also called the Toyopet Tiara.
Something of a fascination with royal headwear, over at Toyota HQ!
Posted in Did You Know?, toyota
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RX5 Cosmo: Mazda’s rotary shiny disco ball
We’ve covered a lot of the early rotary Mazda history, especially the racing history of the Cosmo 110S, Familia Coupe, RX2 Capella and RX3 Savanna GT. It would lead you to believe that Mazda rotaries were all about performance and racing, but in 1975 Mazda took a sharp left turn with the RX-5 (or Cosmo as it was called in Japan).
The RX5 debuted with very Americanised, bloated chrome laden styling, very much like a Japanese Olds Cutlass or Chevy Monte Carlo. In the USA, the muscle car era petered out in the early 70s as all of the old muscle nameplates like the Charger and Mustang were weighed down with power sapping pollution controls and greater weight from customer demands for more “personal luxury”…to the point where former big-cube hero cars were reduced to chrome laden gin palaces for the disco generation that could barely wheeze across the quarter mile in 19 seconds. And so Mazda followed suit with the RX5.
The irony is, the RX5 sold very poorly in the USA (in fact it sold badly in all western markets) but the one market where it was a certified smash hit was Japan.
Posted in mazda
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All you need is love (and $$$)
Among the classic beauty of the older Celicas, the oddball later model A40 and A60 series Celicas never get much attention. This is especially true for the A60 Coupe, which despite its typical 80s look is not a bad car. When Juha Kankkunen found this derelict but historic 1984 Group B Rally TA64 Celica still equipped with its 4TGTE engine, it was love. It went under a magnificent extensive restoration by Makela Auto Tuning in Finland, with many photos documenting the process. It just goes to show, anything is possible with enough love, time, money and damn fine skills.
Sure, this gallery was widely spammed across the Internet a little while ago, but in case you missed it the first time round, here it is in all its glory. If you did see it, check it out again! Simply amazing restoration work.
Posted in Miscellaneous
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Honda 1300 Coupe 9 on eBay
Does anyone want to give us 6,600 bucks? In return, you’ll have our eternal gratitude and free rides in one of the rarest nostalgics ever to set rubber on this continent – a 1971 Honda 1300 Coupe 9 Deluxe.
Another one of Soichiro Honda’s dream machines, borne out of his desire to build a “world class car,” it’s a portfolio of innovative engineering. The quad-carbed inline four wedged between its shock towers is air-cooled via ducts running through the engine as if meant for water. The outside of the motor still had fins, and so did the dry sump oil reservoir. All of these parts worked in conjunction to put 116hp through the front wheels, an incredible output considering it’s 1.3L engine size. In comparison, a 2005 Honda Civic with a 1.7L engine still only makes 115hp.
According to the Honda 1300 Coupe Registry, either 7,881 or 8,102 of the Coupe 9’s were built. Even Honda themselves cannot come to agreement on the exact number. They were never exported to the US, and this one on ebay comes from Australia.
Posted in for sale, honda
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Melbournites, This is a Call!
Melbournites of the Australian variety, that is. Sorry Florida! If you’re in Melbourne and you think you might like the idea of attending an All-Japanese car show, you need to hop your ass over to the JNC forums (and in particular, this forum thread right here) and shoot a private message to Brett (username: 1600GT) to let him know just how keen you are.
He’s not expecting a monetary commitment from anyone at this point—if at all—but just letting him know that you’re keen will help to get the event on track.
This has the potential to be a huge day on the scale of the Japanese Classic Car Show in California USA or the Classic Japanese Show Shine and Swap in Queensland Australia, so get it together folks. Make it happen!
Posted in events
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Joy Stick
At last, we have stickers! Ever since we first went online, visitors have been asking us for them. Honestly, we were somewhat surprised at the interest but flattered and grateful all the same. Well, we just got some printed, and here’s what they look like. Nothing fancy, just our logo in a 4 by 4 inch square with rounded corners. Now we have to figure out a good ordering system on the website. But for those of you going to the Japanese Classic Car Show, look for us by the Cressida Wagon and say hi and pick some up. Thanks for the support, and hope to see you at Long Beach!
Posted in jnc
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