Here we’ve got a spankin’ hot example of what you can do when you want a C110 Skyline GT-R, but all you can get your hands on – and perhaps all you can afford! – is a Datsun 240K (although it was known as the C110 Skyline in JDMland). More pics and info after the jump! Continue reading
After a long week of showcasing its corporate master’s wares, the Honda Japanese website likes to shed the work duds and have some fun. Cometh each weekend, the home page transforms into a bizarre yet beautiful and rich world of the most mesmerizing pixel art we’ve seen.
To get to various sections of the site, users must now navigate a strange, isometric world of blocky gardens, futuristic labs and cubic canals populated by boxy denizens doing everyday activities as if inside a digital Where’s Waldo? page. Can you spot the scuba diver, the kid with the radio control Civic, the kangaroo? Naturally, Honda products both old and new, like ASIMO or the T360 truck (pictured), are part of the fun sprinkled throughout.
The whole effect is rather surreal and enchanting, and we’ve even discovered some mini-games hidden in the rectilinear universe – the golfer, the color-changing dog. And as the girl with the blue balloon hints, the site was created by the renowned pixel art team eBoy.
If this isn’t enough quadratic quirk for you, head on over to the Icon Museum, where you can download your very own pixellated Hondas, whether you fancy Step Van or NSX or anything in between. The icons will stay around 24/7, but come Monday, the main page puts the suit back on and returns for another week.
Heyo. 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 – 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!
Yesterday the San Jose Mercury News published an article (reg req’d) titled “Car fan holds first big-scale Japanese show in U.S.” in reference to the upcoming Motoring J Style event in Vallejo, CA and its founder David Swig. It gives some background on Swig, and talks about his collection, which consists of at least 12 cars including a 510, Toyopet Crown, and a couple of Coronas.
The article takes the typical mainstream approach to the whole Japanese car scene, noting the lack of respect J-cars get in standard classic car shows like the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance but that – newsflash! – things are changing. It then talks about Steve Kopito of TORC and his Publicas, the Toyota Museum in Torrance, and ends with a prediction of rising values, your basic rundown of the nostalgic scene, circa 2007.
Of course, by now students of the old school have surely noticed the lack of a Japanese Classic Car Show mention. The JCCS crew definitely pioneered the whole nostalgic movement with the first ever stateside show of its kind, and to give an accurate overview of the status of the scene today they should have been given some recognition.
But that’s why it’s so hard to report on decades old cars. The first JCCS show was held in 2005, just two years ago, and already an article published in a major newspaper is omitting a significant piece of the puzzle. Now imagine the state of words written a half century ago, before the digital archiving and information gathering powers of the web, with much of the information written in Japanese!
Still, we’re glad to see the cars we know and love getting more exposure in the press, and we certainly hope to see all the shows succeed, with more to come.
The article can be found here, though registration is required. We can’t reprint the article, but if one of our readers did in our forum, we would be against stifling free speech 😉
Used car lots in the US, much like grizzly bears and lawyers suffering from tuberculosis, are things to avoid if you know what’s good for you. In the UK, there’s at least one worth going to: AutoSupplyUK specializes in one car and one car only – the Nissan Figaro.
After getting ourselves all jazzed up about the retro-fabulous boutique car, some casual googling led us to the importer. There, we learned that Esquire has featured the Figaro in their April 2007 issue, which in turn taught us that the Figaro was even displayed at London’s Design Museum, alongside items like a Video iPod and, uh, water bottle to mark both the 25 “greatest creations” of the last quarter-century and the musuem’s own silver anniversary. Not bad for a car never officially imported to the Isles.
You can download a scan of the issue here (PDF).
Image and PDF courtesy of Esquire magazine via AutoSupplyUK.
Oops, we just realized that when we created our account on blogger.com, we set the comments to “Members Only,” like the jackets.
We’ve changed it so that anyone can praise, haze, phase, reduce to cliches, turn a phrase, or just tell us how dumb we are. On the other hand, if you straddle the edge, have the middle name “Danger” and live without fear of reprisal from others, we encourage you to speak your mind in our forum.
Image courtesy of kinecity.
Spotted on the streets of greater Tokyo, a Nissan Figaro. It’s got big chrome bumpers, two perfectly round saucer headlights, and an awesomely two-tone paint job that matches an off-white roof with a body slathered in hospital-hallway green. But in spite of all that retro goodness, the car isn’t a nostalgic; it’s just really really cool.
Long before there was a PT Cruiser, VW’s New Beetle, or a BMW-built Mini, there were the Nissan boutique cars. The fun started in 1987 when Nissan teamed up with Pike Factory to produce the Be-1, followed by the Pao, S-Cargo, and finally the Figaro, which capped off the series in 1991 with a run of 20,000 units.
All four cars looked old, but were actually based on the then-modern March compact, permitting ample hi-fi jamming via CD while enjoying a nice cold blast of a/c in your face, which, undoubtedly, would be sporting a grin the size of Katie Couric’s. I mean, how could you not, when the car you’re sitting in happens to have a cream-colored interior and – get this – a peel-back canvas top!
A new article is up in our events section. It actually happened in April, but that’s just the blink of an eye when you compare it to the age of the universe, right? We apologize for the delay, but we do thank Satoshi Fruuchi immensely for the pictures! [LINK]
In our recent article on Brian Baker’s 1964 Honda T500F, we gushed ecstatic over the Snowler option, a factory Honda accessory that could transform your innocent little trucklet into a half-track with skis on the front wheels, perfect for tagging penguins, fetching Christmas trees or searching for the elusive Yeti. Despite looking like a something out of a Cold War propaganda film, we find the T-series just as cute as a button, no matter what Mad Maxery it dons. Anyway, we thought you might like to see this bad boy in action, so here’s a YouTube video of one doing what it does best.
Akio Asakura was just another high school senior who couldn’t graduate due to one too many a late night cruising in his Z31 300ZX 2+2. That is, until one fateful day when he stumbled upon a lightly scuffed 240Z with a turbocharged L28 and full race suspension and roll cage. Despite the junkyard owner’s strict instructions to scrap it, as the car was cursed and had killed its previous owner, he sold it to the lad anyway. Now Akio prowls the legendary Bayshore Route hunting down Porsches and Skyline GT-Rs in what other midnight racers call “The Devil Z.” Nostalgic power, baby!
Sadly, none of this is true. It’s all a petrol-powered figment of Michiharu Kusunoki’s imagination, but that doens’t make it any less real for fans of the manga Wangan Midnight. Now the series has been transformed from ink and paper into all it’s full-color animated glory by OB Planning, the same production company and legion of Korean animators who adapted Initial-D and instantly made “hachiroku” part of the American lexicon.
Wangan Midnight seems to have learned from the missed shifts of its predecessor, with computer-generated cars seamlessly integrated into backgrounds drawn in the more traditional method of paintbrush, making for some truly breathtaking angles of a dark blue 240Z in motion. Thankfully, the accompanying engine sounds are so beautifully recorded that they make up for the aural assault of J-pop R&B so cheesy it should come with a warning for the lactose intolerant.
The first episode aired June 8th on the Japanese satellite network Animax, but the enterprising among you will surely have no problem finding the fansubbed version that’s been circulating the web faster than a blast around the Wangan.
Forget the Ridgeline, here’s Honda’s first pickup! [LINK]
Our friend toyotageek has the most comprehensive collection of Toyotabilia we’ve ever seen, and it’s all on his blog. We’ve been so busy that we let our visits to his site lapse (sorry!) but recently we were pleasantly surprised and excited to see this post about a display held last month at MegaWeb, Toyota’s enormous showroom in Odaiba, Tokyo.
This year marks Toyota’s 50th year selling cars in the US, but it also been 50 years since the Big T entered the world of motorsports. Yes, half a century ago the boys were sure on the move, and this S30 Crown that ran the Mobilgas Rally in Australia is living proof. The race spanned 19 days and 17,000km (10,557 miles), and probably beat the car to a pulp, which is why the car displayed is a replica. Still, how could you not love a jet black Crown dressed to the nines in race livery and fresh whitewall tires?
Thanks for the tip, toyotageek! [LINK to Post]
The irreverent bloggers at Jalopnik have a great post about an afternoon spent just chillin’ with a friend in LA who happens to own four sweet rides of the micro variety. The cars include a ’69 Subaru 360, ’72 Subaru R2, ’60 Mazda R360, and a ’60 Fuldamobil.
However, we feel obligated to mention that the 360 Young S/SS came in colors other than red, and Mazda began producing three-wheeled trucks in 1930. Still, if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to drive a Sube 360 in LA or pull up to a modern Mazda dealership and park your kei R360 next to a brand new “compact” 3, all your questions shall be answered.
We were going to keep our mouths shut, seeing as how the original Transformers cartoon debuted in 1984 and isn’t quite old enough yet, but we simply could not remain silent on the issue any longer. Something had to be done. Our fondest bastions of childhood bliss are being unceremoniously eroded by a cash-hungry Hollywood machine bent on nothing but satisfying its basest urges.
But of what straw do we speak that has broken our wistful camel’s back? Answer: the theme song, released earlier today, to the new Transformers live-action movie. First, a warning: DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS SONG. It’s very bad. It’s available here for download, but we would be morally remiss if we didn’t advise against it. Seriously. Don’t do it.
It always raises an eyebrow when something recent appears on a “Best of” list, before said thing’s novelty and buzz have fully died down and before it has passed the test of time. However, we can safely say, without regret or hyperbole, that this nu-metal Transformers chant is the worst movie theme song ever made.
It’s so bad, a hyper-intelligent AI may have to be created just to devise a way of accurately expressing how utterly bad this song is. It absolutely destroys both Batdance and Madonna’s Bond theme where she mistakenly thought she was hired to write a song for Analyze This. We thought Mortal Kombat was horrible, but this takes the cake, the pastry shop, and the entire concept of baked goods.
And just when we thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, the roll call begins. Why the roll call? Why, WHY! The very notion of the roll call should have been purged from the pool of human knowledge when the Mortal Kombat theme was created, but at least it’s usage was reminiscent of the game. Here, it comes out of nowhere as unexpectedly and unwantedly as rhododendrons blooming from our nostrils.
If an alien civilization heard this song, they would clearly have no choice but to conclude that we were a species devoid of culture and vaporize Earth.
The sad part is, that despite our lack of enthusiasm for Michael Bay films, the trailer did seem to redeem itself with the promise of neat robot/car stunts. Unfortunately, this song came into existence and became a giant allegory for all the opportunities squandered in the making of this movie. How cool would it have been to see Bluestreak (pictured, upset at song) or Prowl reincarnated as a NISMO 350Z, Downshift reprise his role as an A60 Supra, or Cliffjumper sliding by as an AE86?
Instead, we have GM product placement galore with Jazz as a Pontiac Solstice, Bumblebee as a Camaro and Ratchet as a Hummer H2. We would have accepted, insisted on, even, Tracks as a Corvette C6, but the entire lineup? Not to mention all the original characters that have been cut. At least we have Hasbro’s lineup of Transformers Alternators to create our own battles over energon with.
Sorry for the string of movie-related posts. We’ll be back to blogging about nostalgics next time.
Thanks (or should we say curses!) to Idolator for the tip. Image courtesy of botchthecrab.
Okay, at first we weren’t going to mention this, seeing as how the Duper Wachowski Bros. turned one of the best films of all time, The Matrix, into one of the most inexplicable franchises of all time. But what the hell. It’s old, it’s Japanese, it’s vehicular.
We speak of the Speed Racer live action film by the Wachowskis that’s due out in 2008, based on, of course, the 1966 anime of the same name or, if you prefer, Mach Go Go Go! in Japanese. It was imported into the US in 1967 and is one of the earliest examples of the craft to gain worldwide success.
Apparently, there is a person named Emile Hirsch, and has been cast as Speed. Gothy Christina Ricci will play Trixie, Lost‘s Matthew Fox is Racer X, John Goodman plays Pops, and Susan Sarandon will aim for another Oscar for her heart-wrenching performance as Speed’s Mom. No word yet on whether Nicholas Cage or George W. Bush will be cast as Chim-Chim.
Of course, we all know the real star of the show will be the Mach 5, Speed’s pimped out race whip that cast the principle of weight reduction to the wind with its plethora of gadgets. It’s been updated with a longer nose and more blingy wheels, but it’s still all business. The identity of the base car that donated its chassis for the making of the Mach 5 is unknown as of now. Datsun 280ZX, perhaps?
Thanks to Gizmodo for the tip and pic.
And now for something completely different: Zedfest 2007 was last Sunday at the famous Silverstone Circuit in Ol’ Blighty, and 167 Datsuns and Nissans took to the track in a parade lap that set a record for most Japanese cars on the track at one time. The event, sponsored in part by the UK Z Club, also included the 2007 Japanese Tuning Show and round 2 of the European Drifting Championship and Time Attack Series, no doubt graced by many a gray market import, you jammy bastards and your RHD!
One of the UK’s most famous nostalgics is Big Sam, a 1970 240Z that started life as a Works 1972 East African Rally car but was later converted for road racing in the UK and ended up winning 1974 BARC series against the likes of Porsche and TVR. It was campagined by an outfit called Samuri (not Samurai) Racing, who just happened to set up shop by Silverstone.
Thanks to Autoblog for the tip and image. There’s a few more pics in their gallery. Cheerio!
Although Daihatsu had only a five-year stint on American shores, the company has been around for a whole Benjamin in Japan. The dapper gent in the bowler you see on the right is Iyokuma Kurokawa, the first president of Hatsudoki Seizo Co., Ltd., the name that was used until the change to Daihatsu in 1951.
By December of 1907, the company had produced its first internal combustion engine, but its first car, if a three-wheeled motortrike with a pickup bed could be called that, wasn’t produced until 1930. In 1937 the FA, its first proper four-wheeler, debuted.
Many more followed, including the 4-seat convertible Compagno Spider, the iconic if politically incorrect Midget II, the Charmant, Charade and Rocky just to name a few. Daihatsu even had some early racing success with the class-winning P5 at the Japanese Grand Prix.
In 1967 it partnered with Toyota, a relationship that grew ever closer until its full buyout in 1999. Still, the brand maintains its own kei-centric identity with cars small enough you could carry them home in your wheel-shaped Hot Wheels case. The only non-keis in the lineup are rebadged Toyotas like the Altis/Camry.
To celebrate the century mark, which actually occurred on March 1, 2007 and before this blog began, Daihatsu gave away 100 new cars modified to help the disabled in Japan.
A special page documenting the Daihatsu timeline can be found here. And although that page doesn’t seem to have updated to reflect this, earlier last month Daihatsu opened a museum to mark the centennial.
On this day in 1967, sales began for the Mazda Cosmo Sport, aka Planet Earth’s first mass-produced rotary engine. Okay, so mass production is a relative term, with 1,519 hand built cars rolling out Hiroshima.
Nevertheless the car did put Mazda on the path of rotary R&D and 40 years onward, after numerous sports coupes, luxury sedans, the Le Mans winning 787B, hydrogen-powered concepts and even buses, the company is celebrating the momentous event.
Check out Mazda USA’s tribute to the rotary here.
Here it is, the last article from the recent trio of So-Cal shows. We have a small amount of stuff coming from Japan soon, so stay tuned!
You want Z’s? Huh, do ya? Here’s some.
