Mooneyes Japan Blog (and it’s in English too!)

Posted on July 17, 2007 by Kevin San

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There are plenty of blogs in Japan about the classic car scene, but almost all are in Japanese only. Still, it’s fun to look at the pretty picture so they’re still worth seeking out.

An exception is Shige Suganuma’s blog, which is in both Japanese and English. Shige started Mooneyes Japan in 1986 as an offshoot of the original Mooneyes company in SoCal, USA. Dean Moon started the Mooneyes company in the 60s in to cater to the Southern California hot rod scene, and Mooneyes Japan continues the tradition in Yokohama, selling retro goods to JDM hot rodders and old school enthusiasts. Mooneyes is especially active in the JDM Old School scene, even going as far as offering parts and tasty hot up gear for your 1960 Toyota Crowns.

A lot of his blog is dedicated to his travels to hot rod events outside of Japan, but he does cover the JDM events too. Check it out.

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We Love Love Old Cars

Posted on July 17, 2007 by Ben Hsu

One of the many irrational anxieties that haunt us incessantly is the fear that every day, countless nostalgics are needlessly crushed as a result of Japan’s prohibitive auto registration laws, lack of parking space, and fashions that change by the hour. Sometimes we even wake up in a cold sweat clinging to our latest issue of Nostalgic Hero screaming, “Iiiiiie!” That’s why it’s so refreshing to see Love Old Cars, a blog that appears to do nothing but post on Japanese classics for sale on Yahoo Japan Auctions, the majority of them unmodified survivors. Thanks to them, we sleep a little easier knowing that rarities like this yellow Skyline wagon and beauties like this red Laurel can still be found.

Images courtesy of Love Old Cars * Deluxe Blog

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And I Would Walk 500 Miles

Posted on July 17, 2007 by Ben Hsu

Mitsubishi’s fame in the world of motorsport comes mainly from two sources – Lancer Evos hooning it up in the WRC, and Pajeros (Monteros) swallowing sand by the duneful in the Dakar Rally. Successes in these series go down in the record books, but the triple diamond mafia actually began its racing career at the 1962 Macau Grand Prix, where this lead Mitsubishi 500 Super Deluxe, piloted by Kazuo Togawa, and three others like it swept the top four places in the 750cc class.

For your viewing pleasure, here’s another Jalopnik gallery devoted to the 594cc killer of slightly larger cars displayed at the Mitsubishi Owner’s Day, which they attended this past weekend. Eagle-eyed viewers out there may have noticed that this also happens to be the car in our forum banner.

UPDATE: Our forum member bxu71 has posted pics of some seriously sweet old school Lancers/Colts from the event. You can check them out in our forum.

Image courtesy of Jalopnik.

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The Path Less Followed

Posted on July 17, 2007 by Van

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Any time you search for classic JDM – and for many of us, any time we even think of classic JDM – you’ll invariably wind up looking at a beautifully modified 240Z, a crazy Rx-3, or a pristine C10 GT-R.  Of course, there are others that easily spring to mind, but for those of us not freakishly obsessed with every facet of the classic JDM culture (Kev, Lachy, I’m looking at you lads!), there are many more models and makes that we simply don’t think of, know much about, or have never heard of.

So with that in mind, we bid you: feast your eyes upon this brilliant collection of photos and stories (if you can get your head around the translations) exploring the less well known – but just as enthusiastically loved by their owners and fans – classic JDM cars rolling around the land of Japan.  Some of these babies sure make me think twice about desperately hunting down an s30 or C10!

Link: Gyakusyu

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On the Roadshow

Posted on July 16, 2007 by Ben Hsu

Let’s face it, most of us would rather be caught dead under a collapsed jackstand than sit through an episode of Antiques Roadshow, the PBS program about, um, stuff. Perhaps this will change your mind: Subaru of America is sponsoring the 2007 season, and is sending a rare four-door 1969 360 Deluxe on the road with the producers. The car is from their own collection, one of three known to exist, and the product of a $25,000 restoration according to Subaru of America in this article in The Examiner. On the off chance that some of you petrol-heads actually enjoy watching public broadcasting footage of people discussing things they found in the attic, you can catch the stops in Balitmore, Orlando, San Antonio, Louisville, Spokane, and Las Vegas.

Image courtesy of The Examiner.

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All MOD Con

Posted on July 16, 2007 by Ben Hsu

This past weekend the 2007 Mitsubishi Owner’s Day event took place, bringing all manner of triple-diamond metal to Mitsu Motors’s USA headquarters in Cypress, CA. unfortunately, the sauna-level humidity on the east coast has prevented all mobility, rendering us incapable of venturing out west ourselves, but thanks to the miracle of digital photography, you can check out this gallery at Jalopnik to see pictures from the festivities, with Lancers, Starions, Evos, and rally machinery galore.

UPDATE: Our forum member bxu71 has posted pics of some seriously sweet old school Lancers/Colts from the event.  You can check them out in our forum.

Image courtesy of Jalopnik.

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Brap Magazine

Posted on July 16, 2007 by Van

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Brap (derived from the sound of the cars in question) is a magazine devoted to the Rotary scene in Australia – specifically in Mazdas, in case you were thinking of old folks sitting around tables in car parks on cold Sunday mornings hocking their old cutlery and photos of WW2 soldiers.

Presented in PDF format, Brap is now up to issue 3, and the guys have done some great work so far.  The Australian rotary scene is perhaps a little different to that seen elsewhere, with the exception of New Zealand.  Big power, big modern sports rims, and outspoken paint schemes are all par for the course down under the equator.  Not everyone’s cup of tea for sure, but it holds no shortage of appeal for a lot of people!

Check out Brap Magazine.

Posted in mazda | 2 Comments

Big Boys and Their Little Toys

Posted on July 15, 2007 by Van

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To help celebrate 50 years of the Nissan Skyline, Tomica – somewhat like Japan’s version of Matchbox or Hot Wheels – have introduced a series of six classic (well, 5 plus the 1, not everyone considers the R30 a classic yet) Skylines into their range of toy cars. From the S54 through to the R30, this is a great collection of accurately depicted miniature cars from the legendary suka family. They’ll each sell for ¥525 (AU$4.90, US$4.30), which is a steal! Remember when you used to buy one Matchbox car every week when you were 10 years old, because you had just enough pocket money to get one? Those days are back, at least temporarily, haha.

If you can get your hands on these, do it! I know I’ll be scouring the net for a source. Keep an eye on ToyEast and HobbyLink Japan, and you might just get lucky.

Here’s the original article at carview.jp, translated through Google.

Posted in Miscellaneous, nissan | 1 Comment

I Say Amon!

Posted on July 15, 2007 by Ben Hsu

Long before there was japanesenostalgiccar.com, there was just plain nostalgiccar.com, a Japanese site that, as far as we can tell, is a dealer called Amon and trades in minty fresh vintage J-rides. Clearly by being, in fact, Japanese, they didn’t feel the need to qualify their name with the actual word “Japanese,” which worked out well when it came time for us to get our domain name.

To see the good stuff, go to their main page and click on the squares on the right, but make sure you’re sitting down and not in the vicinity of any sharp corners. The first one with the date on it takes you to an events page that, while infrequently updated, has galleries from classic car shows that will drop your jaw straight into your lap. The square below it, the one with the pink sakuras, takes you to a list of cars they have for sale. Marvel at the immaculate condition of these old school treasures. Each and every one is cleaner than your dentist’s hands. I mean just look at them! Be sure to click on all 46 pages linked at the bottom. You’re welcome.

Images courtesy of Amon Nostalgic Car.

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Cool JDM Videos You Probably Haven’t Heard Of

Posted on July 15, 2007 by Kevin San

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Everybody knows about JDM car videos like Best Motoring, Hot Version, Video Option, etc, and they’re great entertainment. But if you go to Japan, you’ll realise that those flagship video titles are really just the tip of the iceberg. There are actually lots and lots of much more obscure and specific DVDs on basically anything car-related, from DIY videos on how to assemble an MX5 engine, to enthusiast tribute videos to great old cars like the C10 GT-R.

Continue reading →

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Random Pic: Instant Daruma

Posted on July 14, 2007 by Ben Hsu

clay celicaAt Toyota’s Megaweb showroom, there was a small section teaching the average shopper about the design process, and the specimen chosen to illustrate the journey from concept to finished product was none other than the 1970 daruma Celica. Here’s the beauty rendered in clay, sans wheels like Venus de Milo. And dare we say, it looks as fresh and gorgeous today as it did when the original debuted 37 years ago.

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Honda: High RPM Beginnings (Part 3)

Posted on July 14, 2007 by Kevin San

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The T360/500 trucks and the S500/600/800 sports cars demonstrated Honda’s racing pedigree and engineering genius. Mr Honda’s philosophy was that if you perfected every individual area of a car, then the overall car would be perfect, and the public would love it. A typical engineer’s philosophy, amply demonstrated in Honda’s production cars which had engine technology more akin to an F1 car at the time. And yet they didn’t really work as a package and worse…they didn’t really sell very well.

Mr Honda’s car division got a reprieve when the N360 Kei-car of 1967 (above) proved to be a sales winner. A simple FWD minicar, using a single cam two cylinder motor, it was well accepted by the Japanese buying public.

But for Honda to become a full fledged car manufacturer, Mr Honda knew that they would have to produce a proper, full size family car. Not just a kei-car which would only work in Japan, but a world-class sedan that could be sold anywhere. This would be the car simply called the “1300” and with it, Mr Honda would push his engineering philosophy to the limit, and it would bring the friction between Old Man Honda and his young management team to a head, changing the fate of the company forever.

Continue reading →

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One Kidney is Enough: 1971 Mazda Cosmo Sport

Posted on July 13, 2007 by Ben Hsu

Robert Frost was right. Take the road less traveled, as the Autoblog reader/E-Type owner who submitted this story to them did, and you just might stumble upon a 1971 Mazda Cosmo Sport for $36,000. No location is given. Unfortunately, the post does nothing but refer to the inaugural rotary sports car a Jaguar E-Type front with a ’65 Oldsmobile rear. Whaaa? We like the BBC too, but not everything with bubble headlamps is a Jag-yoo-are.

Considering what some owners expect from theirs, like this ebayer from Washington state ($57,500), and this owner from an Australian auction (unsold at $82,394), this example seems like a good deal.

You can contact the finder yourself if interested. Image courtesy of Chuck Goolsbee.

Posted in for sale, mazda | 3 Comments

Honda: High RPM Beginnings (Part 2)

Posted on July 13, 2007 by Kevin San

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Moving right along from the T360 and T500 trucks, Honda’s next foray into four-wheeled vehicles was the S500 roadster. It should be remembered that at this point Honda was already a massively successful international motorcycle manufacturer, mainly as a result of the Honda Cub: a cheap, simple, robust 50cc bike that is made to this very day and is the most popular vehicle ever made.

So the S500 was as much a treat for company founder Soichiro as anything else, and its sporty front-engined, rear wheel drive convertible layout predates the S2000 by some 35 years. Mr Honda was quite the anglo-phile when it came to cars, and so the S600 displays more upright influences from British sports cars of the day, rather than the more svelte and womanly curves of 60s Italian sportsters.

Continue reading →

Posted in honda | 3 Comments

Crown in 3 Seconds

Posted on July 13, 2007 by Ben Hsu

Rarely do the words “Jay Leno” and “money shot” appear in the same sentence, but for fans of the Crown the planets aligned last night. Here it is, the 1958 Toyopet Crown on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno as part of the Toyota Concert Series, in all it’s low-def, rabbit-eared, 13-inch glory. Told ya our budget was low. Sure, the car was on screen for about three seconds, but so was the total elapsed time of Y2K’s remake of Gone in 60 Seconds worth watching.

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Honda: High RPM Beginnings (Part 1)

Posted on July 12, 2007 by Kevin San

497_T360For a great many car manufacturers, their DNA has roots in the distant past. It is hard to imagine Ford without the Mustang and GT40, it’s equally hard to imagine Nissan without the 240Z and C10 Skyline GT-R, and of course Mazda wouldn’t be the same without its long and proud history of rotary engined cars that stretches right back to the 60s.

But what of Honda? To most enthusiasts, an “old school” Honda is a mid 80s Integra. Think back and you might be able to conjure a mental image of the ground-breaking 1st Gen Civic, but that would be it for most people. And that’s a shame, because there are many interesting Hondas made before the Civic, and an examination of them tells you a lot about why the company is where it is today.

Let’s start.

Continue reading →

Posted in honda | 1 Comment

Bolt-on guards – The key to the universe.

Posted on July 12, 2007 by Van

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I don’t know about you lot, but I’ve always been of the opinion that a good set of bolt-on guards can really make the difference when toughing up a classic JDM car. There’s always a few ways you can go about restoring your car; you can make it a pristine example of how the car originally rolled off the line, with maybe a tweak here and there to make it better than new, or you can tough it right the hell up. Bolt-on guards, lowered, deepdish rims, whatever takes your fancy. And I’ve always been a fan of the bolt-on guards.

Head over to this Japanese Nostalgic Car forum thread for a few examples.

Posted in Miscellaneous | 4 Comments

Lesser-known birds of the rotary feather

Posted on July 11, 2007 by Kevin San

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When one thinks of the Mazda Rotary, its hard not to immediately associate it with immortal modern classics like the FD and FC RX-7s. Think back even further, and the racing heritage of cars like the Savanna RX3 and the first-generation (SA22C) RX-7 come to mind too. And if you really know your JDM history, you may be able to even add the Mazda Cosmo to that list: the very first Mazda rotary production car with its swoopy, Ford Thunderbird inspired styling and powered by the dimunitive 10A rotary.

Continue reading →

Posted in mazda | 2 Comments

The Gray Lady Wants YOU

Posted on July 11, 2007 by Ben Hsu

gray nissan cedric wagonThe New York Times is looking for an owner of a classic Japanese car in the New York area for a new section called Auto Ego. Penned by Richard Chang, it will explore not only the cars but each owner’s unique relationship with them, as seen in this story about a ’67 Citroen DS19. Considering Chang’s past work with Autoweek and Super Street, this should be an excellent addition to the paper. Richard also blogs cars for the Times. Get ready to hand over that Pulitzer, Thomas Friedman! And of course nothing thrills us more than seeing the cars we love gain more recognition. We know you guys are out there. See Richard’s post in our forum for details.

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New York, New York…Times

Posted on July 11, 2007 by Van

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Do you have a connection with your classic JDM car that simply defies all reason?  Have your friends stopped inviting you out on the weekends after having heard one too many times that you’re busy polishing your wheels?  Then you might be just the person the New York Times are looking for.  Richard Chang is a writer for the Times, and he’s in search of not only a beautiful example of a classic Japanese car, but also an appropriately obsessed owner.  He’s writing a series of articles about the bond between owners and their cars, and now he’s focusing on Japan.  Here’s one of his recent articles.

So if you think you might fit the bill, shoot Richard an email at rschang@yahoo.com.

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