A recent trip took me to Dubai and back to Tokyo. A few take aways: Toyota is killing it in the taxi and fleet market, and there are plenty of JNCs out there. With internet auction sites, private listing sites and forums; are you willing to go beyond your local area for your next JNC? Where do you draw the line?
How far will you go for your next JNC?
The most entertaining comment by next Monday will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “What is the worst modern design trend?“
If we learned one thing this week, is that people love to vent about design! What was really great is that they didn’t all fall on deaf ears — we had a special visitor who was responsible for one of the most talked about concepts in the past decade jump in and read your comments, so you should all feel good about that. There can be only one winner of course, and this week it was speedie who made us chuckle the most.
Design standards for pedestrian safety and overall crash protection has produced a small box in which automotive designers can work their art. Because of this automakers are trying everything to add distinctiveness to a design that is basically the same for a given vehicle class across all manufacturers. A case in point is the new Honda Civic, especially the the Si, which has so many design elements in the rear that is it is actually painful to look at. The one item I dislike the most that is showing up on more “sporty” models, is the use of fake rear under body exhaust openings in the rear bumper. The new Civic Si sets a new standard here. Did the designers really think that four square feet of fake honeycomb outlets would appeal to younger drivers? My 25 year old just giggles every time he sees one. Please stop the madness!
Omedetou! Your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop.
I found mine in somebody’s back yard in Australia….shipped it to Dubai for a complete restoration and swapped it to Lt hand Steering wheel. Now she is in the USA.
77 Kenmeri 2 door.
Jamal, nice! It’s looking like I will visit Dubai again soon, any recommendations for cool things to see that aren’t touristy?
You need to visit the industrial area in Dubai and ask anybody there for the Skyline shops. and see for your self.
I will send you to my guy over there….he will show you what you need to see..
Or just check out his Instagram (kenmeri77) let him know that I sent you.
I imported my AE86 from Japan for the following reasons:
1. Prices of the AE86 are insane here in Europe
2. Hardly any salt is put on the Japanese roads
3. Japanese cars are relatively low mileage (200K kilometers is quite normal in Europe nowadays)
4. The GT Apex was only available in Japan
5. I wanted to experience the import process myself (and maybe repeat the process a couple of times)
I only wished I could have traveled to Japan, hunt one down and bring it back home myself… But, thanks to excellent export companies in Japan, it is far more economical doing this while sitting on your couch at home nowadays. 😉
ditto.
Finding a low-mileage/rust-free ae86 here in America is equivalent to finding a needle in a haystack.
Plus the Levin front with a tad bit of camber is sexual.
I drove to an extremely sketchy neighborhood in the middle of Detroit for my ’90 EF Civic. It may have only been an hour or two from my house, but the seedy neighborhoods with random people racing around you on ATVs feels like a completely different country!
I import a lot of parts from Japan though, doing lots of searching and bidding on Yahoo Auctions Japan 🙂
For the right car. As far as it takes!
I agree 100%…..
As far as it takes to avoid the terror of my first car being that horrid rotbox that is my mother’s Hyundai or worse, me ending up with my aunt’s truck as a first car…………….I want my first car to be a JNC, not something uncool and unsavoury as a ’02 Dodge Ram that has doen enough kms to go to the moon and turn around and come back, then take a road trip to Mexico. Or, god help me, my mother’s ’07 Hyundai Santa Fe, the 2-wheel drive model of hopelessness. SOMEONE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wherever there’s no rust..
Thanks to the wonderful powers of the internet and too much budgeting, I was able to snag my ae86 from a dealership in Japan.
Me and my dad drove 8 hours to the port in Baltimore to pick it up, which was an adventure of its own. Everything from getting stuck on a one-lane road in the middle-of-nowhere West Virginia, to driving through what seemed like a hurricane at 2am in the mountains of Maryland … 16 hours, and an empty savings account, all for a 30 year old Corolla.
probably going to die with this thing.
I am writing this from Sydney Australia, going back to LA in a couple days, and then heading to Tokyo. I’m constantly making amazing new friends along the way, and my AE86,S30, and S13 are with me in spirit as I forge alliances, friendships and new contacts. Sure, my cars may have never left SoCal since they first arrived at the dealership years ago, but each car is a collection of experiences. The super rare Nardi Gara 4 wood/leather speed king edition found in a Japanese up Garage, the bits from Aussie or Japanese AE86 enthusiasts, the parts purchased from Super Autobacs stillborn attempt to enter the US, the friendship sticker given after a late night Touge run with a new friend on a strange mountain on the other side of the world. My cars may not be able to join me as I travel the world, but through me, the world comes to them. Each car is a physical manifestation of my journey through both life and the world, and to me, that counts way more than if something is a correct or hard to find original part.
I’ve brought quite a few cars from Japan which is, on average, 6500 miles from Ohio. My Toyota 1600GT had to come all the way from Auckland, New Zealand, an 8400 mile trek.
Have a look at this:
Toyota KE 70 very low mileage ( 17.600 km):
Classic Trader ID 105539
Link: https://www.classic-trader.com/de/automobile/inserat/toyota/corolla/corolla/1983/105539