Tag Archives: z20
MOTORSPORT: How Ikaten bridged illegal and professional drifting, with silver cephalopods
Drifting went pro in 2000 when the D1 Grand Prix series was founded. But long before D1GP, there was the Ikasu Hashiriya Team Tengoku (roughly translated to Ikasu Racer Team Heaven), an amateur drift series that bridged the era between … Continue reading
2019 Japanese Classic Car Show, Part 02 — JDM, yo
This year marked the 15th anniversary for America’s premier gathering of Nihon steel. To put that in perspective, at the first JCCS in 2005, the newest Japanese cars allowed for import under America’s 25-year import ban were built in 1980. … Continue reading
VIDEO: Ichikawa Parking Area in the Bubble Era
At the height of the Bubble Era, meets stretched deep into the pre-dawn hours. Even at 4 am, parking areas like Ichikawa PA were filled with Savannas, Soarers, and Skylines. Tuning legend Isami Amemiya even shows up with an FC3S and his … Continue reading
EVENTS: 2016 New Year Meeting, Part 02 — The Parking Area
In Part 02 of our New Year Meeting coverage, we delve into the parking area to unearth gems as good as anything inside the show. Some of them aren’t able to make it simply because of the age cutoff, others perhaps … Continue reading
EVENTS: Petersen Museum Japanese Car Cruise-In
There are many things to hate about Los Angeles, but its car culture isn’t one of them. As the trendsetting capital of the custom automobile, it holds the motorcar in such high regard that there’s a shrine to it located smack … Continue reading
EVENTS: Pacifico
Pacifico is the first show in southern California by Historic J, who have put on events like the Bayline Gathering, Vintage Auto Salon, and Shokuji J-Tin in the San Francisco area. If the show’s name sounds familiar, you might be thinking of … Continue reading
EVENTS: 2014 Japanese Classic Car Show, Part 10 — Parking Area
Welcome to the final installment of our 2014 Japanese Classic Car Show coverage, a short one in which we scoured the parking area for J-tin whose owners had gone off to spectate. We begin with a clean Z20 Soarer and X80 Cressida, parked in tandem like an … Continue reading
Hachimaru Hero ranks the top 80s Japanese cars
Hachimaru Hero (80s Hero) is the Bubble Decade’s counterpart to Nostalgic Hero. Both come from the same publisher but nowadays interest in 80s Japanese cars is picking up speed. Recently the magazine put out a reader survey asking for the … Continue reading
ART CORNER: Fujimi’s Touge Series Box Illustrations
Long after earning driver’s licenses and pinkslips to our rides, some of us still find ourselves mired in plastic model cars. Perhaps it reflects the constraint suffered by many of us on budget, space, or sanity (of ourselves and/or family … Continue reading
EVENTS: 2014 All-Toyotafest, Part 01— Luxe & GT
Hanging like a cloud over the festivities of the 19th annual All-Toyotafest this year was the news that had been leaked to the press a week prior: Toyota USA was moving its headquarters, which had been a southern California fixture … Continue reading
EVENTS: 2013 All-Toyotafest, Part 04 — The Angular Eighties
Though just the size of California, by the 1980s Japan had become the world’s premier industrial giant. With unprecedented growth and technology advancements, Nihon’s cars of this Bubble Economy, especially Toyotas, established a unique design philosophy that was on full … Continue reading
Choro-Q Zero to Re-Launch with Vintage Lineup
Walk into the toy section of any Japanese department store back in 2005 and you’d see shelves stocked aplenty with Choro-Q. Older JNCers may recognize these small pullback toys as Penny Racers when they were sold in the US in … Continue reading