SHOP LIFE: Standards, Part 01
Standards is a little known shop hiding up in Gifu Prefecture. We would have never been aware of had it not been for some internet digging by a friend in a desperate bid to find some rare Mazda Carol...
View ArticleSHOP LIFE: Standards, Part 02
In Part 01, we headed up to Gifu to visit a shop called Standards, which had a mind-blowing amount of Showa goodies hidden in every nook and cranny. After going into Showa overload, Yokoyama-san, the...
View ArticleEVENTS: 2014 Nostalgic2Days, Part 01
Every year Nostalgic Hero magazine holds one of the very best classic car shows in all the lands, Nostalgic2Days. This is the sixth time they’ve held the event and for the past 4 years I’ve made the...
View ArticleEVENTS: 2014 Nostalgic2Days, Part 02
Welcome to Part 02 of our Nostalgic2Days coverage, as we make our way across the Pacifico Convention Center on Yokohama’s historic waterfront. In this installment we’ll see the displays kyuusha tuning...
View ArticleJNC THEATER: Maido! Urayasu Tekkin Family
There’s a relatively new anime called Maido! Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku (毎度!浦安鉄筋家族). Featuring extremely short episodes — like under two minutes short — and story lines that are monkey tits insane, but the...
View ArticleGRAND TOURING: Driving across Japan in a JNC, Day 01
In 2015 we took a once-in-a-lifetime road trip across Japan behind the wheel of a proper Showa Era icon. The chariot of choice was an Isuzu 117 Coupé, and it would serve as our trusty steed for 10 days...
View ArticleKIDNEY, ANYONE? 1979 Isuzu 117 XG
Giorgetto Giugiaro penned many stunning cars — the Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint, Ferrari 250 GT, Iso Grifo — but here’s one that’ll throw the old guard at Concorso Italiano into conniptions: the lovely...
View ArticleKIDNEY, ANYONE? The finest replica of a Mugen CRX SCCA GT4 race car is in France
In the early 1980s, Honda wanted to show the appeal of its high-performance vehicles to American enthusiasts. It set about building a racing car with the help of its tuning and racing division, Mugen,...
View ArticleGRAND TOURING: Driving across Japan in a JNC, Day 02
In Part 01 of our once-in-a-lifetime road trip, we set out from Nagoya and headed to Maizuru City via Lake Biwa. Our car was an Isuzu fresh off of a head gasket change, and while Day Two was yet...
View ArticleGRAND TOURING: Driving across Japan in a JNC, Day 03
During Day 01 and Day 02 of our road trip across Japan, it rained constantly. On the morning of Day 03, the weather finally broke. As the clouds departed to the north, we were headed south, and that...
View ArticleGRAND TOURING: Driving across Japan in a JNC, Day 04
By the end of Day 03 we’d arrived at Shimonoseki, the southernmost point of Honshu, Japan’s main landmass. As the island on which most of the nation’s major cities — Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima —...
View ArticleGRAND TOURING: Driving across Japan in a JNC, Day 05
Day 05 in Nagasaki marked an unusual one, as it was the only day of our entire journey in which no driving was planned at all. Nagasaki is one of Japan’s major port cities and a historic one, and worth...
View ArticleGRAND TOURING: Driving across Japan in a JNC, Day 06
As our compatriots in California enjoy themselves on the Touge California this weekend, we do a little driving of our own, in the sixth installment of our cross-Japan tour. On Day 05, we stowed our...
View ArticleGRAND TOURING: Driving across Japan in a JNC, Day 07
In the last installment of our cross-Japan trip, a life-long personal goal was achieved. I had driven from the northern Hokkaido on one end of Japan to southern Kyushu on the other. However, the...
View ArticleGRAND TOURING: Driving across Japan in a JNC, Day 08
In the previous installment of our cross-Japan trip, we began the northeasterly journey back home, but on a different route that would hug the southern coast of Japan. As such, we’d voyage from Kyushu...
View ArticleGRAND TOURING: Driving across Japan in a JNC, Day 09
With just two more days to go, our trip was winding to a close. We had just crossed from the southern island of Kyushu to Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands. Now were were headed back...
View ArticleGRAND TOURING: Driving across Japan in a JNC, Day 10
On the final day of our cross-Japan trip, we woke up in Okayama with a decision to make. If we stuck to the back roads, we’d end up having to travel straight through the heart of Kobe and Osaka. On …...
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