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Posted
Oct 09 2008, 03:24 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 3 comment(s)
In a lot of places the internet is taking over print magazines as the primary form of automotive media, but that's not the case in Japan. The car magazine is still king here and every month bookstore shelves fill with TONS of high quality automotive magazines about everything from Ferraris to Toyota Hi Ace vans. This month I will be looking some of the SoCal/US- focused magazines, and one of the most unique of these publications is a magazine called "Cruisin'". I first came across this magazine when I was on trip to Japan a few years ago, and was very impressed with it. It's all about American-inspired custom cars and the culture that surrounds them. Everything about Cruisin' magazine is ultra high quality, and I would say each issue could almost border on being a book, or "mook" as the Japanese like to call magazine-book hybrids....
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Posted
Aug 15 2008, 02:23 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 1 comment(s)
Although there is no shortage of awesome car magazines to be found here in Japan, there are always times when I wish to read some good old fashioned car magazines written in English. A couple of weeks ago, I got a package in the mail from New Zealand which came courtesy of Brad Lord, the editor of NZ Performance Car Magazine. Inside the package I found a couple copies of the July issue of the magazine. Although I have been learning a lot about the car scene in New Zealand over the internet, it was nice to take an even deeper look by flipping through the pages of the magazine. As I expected, I came away very impressed with both the style of the magazine, and the content featured in it....
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Posted
Jul 29 2008, 04:30 AM
by
Mike Hayes
with 11 comment(s)
I'm concentrating on "D to D: Drift & Driving Entertainment Magazine" in this post. I've found that there is a great deal of technical depth in D to D. What would likely be a paragraph blurb on a new intercooler from Greddy/Trust becomes a 2 page spread with temperature graphs by RPM, etc. The very first thing I noticed about these JDM mags is that even though we in North America think we run a lot of advertising in our print media... We got NOTHIN on japan. With a car culture...
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Posted
Jul 28 2008, 08:20 PM
by
Mike Hayes
with 7 comment(s)
I was asked recently to pour over some JDM magazines and get a feel for them. I have to say, I love seeing the high level of tune on the JDM rides in the magazines. They have such a diverse scene over there. Truth be told, the majority of the drift scene appears to revolve around Nissan Silvia's and 1 & 2-JZ powered Toyotas, but there is also a fair bit of coverage to be had on the other players in the scene as well. Drift Tengoku as a magazine drops right into the mix as a more feature focused...
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Posted
Jul 09 2008, 07:50 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 5 comment(s)
Even car enthusiasts who live outside of Japan are probably familiar with the automotive magazine "Best Car". Best Car is one of the primary sources of the "speculative renderings" of new models that pop up on car blogs all over the internet. Of course Best Car does a lot more than just speculate on future cars. The magazine has actually been around for thirty years! To celebrate this anniversary, Best Car has published a special edition (book?) called the "Best Car Chronicle" that features reprints of selected articles from the magazine's history dating all the way back to the its beginning in 1978. When I was at my local Tsutaya bookstore the other day I spied this one sitting on the shelf and after flipping through it for a few seconds, I knew I had to add it to my collection......
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Posted
Jul 08 2008, 03:24 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 6 comment(s)
Ever since I started getting involved in racing, I always turned to automotive magazines to teach me about preparing my car for racing. However, not all car magazines on the newsstands actually teach their readers about real racing! This being said, one of my favorite "real racing" magazines is Grassroots Motorsports, aka "The Hardcore Sports Car Magazine." I've been reading their magazine ever since I first started getting into cars, and one of the reasons why I liked GRM...
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Posted
Jul 08 2008, 06:44 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 21 comment(s)
I have a theory that computer cables like to breed like rabbits. Every time I look behind my computer desk I'm sure there are twice the number of cables from the last time I checked. It's true no?.... I have a similar relationship with car magazines. They breed and multiply when I'm not looking are always threatening to overrun my flat. In the past 2 weeks the situation has got a bit out of hand with car magazine overload. This is further compounded by a recent trip to the international...
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Posted
Jul 07 2008, 01:10 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 3 comment(s)
Over the past few days, Rod, Mike and I have been planning out a Speedhunters mission in Japan, and Ebisu Circuit came up as a topic of discussion. All this talk about Japan and Ebisu made me feel a little nostalgic and/or homesick for Ebisu. Yeah yeah, I know I don't live in Japan... but still I feel such a close connection to Ebisu Circuit - the place itself and the people there. For me, going to Ebisu is like revisiting the roots of drifting. It takes me back to a place where drifters drift...
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Posted
Jul 04 2008, 12:10 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 12 comment(s)
As I am a JDM car enthusiast, it's almost mandatory for me to buy Japanese magazines so I can see what the new trends are and who's producing the best parts. Unfortunately for me there are no shops in Holland that stock Japanese magazines. Luckily for me I have some friends that live in Japan and they are willing to send me some of the mags I like to look at. One of the mags I like is the Option, there are several editions but let's focus on this one for now. The Option is a very big...
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Posted
Jul 03 2008, 11:15 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 5 comment(s)
As you have seen, we have been trying to showcase some of our favorite car magazines here on Speedhunters. Some you are probably familiar with and others you may not be. For this post I wanted to talk a little bit about a Japanese magazine that you probably won't be able to find outside of Japan. The name of the magazine is Auto Guide and it is just for the Ibaraki Prefecture (the area where I live). I guess you could say Auto Guide is kind of like a Japanese "Auto Trader" of sorts, although it offers a lot more than just used car ads.Since I am starting to get into the market for a used car of my own, I have been reading this a lot recently. You can find it at any local convince store. The price of this magazine is only 180yen (less than $2USD), and it has over 500 pages!...
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Posted
Jun 22 2008, 12:41 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 8 comment(s)
You know my wife and I have a theory there are two types of kids on the planet: Indoor kids and outdoor kids. We grew up firmly in the former category and remain so with our lifestyle habits. Its a nice sunny summer day in Vancouver and I'm sure the beaches are full of sun worshipers but we're rather content to be sitting here on our couch watching the F1 on our flat screen. As I type this she is happily knitting away on one of her many textile projects and I am typing on my laptop. Go Hamilton...
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Posted
Jun 10 2008, 12:01 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 20 comment(s)
I have a lot of car magazines. A lot. In my bedroom, in my bathroom, on the back seat of my car, in my trunk, on top of my desk, and even on top of my TV. In my living room, I have bookshelves and actual retail magazine racks that are home to car magazines from the USA, Japan, UK, Australia, and different parts of Europe. The most cherished magazines in my collection deal with the subject of AE86s, vintage Toyotas, or vintage Japanese cars in general. So imagine how happy I was to see the first issue...
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Posted
May 30 2008, 09:00 PM
by
Andy Blackmore
with 2 comment(s)
You may need a mortgage for this magazine, but its a requirement for many designers, be them professional, students or just pretend! Auto & Design is a bi-monthly magazine covering Vehicle Design with English and Italian text. It is one of the few places you find the design process of a car from initial sketches, colour renderings, scale models and the final production car, often with designs which didn’t make it. Its great for spotting trends. Manufactures are very open at supplying images...
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Posted
May 29 2008, 04:16 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 3 comment(s)
In addition to being known for its automobiles, Japan is also quite famous for its fashion scene. Places like Harajuku and Shibuya in Tokyo are known worldwide for their cutting edge fashion trends. When you put cars and fashion in Japan together, you get Motor Style, a new magazine from Neko Publishing. I picked up the first issue not too long ago and I am very impressed with it. Among the features in the inaugural issue is one on Nobuhiko Kitamura's Hysteric Glamour clothing line. All of the...
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Posted
May 27 2008, 01:05 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 5 comment(s)
Ela Bouse! Not too long ago, I received a package in the mail from my friend Stathis, who I met at a drift event in Greece last summer. Stathis is one of the best AE86 drivers in Greece, and apparently he and his crew have just started a new print magazine, which comes with a drifting DVD! Since it's been sitting on the magazine rack in my living room for the past few weeks, I thought I'd share some info about it! The name of the magazine is WOT (Wide Open Throttle), and it's very interesting...
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Posted
May 22 2008, 11:00 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 7 comment(s)
Magazines are REALLY heavy. When you are just holding one you don't really notice the weight, but 10 or 20 of them together make for some "serious mass". I learned this the hard way when trying to fill a suitcase with car magazines bought at a secondhand book store in Japan. Of these magazines, my personal favorite was a magazine called Auto Works. It had been around for very long time and was the magazine of choice for "privateer" car builders and racers in Japan. The pages...
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