Now that I’ve shared some of my initial thoughts and observations from this year’s Osaka Auto Messe, I thought I’d go ahead and jump right in with a Spotlight-O-Rama with some of my favorite cars from the show. I’ll begin with the tough looking Toyota 86 you see above. Built by Todoroki Auto, this hachi-roku [...]
Events like the Premium Day are where you can really get lost in the details. There is so much hot metal around that you can literally waste the whole day looking over your favorite cars without a care in the world for what is happening out on track. It’s very difficult to pull yourself away [...]
It may be off season for the motorsport world, but the cold winter months in Japan certainly don’t mean there is a shortage of interesting events to head to. In fact you guys are actually quite lucky because Mike is still here in Japan and spent his day at the JCCA New Year meeting in [...]
I’m going to move swiftly along with another look at some of the cars of Slammed Society Japan, and trust me there is so much to see I could post images from the show for the rest of October! While Japanese cars obviously make up the majority of the vehicles present, there are always some [...]
In this month’s editorial I discussed the art that goes into street cars; the certain je ne sais quoi that many of us strive to capture. Glenn Austin is one such person, having dedicated the past few years to chasing his idea of the perfect street car. What resulted is this stunning Toyota Altezza RS200 Z Edition. [...]
One of the biggest divides within the automotive community in recent times has been the constant and continuing argument regarding form and function, stance and performance. So many believe you can either have one or the other but never both. It still amazes me how riled up some can get over this difference in opinions [...]
On a rather wet and winter's day at Mondello Park, I finally got to see and be a part of something that I've been waiting for, for quite a long time. Some of you may remember the exclusive feature on Martin Ffrench's Wexican Motorsport Toyota Altezza, just last week the car returned from an intensive [...]
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Before I wrap up my coverage for the Haulers & Sedans theme for the month, I've updated the desktops section with three images from the 'Recessionary Tale' feature we ran last week. The first is a typical three-quarters view of the car … … the next a profile shot … … and the final is [...]
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This story and this car mean an awful lot to me. I hope you can bear with me as I try to convey the full story for you. It won't be easy but I'll try. Recession is defined as a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced. It's [...]
It was hard to pick a second D1 driver to do a small retrospective on, following the post on Ueo's career as a professional drifter. There are just so many great drivers in Japan to choose from, but after much deliberation it just had to be Nobuteru Taniguchi. Taniguchi is one driver I have great [...]
When Rod asked me to write an article on some up and coming builds from Ireland, I already knew what and who to write about. Some of you may remember Martin Ffrench's Altezza build from January, some of you may have seen him drifting the Race of Champions track on the new Redline Magazine DVD [...]
After checking out Paddy McGrath's coverage of the AE86 track day in Ireland, I came away very impressed with the quality of the cars that were on the track. These days, "JDM" is the most overused automotive term around, but lot of those Irish-built cars genuinely looked like they came straight off a Japanese racing [...]
With all the different theme months going on at Speedhunters it is sometimes hard to keep up. But luckily for me I have a vast collection of magazines to look for cool features and friends in the automotive industry that can point me in the right direction. When I was reading through some old Banzai [...]
I don't really consider myself to be a "purist" when it comes to cars, but I can see how hardcore Mazda enthusiasts would have a tough time with all the people swapping V8's and other piston engines into RX7's these days. Occasionally though, you'll find someone going against the current and dropping a rotary into [...]
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