Now that the big gravel parking lot next to the space used to hold the Street Car Nationals has been fully resurfaced, we might as well think of it as the show’s annex, such is the selection of cars that you can run across. About an hour before the show was due to end I [...]
Although it’s something that I’d love to be able to do, there is literally no way you could shoot every single car at the Mooneyes Street Car Nationals before the event closes at 3pm. So this year – like every year – it was all about being selective and concentrating on the cars that exhibited [...]
No matter how many times I attend the Mooneyes Street Car Nationals, I never quite get over the visual impact the event creates on the streets of Tokyo’s Odaiba neighborhood. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t into customs or hot rods, the sight that these cars collectively create is simply breathtaking. Throw in an ever-expanding [...]
It seems we can’t go more than a few months without indulging in some impossibly-Japanese VIP style. And once again it’s Bee Dragon that captivates our minds – a shop that has really made a pretty firm statement when it comes to defining its own take on things. Imamura-san has stepped as far away from [...]
The Kaido Racer and zokusha are the epitome of Japanese car culture, or at least an obscure slice of it. It’s incredible that these sort of cars still exist and continue to be built, but even more so that younger generations are now getting into this sort of style. It’s not often that you come across these creations, [...]
The popularity of Kei cars in the VIP world is definitely growing, so I thought I’d start off this second spotlight post from the Excite King meet with one that certainly couldn’t be more aggressive. This Daihatsu Mira from team “Vintage” sported serious amounts of negative camber all round… …its deeply offset 14-inch wheels barely [...]
When I last left off with my ’69 Toyota Crown Wagon project, I had gotten the car titled, got it rolling, washed, and had begun to ready it for the next stages of the build. Today I’d like to share a couple more small updates on the project and also touch on some of the [...]
I always thought the age old debate of “form over function” is a funny one. At the end of the day, does anyone out there really need to change anything on his or her car? Do we need to upgrade turbochargers, or fit adjustable suspension along with stickier rubber. What enthusiasts gain from modifications is [...]
March. It’s a time for car lovers across the much of the world to begin the thaw from a long winter and the coming automotive season. The cold winter may still be in effect in many places, but the coming of March always gets the mind thinking about the warmer and longer days ahead. Here [...]
Don’t you just love it when things just work out without much planning? That’s what happened to me the other weekend, when, after covering the Nostalgic 2 Days event at the Pacifico Exhibition Center in Yokohama, I heard the Chop Sticks Car Club would be meeting up for one of their awesome cruises. So, after [...]
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 [...]
Hello. My name is Mike, and I have a problem. In the 12 years that I’ve had my drivers license, I’ve gone through more cars than most normal people would in several lifetimes. I’m not quite sure why this is, but I think it’s because my mind never really stops thinking about cars. Of course [...]
We couldn’t possibly have ended our TAS 2013 coverage without dedicating some space to one scene that has come to define JDM car culture just as much as extreme tuner cars, vintage rides and dorisha. As we have seen in the course of the last few years VIP style has proven to be the fastest [...]
Divide and conquer. Sometimes that’s the best strategy. Last Sunday morning as Dino and Sean hopped in their borrowed BMW M6 and headed to Tsukuba Circuit for the Battle Evome event, I found myself bound for Honmoku in Yokohama where a very different kind of event was being held. Just after I arrived in Japan [...]
I don’t know why, but all of a sudden I’ve been running into quite a lot of DeTomaso Panteras in Japan. It’s like they are on a little comeback and with examples like this popping up at the Mooneyes Hot Rod & Custom Show this past weekend, who in their right mind would complain! Aside [...]
