How about you take a form over function sort of car, and actually make it function? What would you have then? Is that even possible? Are these two terms not mutually exclusive? I apologize if I start a car feature with so many questions but this pink Nagano Koubou Onevia really does make you wonder about a [...]
Ever since running across Nagano-san and his creations at past Nagoya Exciting Car Showdowns, I’ve been wanting to drop by his workshop in the outskirts of Kyoto for quite some time. It’s hard to put a finger on it all but Paint & Cutting Make Nagano Koubou has been extremely influential in creating the very [...]
We have seen quite a few interesting Roasters over the last day, but as our themed 48-hours dedicated to Japan’s little sports car continues I wanted to chime in and bring you a little selection from the land of the rising sun. The key to the Roadster’s success over the last two decades is due [...]
I felt like banging my head against a wall when I first saw Dean Meeson’s Lotus Esprit, that was at the Retro-Rides Gathering back in August. I’d known of it’s recent completion having seen the car on a forum thread, but as we all know the real world is so much better. So why was [...]
This is first detailed look of a car that everyone has pretty much already seen. Such is the power of the internet, where news spreads as it happens and is old a day later. Except there is nothing old about the ride you see here. This is the freshest and at the same time one [...]
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 [...]
Like a lot of things in Japan, VIP style probably makes little or no sense to the causal observer. But much like the unique culture of the country from which it originates from, bippu style is hardly for everyone. It has no real benefit when applied to a car; it doesn’t improve its performance, its handling [...]
I’ve just been reading Sean’s latest article from JCCS in Long Beach and couldn’t help but a) be amazed at the variety of coverage on the site at the minute and b) draw some comparisons between the Japanese and European car scenes. We live on a small planet, one which has been made smaller by [...]
After attending so many car shows in Holland over the years I had started feeling a bit jaded and found that the only reason I was visiting the shows was because of the friends I had made. The car shows became boring because there wasn’t really anything new to see – all shows started to [...]
What better way to end a week’s worth of Hellaflush Kansai coverage than a nice selection of high-resolution images. Since Japan is so unique in the assortment of cars it serves up at these kind of events I’ve made sure to include a few Kei cars in there too, from the more family oriented Daihatsu [...]
With the Hellaflush Kansai event pretty much wrapped up after the awards were handed out by Mark, I decided to hang around a little longer… …and check out the cars from the main paddock head out. After looking at parked cars the whole day, hearing engine sounds truly added to the experience, especially when it [...]
After wandering for hours through the main paddock at Hellaflush Kansai, I headed across to the other secondary display area that was set up. With so many cars participating… …space at Central Circuit was definitely at a premium and if you consider that most spectators showed up with awesome cars too…the parking lots were also [...]
Time to head back to Central Circuit now and continue on with the coverage of Hellaflush Kansai. I’ll start off with two of the most talked about cars of this year, first up the Super Made Aristo which we have already featured, and the street-spec BenSopra demo car. Ueda-san, the man behind the all-new tuning [...]
There is no other way to put it, but the Japanese are simply the masters of fitment. Since the beginning of their aftermarket-tuning scene in the seventies they have established, experimented and evolved the whole relationship between cars and the wheels they are fitted with, in the process creating specific trends and a variation in [...]
While some of our team are busy bringing you live updates from the world’s most grueling endurance race, the Nurbugring 24 hours, I couldn’t possibly have a more different kind of coverage lined up for you from Japan. You won’t find any purposely built race cars here, this is where coolness rides supreme, where a [...]
