So we have a big old list of awesome that we keep close to our chest, sometimes though we hit a run of cool stuff and can't keep these things back and spread them across a number of entries.  Oh now, sometimes we have a great collection of stuff that works so well together that it deserves its own entry.  All these videos come from the land of the rising sun, they are all great.

I love it when people have video'd people arriving or leaving a show, it gives you a real impression of being there, almost a behind the scenes feel to it.  So this is one minutes forty seconds of happy for me :

Bosozoku and Shakotan cars hooning around on a wet track, yes please:

Add the last two videos together and remove the rain:

Finally let us finish with some good old fashioned Bosozoku lunacy, love that exhaust(s) note.

Hope you enjoyed the video selection, we'll go back to hording all our links and letting them out gradually...

Posted on: May 17, 2010 05:37

The South Australian All Japan Day is only in its third year but has already created a reputation both for the cars in attendance and the 'attitude' of the show as a whole.

Built on the mantra "No DJs, No prizes, No trophies, No sound-offs, No dyno runs, No promo girls, No smoke machines, No roped-off displays, No Fuss" this event is free, open and all about the cars.
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For me this years show was stolen by a gang of Izuzu Belletts (and their tag-a-long Florian) and a sole Boso inspired Cressida.  The Izuzu tribe combined all the best retro elements boasting amongst their number stock and modified, sedans and an ultra rare Wasp truck and pristine paint parked amongst a mixture of real and stylised patina.

Taking Boso further that I have seen in my home state this Cressida Station Wagon was well on its way to ticking all the Boso Boxes.

Stance, wheels, wing mirrors, subway grab handle, obnoxious oil cooler and genuine Japanese number plates. All that was missing was an outrageous upsweep exhaust but maybe that will come when the 1JZ sitting in the engine bay is plumbed and finished.

For a relatively young show the atmosphere and ethos shines through, if you are in the area be sure to drop in for next years event, you can find more details from this years show at the All Japan Day Website.

You can find our full gallery of photographs from the event on our Flickr account.

Posted on: February 28, 2010 22:39

With the age of the internet the concept of show seasons has kind of faded a little, whilst we may not be able to head out through the wind and rain to any big shows in our own country we can live vicariously through others via the internet.  We've covered the New Years Meet in Japan before, but this year it seems there is much more online for it and quicker than in previous years.
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We don't usually find that much in the way of Japanese car shows covered on Flickr, unless it is someone visiting for a specific show, however the photostream of noritamaco has a great set of photos from this years New Years Meeting as well as other meets, mainly for bubble cars and other microcars.

Japan's own Photozou is a much more reliable source for Japanese car show pictures, if you know what you are looking for.  This is where we found this set of 242 pictures including a range of photos from the car park and outside the event.

Hobidas auto brings us a wide selection of images, with a lot of interesting non-Japanese cars being shown in attendance at the event.

Finally the old reliable Minkara has a load of photo galleries to go through, our favourite of which is this one, across the first three pages of the top level gallery are links to thirty sub galleries, lots to look through.

Every year we say we'll get back to Japan,.. maybe this will be that year, or perhaps we should wait until next January!

Posted on: February 3, 2010 23:32

We've made it to December.  As the UK spirals into winter our output on the blog slows down a bit, we'll still be bringing you cool stuff to check out every week, probably not at such a pace as we manage over summer.  Of course life goes on in the Retro Scene, cars are being built, the Southern Hemisphere heads into summer, and there are still cars out there to be discovered by us.  In the mean time, some links to keep you busy.
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Let us start with a mystery, one that you can follow as it evolves over on the Japanese Nostalgic Car forums.  It appears that someone may have discovered a Toyota AA (or AC depending on how you look at it) in Russia, the full story as it happens can be found here.  You can read about the Toyota AA on wikipedia to get a bit of background, suffice to say it would certainly count in our rare cars features.

One of the things I do occasionally is head back through old linklogs to revisit some older links, sometimes they haven't changed at all, others have radically altered, one of the later is Youngtimer Scene from Germany.  The site now boasts car features, galleries, events listings, a newsletter and news sections, all in all a very good site for the German scene, check out with Google Translates if your German isn't up to scratch, or just click on the pretty pictures.

We hinted earlier that we'd probably be looking South of the equator for some more shows and coverage over the winter months for us Europeans, lets get an early start and head to the land of Rebaixados cars and the Velocidade Maxima blog pictures and coverage of the varied and occasionally extreme Brazilian scene, moderns mix with retro cars, most are very very low.

Finally lets get a couple of non-car items in here for a change, firstly the excellent Selvedge Yard kind of a cool wall of retro greatness, and secondly our own non-car retro-ish goodness at Old School Ish, for all your old school (ish) skate, bike, culture and style needs, so new it still hasn't got a finished design!

Oh and a video.. who doesn't love a video! :

Posted on: December 1, 2009 03:21

Time for another RSM Linklog I believe, again we've built a mountain of cool links recently, so without further introduction we'll get into things...
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The Carrera Pan America is one of the greatest motorsports events in the world.  This blog celebrates that fact along with photographs of current events from a team that put together a documentary video of 2007 event.  As it says on the blog title "An ongoing look at the people, places and machines of the worlds most demanding open road race" excellent stuff and worth checking regularly. http://lacarrera2007.blogspot.com/

From road races to hot rods, such is the spread of our interest, and this time we get to go to Italy for a change to check out The Custom Sickles Diaries, a site dedicated to hot rod and custom motorbike culture, it is picture and link heavy (just how we like our foreign language sites).  This blog is the best of two worlds, firstly it picks up some excellent cars and photos from around the world, secondly it give us a glimpse into the world of Italian hot rodding.  A great double delight. http://customsicklesdiaries.blogspot.com/

Flying out of Italy and heading to one of our favourite spots for the last few links, the land of the rising sun.  The L-power website is a bit of a motley assortment of links and pictures from the "old car" show in Japan.  A good browse around the site following links and checking out the magazine scans and show panoramas can knock out a good hour or so and find some really interesting cars.  The associated BBS has some of the panorama photos in very large formats.  Both pages are worth a bit of your time if you are feeling adventurous.

Staying with Japan, we found the following via the excellent Riverside blog.  They recently did a bit more digging around a Japanese modifying group called Liberty Walk, it seems that not only do they like to modify Ferraris and Lamborghinis, but they also do pretty good work on shakotan and bosozoku inspired cars, you can check out the Riverside entry about them here.

We'll be sticking with Liberty Walk for our youTube video, from their youTube Channel we found this rather delightful clip.

 

 

Posted on: October 15, 2009 06:51

A few years ago the Japanese Classic Car Show had that 'local' look to it, which is no bad thing but as the years progress, the standard gets higher and higher and the rides keep getting better and better. The shots I've found this year are all saying the same thing - this show has grown to become THE place to see cool J tin. A few years ago would you have thought to go anywhere other than Japan to see the sort of cars we're seeing now at JCCS? I'll answer that for you: No.
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JCCS 2009 took place last weekend (October 3rd) and the pictures and reports are coming in:

As ever, the guys at Japanese Nostalgic Car are on the button with part one of their report, part two following shortly, hopefully. 

Our next port of call has to be Flickr, where the sets are pleasingly common:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maakuruii/sets/72157622394669275/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/llafranca/sets/72157622394148917/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/haigo_g/sets/72157622517573138/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/picturebot/tags/2009japaneseclassiccarshow/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75986479@N00/sets/72157622510585836/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jojiluz/sets/72157622393428141/

Obviously those guys have an advantage over me in that they actually went, rather than viewed from the other side of the world. But just before I leave you to go and check 'em out yourself, I'm going to post a few of the faves that I found;

 

Hopefully one day, I'll be there taking shots myself.

Posted on: October 6, 2009 02:44

Image © 2008 THE LOCAL HERO

Things continue to move forward round here, but we're keeping on top of things with the blog entries.  We've build up a crazy backlog of linklog items, so we should probably get a few more out there for you to enjoy.
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First up we have the Local Style blog from Japan.  One of the things we've found with the Japanese scene on the internet is that there are groups of people that are tightly interlinked, but don't link so often outside of their group, so occasionally we find one link into a blog or web page only to discover that it opens up a whole new raft of cool websites and people.  Local Style is one of those links, it is a window into the custom, low rider and chopper scenes in Japan.  The blog documents their meet ups, ride outs, work on cars and, as usual for a Japanese blog, their dietary habits.  Obviously there is a lot of clicking around to be done on the site to find what you are looking for, but we particularly liked this entry on a photo shoot for Bombs and this fantastically evocative photo series from a ride out somewhere.  Really shows you how they are living their scene.


On the flip side we head to the states for a glimpse at some more modern cars, Speed Sport Life is a crisp looking blog that deals with sports cars and racing.  Of particular note to us is Racer Boy's section in which the eponymous Racer Boy gives us details on various forms of car related sport from drag racing to autocross, the writing is fun and makes you really want to get out there and take part in something, even if it is just slot car racing!


There are millions of car photos on Flickr, we see a lot of them!  However finding sets that really capture us for a while takes some doing.  Even more difficult is finding photostreams that bring us in beyond their car content, the ostentatiously named Lawrence Peregrine-Trousers' photostream really dragged me in.  The photos are of cars and things, a lot are scans from photographs and have a real evocative feel to them, from pictures of a decaying Manchester to snaps of cars and bicycles there are many worse ways to spend your time than looking through this nice set of photographs.


The Chicane: A Celebration Of Classic Motorsport, apparently.  Well if a tag line ever described a blog better, I'd like to see it, this really does what it says on the tin and it does it well.  Photographs, videos, a nice easy to read style with plenty already in the archive for you to browse, before adding it to your RSS feed reader of choice.  Great stuff.


So time for the obligatory video, this time we're showing you just what you can find with a bit of poking around in a Japanese blog and some copying of search terms into YouTube.

Hope you enjoy the links.

 

 

Posted on: September 15, 2009 04:22

I'll admit this right now, I love the TS Cup race series.  This is probably because I own a Datsun Sunny Coupe of exactly the type used in this series, but it is also because I love people that take small engines and make them scream for their lives.

The TS Cup is a Japanese race series specifically for B310 series Nissan Sunny (to them their proper name) and Toyota Starlet KP61.  The cars are in two classes, TS-1 which is vehicles up to 1,310cc and TS-2 which is 1,310cc - 1,510cc.  Other engine modifications are free, although no forced induction allowed and injection systems must be from the period.  The transmission systems are limited to certain types for the cars, chassis modifications are pretty free, but items like suspension and steering must remain as their original type, although they may be upgraded.

Body work can be replaced with fibre glass versions, as long as the rest of the monocoque isn't altered.  Fender flares are allowed and seem to be one of the most easily identified parts of the TS Cup cars.  You can see the influence of this look in a number of street Sunnys in Japan, wide wheels and boxy fender flares.

So what does this all add up to?  Screaming engines, light weight cars, wide wheels, arch flares and close racing.  In other words, an awesome race series.  The B310s are currently dominating the series with only two Toyota KP61's in the running.  The TS-1 cars are currently faster than the larger engined TS-2 cars.

Let us get some videos of the action.

 

 

 Or from a different view point

 

You can follow the TS Cup races on the JCCA website.

Posted on: August 3, 2009 07:46

Shortly after Retro Scene Magazine started up, a posting by HoTWire enthusing about car scenes abroad sparked a desire in me to travel further afield for my motoring kicks. Having been to a show in The Netherlands a decade earlier with a Datsun crowd, I knew it could be a fun adventure and when an events thread for Japan Classic Sunday appeared on Old Japanese Car.com, the fuse was lit. Andrea and I packed our 1968 Toyota Corona and headed over the Channel in the direction of Belgium. A fun evening in Antwerp followed and we rolled up at a smart green field the following day to a warm and surprised welcome.

 
Well organised and with a casual atmosphere, the field belongs to a café yet had a catering trailer serving fries and mayo of course but also tiny Dutch beers! The field was soon filled with a huge variety of over 250 of Japan's finest spanning five decades. The classic cars were more plentiful than in the UK, drawing from enthusiasts in surrounding countries. They also tended to be in finer fettle and few were modified which is nice as it showed-off how they were new. The modified cars were towards the other end of the field in the shape of more modern J-tin. A mix of hot sun and heavy showers put a spin on the day which included an optional 50km run in the countryside

 
Meeting-up with international forum friends was a high point as was appreciating the huge wealth of knowledge on offer. The range of cars was quite spectacular, particularly if you're a big fan of Asian motors as I am. We won a trophy for 'Furthest Travelled' and were sent on our way with best wishes and a request to come again next year. I think we probably will.

 
I urge anyone with an interest in cars and travel to venture abroad to see a twist on the scene they enjoy. Take a few friends and make it road trip, taking in new cities you've never stayed in. Take a few simple spare parts just in case! You can see more of Japan Classic Sunday in this flickr set.

Posted on: July 24, 2009 03:26

After taking a year off last year our favourite Japanese domestic model car show returned in 2009.  It seems my curse for making it rain at events I attend has now extended to events I would like to attend, as most of the photos from the event show a fair amount of dampness.

We've kind of built up the status of the NHOA meet (as it is known) probably more than any other Japanese car show.  The reason for this is that it is in every way a great reflection of what is going on in the Japanese modified domestic model car scene, it is a relatively small outdoor event, placed in a location that attracts people from both Tokyo and from towns, villages and cities that are further out.  The car quality is top notch as well and covers the broad range of modifying styles in Japan, although bosozoku and granchan styles are discouraged.

It is still pretty soon after the event for large galleries to have made their way online, the Japanese car scene doesn't seem to have embraced Flickr yet.  So I've had a whip through Minkara Carview to see what we can find:

There are a nice selection of photos on this blog entry

This photo gallery has a cool selection of pictures too, use the arrows >> at the bottom of the selection of images to move to the next page.  Click on the images to get bigger ones.

There is also another gallery of images here



We'll attempt to bring you some more images from the event later in the week if we can track some down.  Al has got a bunch of pictures here

 

 

Posted on: June 29, 2009 03:32