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Posted
Nov 06 2008, 01:56 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 7 comment(s)
I was originally planning on running this story last month, but since old school Nissans play a pretty big role here, I figured I would save it until Nissan month. Earlier this fall, I took a trip down to Toride City here in Ibaraki Prefecture where I had made arrangements to visit a classic car dealer and restoration shop called East Car. Although I have seen plenty of cool vintage Nissans at events here in Japan, I was pretty excited to check out the facilities at East Car and get a deeper look at the world of Japanese classic cars. We were greeted by the manager Akihiko-san who kindly took some time from his day to show us around and talk a little bit about the shop and what they do....
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Posted
Oct 30 2008, 11:10 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 16 comment(s)
When I mentioned to my good friend Felix Tang that I'd be interested in shooting some garages and car shops that were relatively close to where I live, he mentioned that I should check out Smoothlinez , which is in San Gabriel Valley. I had never previously heard of Smoothlinez, because apparently the way they get most of their customers is from word of mouth advertising; people posting photos of their engine builds or swaps on the internet, etc. I'll admit that I don't normally check...
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Posted
Oct 30 2008, 06:19 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 9 comment(s)
One item that was quite noticeable while touring the SO-CAL Speed Shop was that most of the guys working on the cars looked like they should be on MTV abusing musical instruments. At what point in time did all the new school hot-rodders start to look like rock stars? Somewhere along the line, wrenching on vintage american cars and making regular visits to the tattoo parlor started to go hand-in-hand. Of these coolguyswhoalsohappentobuildamazingrods , there was one person that stood out from the others...
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Posted
Sep 02 2008, 05:29 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 39 comment(s)
Dictionary.com defines as warrior as follows: 1: a person engaged or experienced in warfare; soldier. 2: a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness, as in politics or athletics. Definition number one is a relatively straight description of a soldier, but definition number two more points to the character of the warrior. Occasionally I'll meet people who very much have this feeling of warriorism about them, even though acts of soldiering may be the last thing on their...
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Posted
Aug 29 2008, 11:55 AM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 8 comment(s)
Mine's; A Japanese household name in tuning, made famous by numerous Hot Version and Best Motoring DVD's. We all remember the battle between the Amuse Supra and Mine's R34; the battle of the straight inline six. The mastermind behind Mine's is Michizo Niikura. He started his career at Bridgestone but turned his attention to tuning cars. Established in 1985, Mine's makes parts for the Skyline R34, Lancer EVO, Impreza WRX and the 350Z. Mine's have had a lot of success with their...
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Posted
Aug 15 2008, 10:09 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 12 comment(s)
I'm realizing that the rhythm of life in this small Japanese town of Nihonmatsu is quite a lot slower than I'm accustomed to. I seem to be permanently hardwired to a high speed pace: go, go, go - at all times! It's that or I am the most impatient person in the world.... or I have the attention span of a three year old.... or probably all of the above. I seem to have something inside of me that needs to keep pushing forward at all times. Call it drive or ambition, I don't know, all...
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Posted
Aug 15 2008, 08:23 AM
by
Andy Barnes
with 13 comment(s)
At Sumo we're now being selective about our future projects as we don't have as much time on our hands as we used to for special builds and whilst we patiently wait for the official release of the GTR in the UK, we've found ourselves tinkering with something quite unusual and out of the norm as far as Sumo projects go. For the first time ever we'll be producing a car that makes less that 150bhp overall ( I think the least powerful car we've made has been 270bhp! ) and should normally...
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Posted
Jul 22 2008, 09:34 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 12 comment(s)
In the competition motorsports industry, there are some times when off-the-shelf parts just aren't good enough for race teams, who seek to get every little bit of advantage and performance out of the cars they're racing. In those cases, it's important to work with the right race car builders and fabricators. When it came time for Discount Tire and Falken to build Hiro Sumida's Lexus IS350 for Formula D competition, there were no real benchmarks to compare their build to; after all...
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Posted
Jul 16 2008, 10:00 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 12 comment(s)
Although we normally tend to focus a bit more on the car cultures surrounding Japanese and European autos here at Speedhunters, there are a few of us on the team who know our way around the world of Customs, Hot Rodding and Muscle cars. I suppose I'm one of those people, as I track American car culture (well what I consider to be the cool aspects of it) just as much as the European and Japanese based scenes. Perhaps it's the intoxicating sound of V8 American iron, or the fact that this scene...
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Posted
Jun 19 2008, 01:30 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 6 comment(s)
Here we are with another JDM shop tour courtesy of Alex, who is a Speedhunters reader. This past winter, Alex took a trip to Osaka and stopped by the J's Racing shop to have a look at their digs and snap some photos. Even if you aren't into Hondas, I'm sure you have seen J's Racing cars on Hot Version videos or in other tuning media. In fact, you can see a Hot Version movie playing on the TV in the photo above......
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Posted
Jun 12 2008, 03:30 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 13 comment(s)
Here we have some more photos from another one of Japan's big tuning shops. Mr. Doricar is a member of the Driftworks forums who lives in central Japan, and he was kind enough to post up some photos from his recent visit to Garage Defend in Aichi Prefecture. Defend is a well known tuner in Japan, and they are particularly famous for their work with Nissan cars and the GT-R in particular. Besides the tuning shop, Defend also operates a fully stocked car dealer that is loaded with top quality performance...
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Posted
Jun 03 2008, 12:30 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 6 comment(s)
Very well known across Europe, Sumo Power is one of the UK's best known shops catering to Japanese cars. Their Z33 350zed sports wild Do-Luck body work, but it's outfitted with extremely functional parts too! This is the same car they used in the D1GB events in the past, but minus all the decals! This pink Sumo Power 350Z is for sale by the way. Click here for details on the car. Sumo Power's headquarters are inside a huge Victorian-era building at Sheerness docks in Kent, UK! Inside...
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Posted
May 25 2008, 08:37 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 4 comment(s)
As part of our goal in sharing and celebrating the love of cars, we have made plans to visit a number of specialty car builders and shops in places around the world. One of the ones that we were planning to hit was Rocky Auto, the famous builder and restorer of vintage Nissan cars located central Japan. In a response to my post about the Tokyo Nostalgic Car Show, I was pleased see that Spitfire, one of our readers here, has already done the "task" of visiting Rocky Auto and documenting...
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