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Posted
Feb 01 2012, 06:00 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 24 comment(s)
While the JCCA New Year Meeting draws some of Japan's finest vintage cars to Odaiba every year, the event is about much more than just the automobiles. The swap meet and "auto jumble" sections of the show always draw massive crowds looking to part with their hard-earned yen in exchange for an amazing selection of vintage car parts, accessories, and collectables.
As part of my New Year Meeting coverage, I thought it would be fun to take a look through some of the items up for grabs this year....
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Posted
Jan 02 2012, 12:30 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 66 comment(s)
What did you do on New Year's Eve? Party with friends? Family get together? A vacation maybe?
How about a walk around the junkyard? That's just what I found myself doing this past Saturday. ...
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Posted
Nov 21 2011, 04:10 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 45 comment(s)
Good things obviously take time to materialize. It all started back in June last year when I got a call from Allen Lorenzo at Tomei Powered asking if I'd be interested in lending them my car for a couple of days. They needed an R34 GT-R so their exhaust specialist Hatanaka-san could begin the development of an all-new Expreme Ti titanium exhaust system. I was happy to hear that Tomei, along with other Japanese tuners and parts manufacturers are going back and restarting R&D on new parts for...
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Posted
Oct 13 2011, 03:00 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 18 comment(s)
This past Monday I was sitting at my desk going through some photos from the Eagle Field Drags when my phone rang.
"Hey would you like to come out to Buttonwillow for a private track day with John Hotchkis and some of his friends tomorrow?", the voice at the other end said.
"Sure."...
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Posted
Aug 05 2011, 01:30 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 68 comment(s)
For my 86 Day features this year, I have something a little bit different to share with you guys. Something personal. That would be my own newly acquired AE86.
So, how did I go from driving a burly Mustang GT to a 1980s Toyota Corolla? Let's find out....
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Posted
Jul 29 2011, 02:00 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 50 comment(s)
Earlier this year, my wife and I decided we would leave the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles and relocate back to exotic Central California. The primary purpose for the move was to make the jump to home ownership and also to put me in better reach for Speedhunting the entirety of the Golden State. Of course just as important as the new house is the garage that comes attached to it......
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Posted
Jul 22 2011, 01:00 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 35 comment(s)
Living in Tokyo can take a toll on anyone; one of the most tightly packed urban areas of the world, Japan's capital can be very unfriendly to car guys. Police and those sneaky parking attendants are everywhere, hiding, ready to catch unsuspecting motorists at the first smallest mistake they make. The roads are constantly congested and even if they get moving you'll be lucky to crack 30 mph for more than ten or twenty seconds. This might sound like a living hell, but the truth is we don't...
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Posted
Jul 17 2011, 09:40 AM
by
Linhbergh
with 107 comment(s)
Almost nine months ago, I purchased a 1989 BMW 325i . And for the past few months, I've been tootling around Southern California with the car completely stock. Since my Miata, I've had the inkling to drive a fixed up car for a long, long time. But before I was going to throw on a bunch of aftermarket parts on the car... ...I wanted to see what I had to work with. I made a trip over to HPS Silicon Hoses , in the City of Industry, for a baseline run. The E30 was bolted to HPS' DynaPack...
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Posted
Jun 30 2011, 11:30 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 24 comment(s)
I really have only positive things to say about my 2004 Subaru Legacy Wagon. It has served as the perfect chariot to haul all my gear around and has taken me as far south as Hiroshima and as far north as Sendai and pretty much everywhere else in between. Back in 2006 when I picked the car up I decided to go for the 3.0R variant, as I knew that having a 2-liter turbo B4 would eventually lead to an uncontrollable shopping spree on parts to boost power. So the 250 PS 3-liter flat-six EZ30 would not...
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Posted
Jun 29 2011, 10:35 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 76 comment(s)
Ok this will probably have most of you guys scratching your heads, but yes that's a GT-R driving out of the Spoon Sport's Type-One workshop in Tokyo. It's actually my R34, and the reason I brought it over to Ichishima-san was to have it fitted with something that has intrigued me ever since I heard about it a little over a year ago, the Rigid Collar . The constant pursuit of perfection is something every enthusiasts tries to achieve with his prized possession, and when it comes to my...
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Posted
May 13 2011, 07:00 AM
by
Linhbergh
with 79 comment(s)
One of the greatest things, as a kid growing up, was the opportunity when I was let loose out into the neighborhood. With a BMX bike in hand, I would, for hours, roam the neighborhood streets, marketplaces and schools. And in those few hours, I was an explorer and adventure seeker by trade. Just like Christopher Columbus in 1492, I too was looking for my own route to paradise. During those countless neighborhood exploring excursions, there would never be a moment where I never wanted quit and go...
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Posted
May 04 2011, 02:00 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 28 comment(s)
Of all the automotive activities we've added to our Speedhunters Things To do Before You Die list, this one might just be the easiest to check off. Becoming a regular at your local car meets requires little to no monetary investment, and very little travel. It's something that anyone can do. Yet, it's also one of the most rewarding things on this list....
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Posted
Mar 24 2011, 03:30 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 59 comment(s)
Things have been extremely busy for me over the last few days as we make final preparations for the NFS SoCal event this weekend. We have an incredible selection of cars that will be out there and I think this will be one of the most unique automotive gatherings in a long time.
In the meantime though, I want to take a quick break and update you guys with some of the progress I've made on my personal 2006 Mustang GT over the last couple weeks....
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Posted
Dec 26 2010, 09:50 PM
by
Linhbergh
with 30 comment(s)
Han was right. There is no wax on, wax off to drifting. It's all about feeling. For the past few years, I've concentrated all my thoughts on three things: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. In those years, I've travelled to countless automobile related events. And each time I pressed that shutter button, I felt the itch of being behind the wheel of one of the many cars that I photographed. Everyone driving seemed to be having so much fun and I wanted in on it. So, over the past years,...
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Posted
Dec 09 2010, 02:18 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 17 comment(s)
Last Sunday was a picture perfect day of "car life". It started off early in the morning when the wife and I hopped in my Mustang and drove up to Woodland Hills for the Motor 4 Toys charity meet. After hanging around for a few hours, snapping photos and drooling over the machinery, it was time for the day's main event begin - a cruise through the mountains of Malibu with a group of enthusiasts from Hotchkis Performance....
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Posted
Nov 20 2010, 04:30 PM
by
Linhbergh
with 53 comment(s)
Going around to various automotive events, I meet a lot of people. Many of them ask what car I drive. And most of the time, they would expect someone who is so active in the automotive world to have a car that would match the on paper glamour. As I answer their question, I can just see the fire from their eyes fade and the not-so-enthused response of "Oh, that's cool." immediately follows. See, for a person that goes around taking photos of cars, I have a pretty dismal car history....
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Posted
Nov 18 2010, 04:00 PM
by
Carl Jarrett
with 16 comment(s)
Birthdays are an odd thing to celebrate. If you think about it, we celebrate the fact that you have less time on this planet to enjoy the people and things we love. On the other hand, we tend celebrate these things on your birthdays as well. At the beginning of October I was given the surprise of all surprises for my 30th birthday... a trip to Monterey, California to attend the Skip Barber 3 Day Racing School at none other than Laguna Seca!! My fiancee and my little girl actually surprised me a few...
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Posted
Nov 16 2010, 10:08 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 42 comment(s)
As you might know, back in April I got rid of my NC Mazda MX-5 and became the proud owner of a 2006 Ford Mustang GT. I've since put a few thousand miles on the Mustang, and found that even while bone stock the car was a blast to drive.
Still, all stock things must come to an end sometime. Last month, I finally got around to to upgrading the suspension on my car....
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Posted
Oct 29 2010, 12:00 AM
by
Patrick McGrath
with 44 comment(s)
I think it's fair to say that pretty much every form of motorsport can trace it's roots back to the street, but for some reason I always associate drag racing as having the strongest connection. During the economic boom, street racing in Ireland exploded. Young guys could import high powered Japanese cars and put them on the road for not very much money. Add to this that there is only one race track in the republic and you can see why so many guys (and girls) took to the streets to test the...
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Posted
Oct 25 2010, 06:00 AM
by
Charles Kha
with 67 comment(s)
Do you remember the moment you climbed into the driver's seat for the very first time? The nervous excitement; the eagerness and trepidation as you twirled the key and heard the car bark into life? That anxiety is kind of what I'm feeling at the moment, as I'm about to relocate half way around the world to get behind the wheel of Speedhunters. ...
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