Name: Mike Garrett

Location: Tsukuba City, Japan

Previous Locations: Central California, USA

Career Path: Freelance journalist/photographer

Previous Career Paths: Fresh college graduate! Also have some experience working part time behind the counter at a small tuning shop.

Notable Projects/Wins: Auto-Otaku.com - my personal web project covering Japanese car culture, collaborations with various auto-related websites and magazines from around the world.

Car: Honda Fit (Boring daily driver)

Fav Past Cars: '73 Plymouth Duster, '85 Corolla GT-S, '73 Datsun 240Z

Next Car: Something old and simple.

Car Passions: Grew up in a car crazed family and have been going to car shows with my dad since I was in a stroller. Started off with American V8's in my teen years and thought I would never own "one of those rice rockets". After I was introduced to the Japanese scene via some old Option videos I became a Japanese car geek almost overnight. My fascination with Japanese cars turned into a fascination with Japan itself. I enjoy every part of the Japan's vast automotive scene and I am always learning more about it. My old school muscle car upbringing gives me an especially strong appreciation for classic Japanese cars. I can appreciate any type of car as long as there is passion behind it.

Personal Style: Very simple! I wear jeans and a t-shirt nearly everyday.

Favourite Band of the Moment: Dragon Ash

Personal Motto: "Well, the night's busting open, these two lanes will take us anywhere.." - Bruce Springsteen

 

As I write this, I'm busy packing for a short weekend trip to Osaka to have a look at the 2012 Osaka Auto Messe. I'm really looking forward to checking out Kansai's car scene, but before I hop on that bullet train, I thought you guys might enjoy some desktops from last weekend's GTCC event at Tsukuba. If you head to the Desktops section now you'll find an image of the CBY Trueno at speed... ...a static view of the Team Vertex 510 Bluebird... ...a bird's eye view of the paddock...

Now that we've had an intro to the atmosphere from Sunday's GTCC race at Tsukuba Circuit, I wanted to spend some time showcasing more of the cars from this event, as well as the day's on-track action. Not only was this Garage FK-supported EF9 Civic fast around the circuit, it was also extremely clean. At a glance you'd think it was a restored show car rather than a track rat. The Nissan Sunny Truck may have been designed as a small utility vehicle, but there's no reason why it...

As someone who's in love with vintage Japanese cars, the JCCA New Year Meeting is simply overwhelming. There are dozens upon dozens of cars inside and outside the event which I would deem spotlight-worthy, and this year I picked out a few that I found to be especially great. One of them is this Kenmeri Skyline based out of Tokyo. There were many beautiful vintage Skylines to be seen at the New Year Meeting, but there was something that drew me to this one. For starters, it was in immaculate condition...

I've just finished uploading my first batch of high res desktops from this year's JCCA New Year Meeting. You can head over to the Desktops section right now to find several images to give your computer some vintage JDM flavor. Among the photos are the white S30 above... ...as well as this GT-R style Yonmeri Skyline. You'll also find this perfect Daruma Celica. A little GX71 love. A slice of lowdown Hakosuka greatness. The Phalanx Z. Plus one more shot for the Hakosuka fans. All are available...

 

Toyota held a media event yesterday for the new 86 at Makuhari Messe and the festivities included a tandem drift demonstration by Nobuteru Taniguchi and Manabu Orido. Car@Nifty was there to capture the action.

Not bad for a pair of stock cars eh?

-Mike Garrett

I thought I'd take a quick break from my JCCA New Year Meeting coverage to post some street sightings from the roads of Japan. I've been here for a week now, and whenever possible I've tried to bring my camera to grab photos of various cars I see rolling around. I'm sure I look pretty strange snapping photos of random cars all the time, but it's fun to see what sort of vehicles you see in Japan on a daily basis. With all of the great Japanese events we cover, it's easy to...

 

What happens when Vaughn Gittin Jr., K&N and HPI Racing get together for some fun?

This.

Enjoy!

-Mike Garrett

As we begin our look through the 2012 JCCA New Year Meeting, let's go ahead start off with a look through the main show itself. The parking lot is great mind you, but that doesn't mean the official festivities are to be missed. Not by any stretch. A big part of the showgrounds are dedicated to classic car clubs from all over Japan. Tokyo's Team Wizard was out with a trio of vintage Toyotas, including this lightly modified TA22 Celica 1600GT. Perfection! The foldable Honda Motocompo scooter...

Greetings from good old Japan everyone! In case you haven't heard, I'm back in this fine country for the first time in nearly three years. I'll be here for a few weeks seeing friends and family, doing some Speedhunting - and generally enjoying the place. I spent all day today in Odaiba at the JCCA New Year Meeting - which is where I snapped this bitchin' works style Hakosuka cruising home after the show. I'm about to pass out from a lack of sleep here, but I've got some really...

The "Moby D i c k" Porsche 935/78 is one of the most famous race cars ever, and it's one that's been recreated in scale form by countless diecast and plastic model brands. Taking things even further, we recently came across this incredible Moby replica built entirely out of Lego. This particular build was done by a fellow named Malte Dorowski and was posted on the MocPages Lego community site. Not only is the car instantly recognizable as a Martini-colored 935/78, it's also...