No one will ever accuse a stock ’79 Toyota Corolla of being sporty…but this next one has a few tricks up the old tailpipe to make it interesting. Those Weld Racing wheels look nice, and the angel eyes lights are interesting, but the manual gearbox is probably the biggest draw. Most of these survivors are […]
The first time I noticed a JDM bumper pole on a car in the wild was in a covered parking lot at a Japanese grocery store near the Torrance, California — which was coincidentally a few miles from the HQ for Toyota, Honda, and Nissan (all three have fled California for other places in the […]
I see a fair number of cars where the seller makes some crazy claims about his car being rare, and most of the time it ends with a yawn and some boredom, but here today we’ve got a car that has Racoon badging on the side. Actual, real OEM Racoon badging that goes with the […]
The W30 generation MR2 Spyder (1999-2007) was the last of the line for Toyota’s mid-engine runabout that had started life way back in 1984. Unfortunately, this latest version was available without a fixed roof or any manner of forced induction like previous versions– and stranger still was the fact that Toyota never put the more […]
The Toyota Crown was never exported to the United States, maybe because it was too cool for anyone who drives on the right side of the road, or maybe because the product planners at Toyota wanted their Lexus brand to be a smashing success. Today’s Crown Super Saloon was imported from Japan and has been […]
The Pao was part of Nissan’s Pike (don’t ask me why they were called Pike) car series that included the Pao, S-Cargo, Figaro, Be-1, and K10-Micra. Goofy names aside, the Pike cars were retro-styled econoboxes from the late ’80s and early ’90s that combined simple Nissan mechanical front-drive parts with funky styling and cool interiors. […]
Expect constant questions if you buy this next car. Random people at gas stations and Costco parking lots will ask you what you are driving. Don’t expect any of them to understand why it is important when you tell them it is Giorgetto Giugiaro’s seminal Japanese car design, and don’t be upset that most of […]
I’ve got a pretty broad understanding of the automotive world, but this next car caught me of balance. It isn’t often that I see a car and think…what am I looking at? At least not a “factory” car, which you could argue that Mitsuoka Motor Co Ltd is almost an OEM. They have a website, […]
A wise man said to me the other day: “When I’m driving my car around, I never think that I need more power or handling…but I always think, I need more space or I need better fuel economy.” Wait, did I say “wise”? Because I meant old. That is such an old guy thing to […]
On the Toyota website, the soggy vanilla wafer favored Corolla is given the tag line “Uncover fun” — a subtle acknowledgement that it would take a David Blaine level magician to put fun in a Corolla. The depicted urban youngsters getting coffee, hitting up gourmet food trucks, or fluffing their hair aren’t old enough to […]