There is something undeniably charming about a classic Japanese kei-car sized firetruck. I’m not sure you could extinguish much more than a small frying pan fire, but a used version converted into something fun is a different story. I’d love to turn one of these into a coffee cart, a waffle station, or maybe a […]
The Toyota bB was introduced in Japan in 2000 and later became the basis for the first-generation Scion xB sold in the U.S. The Open Deck was the oddball branch of that family tree that removes the rear wagon storage area in exchange for a short bed, external rear structure, and exposed tubular-looking framework. It […]
The Toyota Paseo was the sporty smaller two-door cousin of the Tercel. It was the same basic small-car engineering, but wrapped in a low, swoopy coupe body that looked far more ambitious than its actual performance. Today’s example looks remarkably original and appears to have factory wheel covers, factory spoiler, stock ride height, stock trim, […]
The Nissan Be-1 is one of the original Japanese “Pike cars,” a wonderfully odd little design experiment that came out of Nissan’s Pike Factory styling group in the late 1980s. Underneath all that cheerful retro bodywork is much more ordinary hardware from the K10 Nissan March/Micra, which means front-wheel drive, simple mechanicals, and a tiny […]
This is the first year of the third-generation TL, and the 2004 redesign was a big deal: sharper styling, much more power, and for the first time in TL history an available 6-speed manual. The manual car is the one enthusiasts want. Acura paired it with a limited-slip differential, Brembo front brakes, stiffer anti-roll bars […]
You won’t catch me assigning mythical values to mundane cars simply because of a low odometer reading…but this next MX-5 looks to be in that sweet spot between “great condition, low miles” and “low miles, can’t roll the 4th digit on the odo.” I wouldn’t recommend speculating with used/modern classics, but this is where my […]
The original Daihatsu Midget was a strange 3-wheeled, single-seat “mini-truck” resembling a fusion of French, Polish, and Neptunian design language. It was discontinued in 1972, as the realization dawned that cars should ideally accommodate at least two, if not four, passengers. Fast forward to 1996 when Daihatsu reintroduced the Midget, this time with more power, […]
Most of the cars we feature around here are photographed by folks with potato phones in settings such as rotting in a barn (that’s a barn find), parked at the gas station at night (no low balls), or parked on a flatbed (bring a trailer). So it is with some degree of fanfare that we […]
We featured an ugly SRT-4 powered Dodge Caravan a few days ago and this next car looks like the perfect alternative if your prefer sushi instead of mac n cheese. It started life as a basic family hauler Isuzu Oasis, which in case you didn’t know is a rebadged Honda Odyssey sold in the US […]
This isn’t a car you expect to pop the hood and find a 2JZ. It’s just not something that happens that often. The El Camino already has one of the most commonly modified engines on the planet — the Chevy 350…so why would you swap in the most commonly pimped out Japanese engines? Why not! […]