The latest issue of Japanese Nostalgic Car magazine flopped through my letterbox a few days ago and as always it’s a highly professional looking magazine with high class photography. This, the third issue, has been a little long in coming but like much of the publishing industry, Japanese Nostalgic Car has been hit by the economic downturn as companies within the motor industry trim back their advertising budgets. The good news is that the magazine is still healthy, thanks in part to relatively small overheads, and will continue which is very good news for vintage Japanese car fans. If you haven’t checked Japanese Nostalgic Car magazine out before it’s well worth a look. International subscriptions are available via the Japanese Nostalgic Car website.
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Despite the efforts of British tuning companies in the 1970’s such as Old Woking Service Station, Janspeed and Samuri Conversions, Datsuns never really caught on with British car modifiers. Competition in the small car market was considerable and tuning favorites such as the Ford Escort and Mini ruled the roost. As any Datsun fan will know, the cars are eminently tunable and offer the potential to be highly competetive on the race track as Janspeed in particular knew. Janspeed not only raced Datsuns back in the day, they also offered a wealth of ‘hot’ Datsun parts for the public right through into the 1980’s, many of which came direct from Japan. This article from Hot Car magazine in 1981 takes a look at what was available from Janspeed for the Datsun A series engine…
Most Nissan and Datsun fans will be familiar with the existence of Nissans own heritage collection housed in the old Zama factory in Kanagawa, Japan. Many of the galleries of images to be found on the Internet tend to focus a little more on classic Skyline GTRs, Fairladys and race cars with few making note of any of the less significant models, particularly those from the 80’s and 90’s. The clips here courtesy of highmileage.org take a look at some of the design aspects of cars from that era. Second clip after the jump…
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With all the rules and limitations regarding modern advertising it must be hard for car manufacturers to come up with car adverts that are both exiting and entertaining. Depictions of law breaking or speeding are definately out of the question. The freedom of the early 1960’s meant that speed, danger and exitement were liberally employed in the automobile marketing industry. What is suprising is that same advertising liberty found it’s way into the then communist ruled Czechoslovakia as can be seen in this contemporary Tatra 603 promotion. This amazing short film from 1962 depicts not only speeding but all manner of crazy illegal driving that would never pass the advert censors these days. As if it wasn’t fascinating enough to see the wonderfully futuristic Tatra 603 in action, keep an eye out for the police van which appears to be based on an earlier Tatraplan.
I loved Matchbox cars as a kid and have no doubt that they played a large part in developing my obsession for all things with engines and wheels. But it wasn’t just the miniature die-cast cars that fired my imagination in the early 70’s, it was also the boxes they came in. For the 1970’s, Lesney Products, manufacturers of Matchbox toys, saw fit to replace the rather staid box designs of the 50’s and 60’s with colourful and dynamic ‘Superfast’ box artwork, most likely in an effort to compete with the then new Hotwheels cars from America. I think I particularly like the way the illustrations, whilst often adding realism such as chrome details, headlights and occasionally, lifelike backgrounds, are clearly pictures of the models themselves complete with ’superfast’ wheels. Right through the 1970’s and into the start of the 80’s the cars continued to come in these wonderful picture boxes but they were not to last, as with the sale of the Matchbox brand to Universal Toys, the classic Matchbox packaging was replaced with dull light blue boxes with a clear plastic window though which the toy car could be seen. Later, the boxes themselves gave way to the familiar, modern blister pack.
Svenska Aeroplan Aktie Bolaget, better known as Saab have been in the car business since the late 1940’s, having diversified from aircraft production during world war two. The company started development of their first design, referred to as project 92, in 1944. The aerodynamic prototype body, styled by Sixten Sason, was hand made by panel beaters over wooden bucks and was powered by a two cylinder DKW engine along with a host of parts sourced from local scrapyards. The first car, known as the Ursaab (Original Saab) was drivable by 1947 and underwent thorough testing which brought to light a few shortcomings, in particular the fully enclosed front wheels which trapped snow in the winter. Another 19 prototypes were tested before the car was ready for public consumption. Their first production car, the Saab 92 hit the market in 1949 and was a revelation in terms of it’s technical unorthodoxy and amazing aerodynamic body which had a drag coefficient of just 0.30. The car was an instant success and a total of 20,128 were sold by the time it ceased production in 1956. This familiar and distinctive Saab shape evolved over subsequent years and was to remain with us until the demised of the last Saab 96 in 1980. Long production runs were the norm for Saab, with the 99 model running from 1969 through to 1984 and the 900 from 1979 right up to 1993.
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