By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

You’re looking at an ASM x Recaro SP-X CL100 seat. Gotta love JDM product names! After you look past the horribly distorted GT-RR watermark (I’m sorry, the website does them that way sometimes for the vertical images), you’ll see one of the most desired and sought after seats money can buy. JDM limited edition Recaro, yes. Dry Carbon, yes. Leather and Alcantara finish, yes. The most “baller” seat in the world?! Perhaps, yes.

We ordered up a set of these absolutely amazing seats from our friends at ASM in Japan and they just recently arrived on one of our frequent ocean freight containers. Destined for use in a very special R35 GT-R, this is perhaps the only set in the US and one of very few in the world. Priced at a bit under$20,000 for the pair, there is good reason as to why they are so rare. That Alcantara and leather execution is just flawless.

Although nobody can adequately justify the price Recaro/ASM is charging for these seats and there is not much sense in trying to, the seat just screams “gotta have it.” The details are absolutely nuts. Our resident JDM parts photographer Colin took some killer pictures which I just put up online.

I was drooling over these seats when they came in and I’m glad to share some pics with you now. This is simply perfection right here. Nothing but supermodel booty should touch these seats…nothing else is worthy. Click here for hi-res shots.

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

Forklift? Forklift. I had never found any reason to get the least bit excited about a forklift, at least not until I ran across Barry Seel’s photos of his Transitier on the Crosley Gang mailing list recently (right around the same time I spotted the Gasporter photos we ran yesterday—I’m just making this a Crosley-powered week). We already know that Crosley’s OHC four-cylinder engines started out as generator engines and eventually found their way into boats as well as at least one airplane, and thanks to Barry, we can add forklifts to that list. Continue reading over at Hemmings.

By Chris Borrelli

Chris Borrelli

All car brands and certain makes have their own emblem. These emblems are more than just a flashy way to copyright something, there are deep histories and great stories behind them all. For example, the Cadillac logo was inspired by a family crest of the man who founded the city at the very heart of the American auto industry, Detroit. BMW’s logo was inspired by an advertisement of a spinning plane propeller. Check out the history of these famous logos and many more at Neatorama. Thanks again __nes__ !

By Jim Brennan

UDMan

Welcome to the CarDomain Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot, a regular feature which aims to expand the notion of what a muscle car is, and to expand your mind while doing so. After the success of the Hurst SC/Rambler for 1969, and with the continuing popularity of the Javelin, the product management team at the smallest of the US based automakers decided to put into production a car that has been lurking around in prototype form for at least two years. It was also a car that carried a nameplate steeped in American Motors history, as the first model to carry the “Rebel” name in 1956 surprised everyone with it’s performance. Introducing the 1970 Rebel Machine by AMC.

Continue reading "CarDomain Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot: The 1970 Rebel Machine (by AMC)" »

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

The inaugural Concours d’LeMons was held in Salinas the day before the big Pebble Beach show. Looks like the turnout wasn’t that great, but hey, you gotta start somewhere. “Worst of Show” went to this 1980 KV Mini 1. Check out all the pics at Autoblog and Jalopnik

By Sam Barer

Sound Classics

With all of the metal and rubber trim removed from the Sound Classics 1979 Chevy K10 project truck, it is time to commence sanding in preparation for its budget paint job. As described in the previous installment, this is the first time I’ve ever done full prep for a paint job.

The lucky guy I am, while looking for the rubber backing for my electric random orbital, I notice I actually own a pneumatic dual-action sander – something given to me so long ago by my father-in-law that I had totally forgotten that I owned it. The DA is the best tool for the job…and being the same size as my random orbital, the four packs of sanding discs I bought fit perfectly.

The object of sanding is to make the surfaces as clean and straight as possible…with just enough roughness for the paint to stick. The general rule of thumb is that a vehicle can have two layers of paint. Any additional layers won’t bond well. This truck came out of the factory with Carmine Red paint, but a layer of two-tone silver now covers it, so we’ll need to get at least down to the original paint layer, if not bare metal or at least original primer.

Continue reading "Like Sand Through The Hourglass, So Are The Days Spent Sanding" »

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Well, the Gumpert Apollo Sport sure didn’t get much time in the spotlight. After a it made a trip around the Nurburging in a blistering 7:11.57, everyone—myself included—was calling it the fastest road-legal car to ever lap the ‘Ring. And while Radical’s Hayabusa-powered SR8LM—which sports a Le Mans prototype chassis—isn’t what you would call a grocery getter, it was actually driven from England to Germany to with the aim of breaking the Apollo’s record, and instead smashed it into a million little pieces. And while it might be time to lay out some rules which define what a road-legal car actually is—I mean, the LM chassis seems a bit extreme—it’s hard to argue with a time of 6:38. Watch the driver wrestle this baby around the circuit.

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

This is the kind of story that warms the grease-stained hearts of gearheads everywhere. For over 25 years, Papa John Schnatter had searched for the 1971 1/2 Camaro he’d sold to save his dad’s business—and found the multi-million dollar pizza pizza chain that bears his name. But after a Jalopnik reader decided to help, the long search is finally over. The owner of the car—which has been turned into 800HP drag car—is now a whopping $250,000 richer, and tomorrow, Camaro owners are going to be able to get free pizza from Papa John’s. How cool is that? Head over to Jalopnik for all the details on this awesome reunion.

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

My buddy Ralf over at Chromjuwelen just sent this to me. Pretty cool. Too bad it’s not a big block. More pics after the jump!

Continue reading "Mopar-powered MK1" »

By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

It happens to us all sooner or later. You get slightly older, the family begins to grow and your days of terrorizing the streets with your tuned sports car are well and truly over. This is exactly the situation a customer of Revolfe found himself in, except he had no intention of going down the minivan route! As long as the car he chose was big and comfortable the wife would approve, so there was really only one choice to consider and that was the Aristo V300 Vertex. Propelled by the silky smooth 2JZ this version of the Aristo opened up infinite possibilities. Continue reading at Speedhunters

By Dino Dalle Carbonare