By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

Check out this super old school 60 series Toyota Crown with a swapped 1JZGTE VVTI engine from a JZX100 Mark II. Modern twin turbo incline 6 power in an old school cruiser like this must make for a fun combination! This car was sold recently in Japan for a little under $40,000 and was produced by C&Y Sports of Japan.

Continue reading "Old School JDM Weekend Treat" »

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

I came across this picture from our archives and it made me think about the transition…The transition from our last blog post (the flawless old school Z) to what I want to write about next (Eco tuning) is what this picture represents…but also it represents the old and the new of JDM tuning which are both celebrating new heights of popularity at the very same moment in time. Granted the two cars are totally incomparable, but if i had to isolate two prominent themes of Tokyo Auto Salon 2010 it would be nostalgic car tuning and eco tuning. These two massively contrasting mediums of JDM tuning are what made TAS 2010 most different from previous shows.

So what about Eco Tuning? Well, there is one point in particular that I wanted to share. Often I learn profoundly interesting things in meetings with my friends and suppliers over in Japan. Although I wont say the particular company or the person in this case, there was an interesting perspective mentioned in private that I feel is worth mentioning publicly with my source being anonymous. Continue reading at The Real JDM

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

(the car below is made out of cardboard! I can’t stop thinking about how amazing it is!)

Here’s a 2:30am early access report to Tokyo Auto Salon 2010.

I caught two themes to this show this year, the most obvious was the tuning of hybrid cars. The Prius and the Insight were everywhere as expected by most. Everything from a crazy widebody LF-A inspired Prius to simple tuned ones to VIP tuned by Garson, it seems like everyone had a Prius or an Insight. Mostly Prius though…

The other theme of the show was more subtle…the resurgence of retro JDM tuning. Two of my favorite cars at the show fit into this category.

1. A Hakosuka retrofit onto a Nissan Stagea which included a full Hakosuka GT-R front end swap and also even tail lamps that were Hakosuka styled. This takes the typical R34 front end swap and flips it on its head.

2. A Miata (1st Gen) fully converted both exterior and interior into a Toyota 2000GT Roadster. This car was flawless. I want one. Badly.

Continue reading "Tokyo Auto Salon – Day 0 Early Access" »

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

David Kao emailed me recently and shared a drawing he made by pencil. I thought his technique was so good that I wanted to share it here. See more at The Real JDM

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

Happy New Year everyone! I’m excited about 2010! During my hiatus I spent some time thinking about life, cars and the future.

One thing that reoccurred a few times during my time reflecting and reading was the theme of electric cars and eco cars in general. Now if you’re like me, this probably sounds like a boring topic…but if you’re like me, you’ll give reading this a chance because you know how much I care about sports car tuning and where I’m coming from. I wanted to share the cliff notes of my thought evolution during my time off.

Continue reading after the jump!

Continue reading "Welcome To 2010 Post – A Forward Thinking Post" »

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

I’ve been holding a secret for a long time…A while back one of my friends (a member of the Galadari family) in Dubai told me about this project they were working on with Germany’s famous Porsche tuner Gemballa. The project shocked me because of just how insane it was. After seeing some early sketches of the project, I was convinced that it would turn out to be pretty wild!

Now many months later after painfully suppressing this secret, the pictures are here. The Gemballa Enzo project lives!

I’ve been given permission finally to release the pictures, but it seems that I might not be the first to leak them. Regardless I think I was one of the very first to know about this project many months ago, so I still feel its relevant to publish these here.

Continue reading "The Secret Is Out – Gemballa Ferrari Enzo MIG-UI" »

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

I wanted to share with you a video I took during my last trip to Japan. The video is an up close look at Nissan’s R35 GT-R FIA GT1 Race car. This was one of those cars that was far more impressive in the flesh than I ever expected. Of all of the cars that I enjoyed seeing at the Nismo Festival this year, these GT1 cars were my favorite. The quality of the car’s construction, the sound, the details in the design and the closer resemblance to a street GT-R all made these cars more special to me than seeing the Super GT cars (which are closer to resembling rocket ships than street cars these days).

Having felt that pictures do not do the car justice, I jumped behind the ropes with my press pass and shot a walk around video of the car. My hope was to try to show the car from my perspective there at the event, getting a closer look at the design and also getting a chance to hear the sound of another nearby GT1 rev its insane V8 engine. Pictures in my opinion have a hard time doing this car justice.

I just put this up on youtube a minute ago for you all to see. I hope you enjoy.

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

One of the things that has never gotten old or played out for me is my love of titanium exhausts. To me, quality wise Amuse is still king, but there are lots of cool and high quality exhausts out there worth talking about. And I often do…

But today I wanted to talk about custom titanium exhausts. There are some shops in Japan like Heat Magic who are producing some really crazy exhausts in Titanium that are full one-off (custom jobs).

The lead in picture is a 4 exhaust custom setup on a Suzuki B-King. I’ve never seen anything quite like that. Hopefully you like it as much as I do!

Continue reading "Titanium Custom Exhausts – 4 Cannister Sport Bike" »

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

I just returned from my most recent trip to Japan. During these trips I’m often lucky enough to find some really cool stuff because of my network of friends out there in the industry. Usually its new parts and inside news, but this time it was something far different… I was shocked to find a friend of mine who asked for my assistance in selling a very VERY rare BNR34 GT-R Z-Tune by Nismo. This is an authentic Nismo produced car (only 19 were ever made). The car (as expected) is an extremely special collectors car which is unlikely to ever depreciate in value due to the historical significance and legendary status amongst GT-R enthusiasts (plus only 19 exist and no more will ever be produced). Not to mention is runs like a monster on crack for those lucky enough to take it to the streets or circuit. Continue reading at the Real JDM.

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

Sometimes I’m easily amused. I found this early rendering of the Wald “Black Bison Edition” Prius aero kit and I just had to comment on it. I know the Prius tuning is big business in Japan and judging from the looks of this design, I think Wald took it pretty seriously. The only problem is that I think they took it a little too seriously. It looks like they kept on adding more and more until there was simply one too many things going on with it. Continue reading at the Real JDM…