Im not involved with Vans in any way, apart from having worn them for over 20 years – first pair was a cack light yellow pair of 95’s that I wore until they were more ventilated than a Birkenstock.
Never owned any Birkenstocks, in case you wondered.
To the point, after getting me all giddy over the Bad Brains release, Vans have now done the do with Usugrow.
There is a Half Cab, SK8 Hi & a AV SK8-low.
Good new for Japan dwellers is that Ususgrow’s site offers each style up to 30cm.
Im there.
Last time we were at Shelby’s No.20, Big Boss Okuyama san mentioned that his muscle car buddies have a bit of a carpark gathering on the third Sunday of each month. Then winter arrived & standing about in a car park didnt seem too appealing.
Well, now it’s spring. There are many reasons why I like spring, being the lead in to summer being the main one, but now I have a new one.
Not Mopar, nor Muscle, but on a sunny Sunday, a beach buggy gives a fellow funny ideas. Okuyama san seems quite fond of it.
After pointing us toward the farty yellow machine, Okuyama san peeled back some of the covers on car looking shapes in the shop car park…
If I had a ’68 Challenger, I’d probably park it next to a ’69 Charger too…
I mentioned to the missus that we need a car like this. Usually she wastes no time in discouraging my potentially fiscally irresponsible flights of fancy, but Im not convinced that I didnt see a smile and a slight nod. So Im taking that as agreement that in a year with an aka-chan on the way that I should be figuring out some way to own a black 1969 Dodge Charger, or at least some sort of automobile from this era with a Hemi V8…
…like a 1970 Roadrunner fer instance.
The first guest car to arrive also had a live axle.
Meh. But the owner was cool. Same colourway (!) as Okuyama san’s ’68 Shelby GT500. At least Roush gets rid of the cart suspension when they hop up the new ones. Unlike Shelby…
This was the next arrival. Word!
The interior of this car was pretty mint, so here’s a better look at the seats…
We heard this GTX some time before we saw it.
This would be such a badass machine to see thundering past on a Japanese expressway.
The Valiant in the background arrived just after the GTX. Check out that stance!
Flex Support indeed.
This Valiant is pretty much perfect.
I had “if that car was for sale and I had the money…” thoughts about every car here, except the Mustang, but this car, well.
Watashi wa infatuated desu.
Sometimes Japan is just like every other auto obsessed nation.
Couldnt finish without including Okuyama san’s killer office kei-van.
Shepherd Fairey, Glen E Friedman & Bad Brains have collaborated on a killer poster, available at Obey Giant.
(Ahem), which is now sold out.
One day I hope to frame a photograph properly.
Watashi no kage wa Mama Cass desu.
Next up: Muscle Cars!
Just a taster, because they were closed yesterday, so I could only get snap happy from the outside.
When I saw this on the way past on Route 16, I thought “Oh-oh oh-oh-oh-oh-oh”. Then “Oh-oh”. & stuff.
The weather forecast for hare weather ashita, so come come gogo ni-ji, when the sunlight is daijobu, Im there!
But cool and accompanied by some tasty jp can coffee all the same.
Combini vigilant Mike Garrett at Speedhunters posted about these a week or so ago, so I have now fallen under the spell of Boss canned coffee. I would even buy it now without the sweet Super GT plastic kitchen table-abouts on the top.
One red can gits you a Choro-Q sized GT-R, NSX or that ugly Toyota thing…
Here are four of the five smaller Nissans. Had to visit a couple more combini for the Hoshino car.
But did manage to track it down,so all is good in this hood.
Here are the other small versions. So you could even go and buy the non-Nissans. If you wanted to. For some reason.
If you purchase yourself a twin pack of gold cans (they all taste the same to me), you get a 1.64 plastic cat-baiter. Only two of each marque, one in test (non) livery and a warpaint version.
Flash!
Must be something sneaky in that coffee – feeling a bit thirsty…
So anyway, my journey into cheap art materials has gone all brightly coloured. I have even purchased some more boxes. One cost 56 yen! I’d better take it easy. Need some yen fer me kuruma…
Thank you for taking a trip around my box. Next time I might even try to make it all match up when the box is closed…
Didnt seem too keen to be folded up. Fair enough. I probably wouldnt be either.
They gave me my first JGTC experience, allowed me to get up close & personal with the Nissan Can Am machine I’d always wanted to see & even introduced me to my first Tommy Kaira ZZ. A couple of weeks age I passed by and found this:
Why that would be a Nissan R380-II from 1967! I wasnt able to get inside this time, so indulged in rampant clickery from the wrong side of the glass. It did give me an idea of how low this fellow is – 985mm (according to the Nissan Heritage site) That is 38.77 inches (or 0.1959 rods, as it happens), so it could limbo past the skyscraper GT40 with an easy inch to spare.
The engine code was GR8, which perfectly sums up a 2 litre inline six, with triple Webers, enclosed in a body that could make you shout “Hoots Mon!” if you were so disposed.
Bet they wondered about the face prints on the window when they came in the next day. If they will keep displaying cars like this when there are Nissan otaku living in the area…
Because I suck, I didnt make it back to take more photos from inside the shop, whilst the R380 was still there. I will return in the next few days however, because when I drove past yesterday I saw that this car has been replaced with a R90C…
There are some more of this motor, plus some more KN’s finery in my flickr KN’s Factory set.
I love cost effective (righto then – cheap) art materials. Here is my flash new cardboard box, about to get the Zombie Pandas of Doom treatment. Cost 40yen, it did. Which is 44 US cents. Sweeet.
Which is helping distract me from the Japanese football team making an absolute meal of beating Yemen in tonights World Cup qualifier. Yemen! 153 according to Fifa! Behind Hong Kong even. Japan didnt suck this much at footy before I lived here. Sorry Japanese football fans.
Hachi Roku’s are thick on the ground around here. Ive seen plenty of white/black Panda AE86’s on the streets, but being a bit slow on the uptake, have yet to photograph one…
Most here are pretty businesslike looking too, it’s pretty cool seeing a full caged Hachi Roku growling away in morning traffic at the Route 16 lights that Im waiting at quite frequently.
These were all captured at rest, because, as I say, Im a bit slow.
This was parked in a factory carpark up the road from Flyrat, which I will get on to in the next few days.
Apartment car park near Shelbys No.20.
I saw this one on my second day in Japan, in July, near the local supermarket. It was 42 degrees that day – 34 warmer than today…
Next to the Sakai Gawa cyclepath, near my place, as I was pootling along on my jitensha, enjoying weather that was far superior to now.
These two were also next to the Sakai Gawa cyclomichi, but about 12km north. I was enjoying my jitensha travels that day.
Up the hill and ’round the corner from mi casa. I didnt take a photo from the front because it had a rust hole in the bonnet. But Im feeling ruthless, so I might go back and do just that…
kirameki san experiences sustained loss of traction 