Konnichiwa & Yokoso!
We got that itch again, so we thought we’d bring you the coolest stuff we can from the cradle of car modification: Japan! You’re welcome. This is our third edition, and by now, we think we’ve got this down to a science. We hope you’re as excited as we are, as this is by far one of our favorite issues to put out because we get to be super creative in our delivery, both in design and editorially.
So, what have we got in these pages?
Let’s start with the stellar car on our cover: Star Road’s orange-as-a-creamsicle widebody S30Z. This Fairlady Z is a masterpiece in every sense of the word, built by the only shop to dedicate itself to vintage Nissans to this degree, which was doing widebodies for Zs before it was cool. We also go behind the shop itself, as well as the boss man, Shouji Inoue, to see what makes Star Road tick. Shout out to Adam Zillin of 7Tune for both of these solid pieces!
We also wanted to dive into the culture of JDM as it affects us over here in North America. Adam Gordon tackled the need to be “period correct,” which weighs especially heavy in JDM fanatics on this side of the globe. While he picked their brains about their rides and sensibilities, I sat down with Jake Owens of Threepiece.us in California to get his take on the Japanese wheel resurgence we’ve been witnessing. Old JDM wheels are rising in demand, and it seemed like the right course of action was to speak with someone who handles hundreds of them a day, you know?
A special guest to this issue is Taryn Croucher. Some of you may know her from her work with Speedhunters, or her current gig as a travel advisor on all things Japanese car culture related on her website, JapanCarCulture.com. Seeing as she’s been back and forth to Japan to soak in everything JDM quite a few times, we reached out to her to provide some tips on how to plan your next trip out there. If you want to head over to Japan to peep some of that ridiculous car culture, you’ll find some great pieces of advice in this feature.
As always, we’ve provided some hot new products for your Japanese import, some great show coverage – this time of the shows that happened over Golden Week in Japan – hot topics, and much more, like one of the nicest Evo VIIs I’ve ever seen.
Arigatou gozaimasu for picking us up, and we hope you enjoy flipping through this issue as much as we did putting it together!
Available July 2017.
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Mickey Slinger
PASMAG Editor
editor@pasmag.com