50 Fun Facts About JDM Cars

In the manga Initial D, Takumi Fujiwara hones his mountain-road skills delivering which food in his father's Toyota?

Tofu goes out early each morning in his father Bunta's ageing Sprinter Trueno, and years of those runs make Takumi a natural racer. The manga has more than 55 million copies in circulation.

Which movie monster's name did the Australian magazine Wheels give the Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 in 1989?

Godzilla suited a car from Japan that flattened its rivals: the R32 GT-R won all 29 races it entered in the country's touring car series. Wheels kept the nickname for every later generation.

Which film franchise, launched in 2001, turned an orange Mk4 Toyota Supra into a worldwide star?

Fast & Furious began with undercover policeman Brian O'Conner rebuilding a wrecked Supra into a ten-second car. He ends the first film by handing its keys to the street racer he was sent to catch.

Which Formula One champion, then racing Honda-powered McLarens, urged Honda to stiffen the chassis of the original NSX?

Ayrton Senna tried a prototype in Japan and persuaded Honda to make the chassis stiffer before launch. He was not the development driver, though: that job belonged to Motoharu Kurosawa.

Subaru's six-star badge depicts which star cluster, whose Japanese name the company took as its own?

Pleiades is also known as the Seven Sisters, yet the badge shows six stars because tradition holds that one sister is invisible. The stars also nod to the companies that merged to form Subaru's parent.

Toyota's Corolla, Corona and Camry all follow a 1955 flagship in taking their names from words for which object?

A crown is the theme because the 1955 flagship was the Toyota Crown: corona is Latin for crown, corolla for a small crown, and Camry comes from kanmuri, the Japanese word for one.

The United States waives federal safety rules on imported cars, such as Nissan Skylines, once they reach what age?

25 years is the cut-off regulators have applied since 1989, on the presumption that a car that old is a collector's item. It is why the R32 Skyline GT-R of 1989 only became eligible for American roads in 2014.

Which PlayStation racing series from Kazunori Yamauchi put a Nissan Skyline GT-R on its Japanese cover in 1997?

Gran Turismo launched with cars from many Japanese makers, among them Nissan, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Honda and Mazda. Sony had at first rejected Yamauchi's pitch for a realistic driving simulator.

Toyota built a special open-top 2000GT for which James Bond film of 1967, shot largely in Japan?

You Only Live Twice needed a roofless car because Sean Connery, at 1.88 metres, reportedly sat too tall for the low coupé. Toyota never sold a convertible 2000GT to the public.

Which Honda valve system, first sold in the 1989 Integra, swaps to a second cam profile at high revs?

VTEC was invented by Honda engineer Ikuo Kajitani. It pairs a mild cam profile for economy at low revs with a high-lift one for power, and oil pressure locks the rocker arms together to make the switch.

Which Scottish driver won the 1995 World Rally title in a Subaru Impreza and gave his name to a video game series?

Colin McRae was 27 when he took the title, the youngest champion the series had seen, and the record stood until 2022. The first game bearing his name followed in 1998.

Mazda's rotary-powered 787B became the first Japanese car to win which endurance race in 1991?

24 Hours of Le Mans went to a Japanese maker for the first time that day, and not again until Toyota won in 2018. The 787B used a four-rotor engine with no pistons at all.

Which Mazda sports car, built from 1978 to 2002 in SA, FC and FD generations, is powered by a twin-rotor Wankel engine?

RX-7 production reached 811,634 cars over 24 years. The final FD generation paired its rotary engine with sequential twin turbochargers, a complex system developed with the help of Hitachi.

Under which luxury brand, launched in 1986, did Honda sell the NSX and the Integra in North America?

Acura was the first Japanese luxury brand, opening in March 1986 with 60 dealerships. The NSX it sold from 1990 takes its name from the phrase New Sports eXperimental.

Under which brand name, dropped in 1986, did Nissan export cars such as the 510 saloon and the 240Z?

Datsun was the name most of Nissan's export cars wore from 1958 until the company phased it out in March 1986. A revival for low-cost cars in emerging markets began in 2013 and ended in 2022.

Japan's kei cars, limited to 660 cc engines, wear licence plates of which background colour when privately owned?

Yellow plates with black numbers mark a private kei car, and the colours swap round for commercial ones. The class also caps length at 3.4 metres and width at 1.48 metres.

In the abbreviation JDM, the J stands for Japanese and the M for market; which word does the D represent?

Domestic completes the phrase, which refers to Japan's home market for vehicles and parts. Cars built for it can differ greatly from the versions the same makers send abroad.

The name Mitsubishi, adopted by a shipping firm in 1873, is often translated as which phrase echoed in its badge?

Three diamonds comes from mitsu, meaning three, and hishi, a water caltrop whose outline gave Japanese its word for a rhombus. The mitsu also recalls three oak leaves on a clan crest.

Mazda began life in Hiroshima in 1920 as a factory producing which natural material, long before it built vehicles?

Cork was the trade of Toyo Cork Kogyo, founded by Jujiro Matsuda. The firm cut the word from its name in 1927 and turned to vehicles in 1931 with the Mazda-Go auto rickshaw.

The 1990 Honda NSX was the first production car with a body structure made entirely from which metal?

Aluminium saved nearly 200 kg compared with a steel body, and the suspension arms were made from it too. The engine brought another production first: titanium connecting rods.

Which engine layout, shared with the Porsche 911, gives the Subaru Impreza WRX its low centre of gravity?

Boxer engines lay their cylinders flat, and each opposing pair of pistons moves in and out together, like fighters touching gloves before a bout. The low, wide shape helps the handling.

Which Japanese circuit, designed in 1962 as a Honda test track, crosses over itself in a figure-of-eight?

Suzuka was drawn by Dutch designer John Hugenholtz, who sent the back straight over the front section on a bridge. Soichiro Honda had wanted a permanent circuit since the late 1950s.

Honda shaped the boot of its 1981 City to carry which optional extra, called the Motocompo?

A folding scooter whose handlebars, seat and foot-pegs tucked into a rectangular body, the Motocompo was sold only in Japan until 1983. Its inspiration was the Welbike, a British wartime motorcycle.

Which performance division, formed in 1984 from two factory racing departments, runs motorsport and tuning for Nissan?

Nismo is short for Nissan Motorsports International. It joined the Oppama works, which looked after privateer teams, to the Omori works that ran the factory's own racing cars.

The sports car exported from 1969 as the 240Z was sold in Japan under which name, shared with earlier Nissan roadsters?

Fairlady came from the Broadway musical My Fair Lady, a name Nissan first gave its roadsters around 1960. The export coupés wore plain numbers instead: 240Z, 260Z and 280Z.

Which Hollywood actor and racing driver appeared in Nissan's adverts for the R30 Skyline in the early 1980s?

Paul Newman also raced for Nissan, so in 1983 the company marked the partnership with a special R30 that carried his name, finished with signature embroidery and decals.

Which Toyota chassis code, shared by the Corolla Levin and Sprinter Trueno of 1983 to 1987, do fans call the Hachi-Roku?

AE86 explains the nickname, since hachi-roku is Japanese for eight-six. It was the last Corolla with rear-wheel drive, built when most of the range had already switched to front-wheel drive.

The Toyota Sprinter Trueno, twin of the Corolla Levin, takes its name from the Spanish word for what?

Thunder has a partner, because Levin comes from a Middle English word for lightning. The two cars differed at the nose: the Trueno had retractable headlights and the Levin fixed ones.

Which twin-turbo straight-six, first fitted to the 1991 Toyota Aristo, became the flagship engine of the Mk4 Supra?

2JZ-GTE engines are built on a cast-iron block and stayed in production in Japan until 2005. Home-market cars were rated at 280 PS, the ceiling of the carmakers' voluntary power limit.

Which Japanese racing driver, known as the Drift King, was a consultant on the manga and anime Initial D?

Keiichi Tsuchiya earned the title by sliding through corners in ordinary circuit races. He had sharpened his car control as a street racer on mountain passes before he ever entered one.

Which Nissan coupé, whose S13 to S15 generations became favourites of drifters, was exported as the 200SX or 240SX?

Silvia noses were grafted onto the hatchback 180SX so often that the hybrid gained its own name, the Sileighty. In 1998 a tuner built about 500 of them for sale through Nissan dealers.

Which Finnish driver won four straight world rally titles from 1996 to 1999, all in Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions?

Tommi Mäkinen got his own road car for the feat: Mitsubishi built an edition of the Lancer Evolution VI bearing his name to commemorate the titles.

Which Honda roadster was launched in 1999 to celebrate the company's 50th anniversary, with a redline near 9,000 rpm?

S2000 engines made about 124 hp per litre, the highest specific output of any naturally aspirated production car until 2010. The S means sports, as on Honda's S500, S600 and S800 of the 1960s.

What Japanese term, literally meaning painful car, describes a vehicle covered in anime or manga character artwork?

Itasha joins itai, meaning painful, to sha, meaning vehicle: painfully embarrassing, painful to look at, or painful for the wallet. The scene began in the 1980s with stickers and plush toys.

Which Japanese word for a mountain pass names the style of racing on winding hill roads seen in Initial D?

Touge races generally run one car at a time or as a chase, rather than side by side. Japan's early drifters practised their slides on the same roads before the sport moved to circuits.

Fans call the 1969 Nissan Skyline GT-R the Hakosuka, pairing 'suka' for Skyline with the Japanese word for which shape?

Box is hako in Japanese, a fair description of the squared-off four-door that introduced the GT-R badge in February 1969. A two-door coupé followed before production ended in 1972.

Which small Suzuki 4x4, launched in 1970 as a kei-class off-roader, reached the United States in 1985 as the Samurai?

Jimny origins lie in the LJ10, short for Light Jeep 10, whose air-cooled two-stroke twin displaced just 359 cc. The Samurai was the first car Suzuki officially sold under its own name in the US.

Which retro-styled Nissan convertible, one of four Pike cars, went on sale in 1991 to buyers chosen by lottery?

Figaro buyers got the running gear of a first-generation Nissan March beneath the retro bodywork. One critic called the Pike cars the height of postmodernism.

Japan's top sports car racing series, launched in the 1990s as the JGTC, was renamed what in 2005?

Super GT grew out of a series designed to keep the racing close: strict power limits and heavy weight penalties for race winners stopped any one team or make from dominating.

Which nickname did the C110 Nissan Skyline of the 1970s take from the young couple in its advertising campaign?

Kenmeri blends Ken and Mary, the young couple shown touring Japan in their Skyline. The adverts became a craze of their own, and a poplar that appeared in one is still a tourist sight in Hokkaido.

Which tiny mid-engined kei sports car, sold by Mazda's Autozam brand from 1992, has gullwing doors?

AZ-1 production reached only 4,392 cars. Suzuki supplied the engine and the inspiration for the design, then sold its own lightly changed version as the Cara.

Which Fukushima circuit complex, run by drift champion Nobushige Kumakubo, has a track called Drift Land?

Ebisu packs seven tracks and two skid pads into one site, and its Minami, or South, course is the best known for professional drifting. A landslide after an earthquake damaged it in 2021.

Which mid-engined kei roadster of 1991 was the last car approved by Soichiro Honda before his death that year?

Beat styling is widely credited to Pininfarina, the Italian design house, though Honda has never officially named its designer. Soichiro Honda attended the launch in May 1991 and died that August.

In Japan, the first-generation Mazda MX-5 was sold as a Roadster under which separate brand name?

Eunos was pitched as Mazda's upscale, fun-to-drive label, one of several extra brands the company created for its home market. North American buyers knew the same two-seater as the Miata.

What is the short name for Japan's compulsory vehicle inspection, required for anything with an engine over 250 cc?

Shaken is a contraction of a phrase meaning automobile inspection registration system. Many used cars are exported once it stops being cost-effective to keep them on the road in Japan.

Which Japanese tuning giant from Fujinomiya was founded in 1973 by a former Yamaha engineer and his partner?

HKS takes its letters from founder Hiroyuki Hasegawa, his partner Goichi Kitagawa and Sigma Automotive, the firm that supplied the start-up capital. It has since become a publicly traded company.

Which signature paint colour of Honda's Type R models pays tribute to the company's first race-winning Formula One car?

Championship White comes with a red Honda badge, a second nod to the racing cars. An early wearer was the NSX Type R, built for Japan from 1992 without audio, air conditioning or sound deadening.

Which carmaker launched the Skyline in 1957 and built it until merging with Nissan in 1966?

Prince dealers lived on after the merger: the first Skyline GT-R of 1969 was sold exclusively through a network called Nissan Prince Store.

A much-copied style of clear-covered tail light is named after which Toyota saloon, sold abroad as the Lexus IS?

Altezza lights group their lamp units under a clear or tinted cover. The look became so popular that it influenced the clear-covered LED tail lamps that followed.

Which video game series is named after a real team that held illegal street runs on Tokyo's Bayshore Route?

Midnight Club borrows from the Mid Night Racing Team, whose home stretch of the Shuto Expressway is known in Japanese as the Wangan. The same group inspired a long-running street-racing manga.