(upbeat music)
- Americans love JDM cars,
I'd even go so far to say that
my generation is obsessed with them.
So it was pretty eye opening when I found out
that there's a community of lowrider enthusiasts in Japan
that drop and customize big American Sedans with hydraulics
and candy paint.
They're inspired by America's West Coast lowrider scene.
Look, it's not just a few people,
it's a legitimate community
and it's not just lowriders either,
turns out that japan is obsessed with other oddly
specific American cars the same way we are with JDM cars
here in America.
Where did this all start?
And how are their lowriders different than ours?
In this video, we're gonna look at four different type
of American market cars that found a new home in japan
and how the Japanese have made them their own.
Let's start with one type of car
that looks huge in Japan's tiny city streets.
It was movies like the Fast and the Furious
that really instilled a love for JDM cars when I was young.
Who can forget those black Civics driving under semi trucks.
If you haven't seen the wheelhouse where I ranked
all of the cars driven in the Fast and Furious,
I've put a link right here and in this description.
Well, turns out the same thing was happening in Japan
but with American muscle cars.
There's a small yet obsessively passionate group
of young drivers that take American cars like Challengers,
Camaros, and Mustangs
and customized them in a uniquely Japanese way.
It's an unlikely cultural exchange,
considering that American cars have a reputation in Japan
for being inefficient, unreliable
and unnecessarily expensive.
The cars most likely to fall within that description
are muscle cars.
It costs a ton to own these cars in Japan
because the higher the displacement your engine is,
the more taxes you end up paying.
And I don't know if you know anything about muscle cars,
but these engines are huge
compared to the average Japanese car.
The annual road tax, as it's called,
is about 34,500 Yen or about $310
for engines between one and one and a half liters.
The tax goes up for every half liter on top of that.
That means if you own a Camaro SS
with a six point two liter V8,
you're gonna be paying a pretty Yenny
every year just to drive it.
I would not want to have a big-block Mopar over there.
So as a result, the muscle cars you see in Japan
are pristine and perfectly maintained.
These muscle cars are very rare to spot
and stick out like a sore thumb,
but a part of the car community over there nonetheless.
The Daikanyama Morning Cruise in Tokyo
is a bi-monthly car meetup that has gained notoriety
for how diverse their parking lots get.
They've had over 76 different themed meetups,
but one of the most popular events they held
was for pre-1975 American Muscle cars.
And something you might not have known about
big classic American cars in Japan,
they used to be associated with the Yakuza.
Although they're not muscle cars,
Japanese organized crime preferred huge American cars
like Cadillacs and Lincolns always painted black.
The land boats symbolized power
and they were sometimes seen blocking off streets,
so the rest of them can cruise slowly
in a show of dominance.
That would be pretty scary I'm not gonna lie.
It was so well known that these cars specifically
couldn't Park in certain parking lots.
The perceived association with the Yakuza
and American cars is slowly fading over there though,
as a new wave of American Car enthusiasts
is helping to change that image, that's very cool.
But let's be honest,
if you see a blacked-out Lincoln Continental anywhere,
I'm gonna assume that anyone who drives it is gangster as
(bleep)
That's a mean, evil looking car, and i want one.
We've talked about these cars before
and I'll talk about them again and again until I die.
I love Dajibans.
This is a fun community of racing enthusiasts
that take old, short-wheelbase Dodge vans, Dajibans
and turn them into absolute track monsters.
These are sick!
They lower them, swap the engine for a big V8,
oftentimes a 318 Magnum, great choice.
They tune them and then throw on some wide ass race tires,
RS watanabes, and Ferrari brakes.
I love these things.
It all started with a group of motorcycle racers.
They would haul their bikes to the track
in the back of their Dodge vans
and then one day, they were messing around,
just chilling, and someone did a hot lap in the van.
After Surprising finish and a bunch of laughs,
they started modifying their vans instead their bikes,
and eventually they started racing each other.
The race, which would look out a place
at any other Japanese raceway,
found a home at Ebisu,
a collection of around 10 different courses
in the Fukushima Prefecture.
This is where a group of Dajiban owners regularly gather
to race their highly modified vans.
They are definitely aware of how ridiculous it is
and the mood is lighthearted.
But that doesn't stop them from racing their (beep) off.
Drivers spend crazy money to make this vans
as fast as possible for the track
and it's one of the coolest things that I can think of.
There's one shop in particular
that specializes in converting these Dodge ram vans
called Abe Chuuko Kamotsu,
or Abe Secondhand Cargo Van in Japanese,
located in the epicenter of Dajiban racing,
a suburb of Tokyo called Komae.
The shop is owned by a dude named Abe Takuro,
a guy who loves Dodge vans more than anyone else.
His shop has ventured into modifying Astro vans as well,
which is sick and it honestly looks like so much fun,
I would love to build a Dajiban someday.
Maybe I should get one soon. No. stop (beep).
Jeeps are some of the most common American cars in Japan.
Wranglers and Renegades are becoming more popular every year
for a number of reasons.
The main one being,
Jeep is actively catering to the Japanese market
(foreign language)
They offer nav systems with Japanese installed.
All their models come with right hand drive,
and jeep is the first American company
to qualify for Japan's green car tax incentive, very cool.
It's things like this that help the Jeep Cherokee,
to become the first American car company
to make the ten best list in Japan in 2014.
I would've never guessed that that would happen.
If you think about it,
the Wrangler makes a lot of sense in Japan.
It's the most compact Jeep model,
it's got a small turning radius, relatively speaking,
and they make specialized folding mirrors
because Jeep understands how important that is
for parking on tight city streets.
Jeeps are also iconic cars.
Japanese drivers love them
because they're uniquely American
(eagle screeching)
and they symbolize the rugged outdoor lifestyle
that many city dwellers romanticize about,
same thing is true for LA,
there really isn't nothing better than driving
a Jeep around LA, it's lovely.
Jeep groups regularly meet up around Japan
and show off their JKs, YJs, CJs and TJs.
There are a few places you can test your Jeeps
off-road capabilities scattered across Japan as well.
There are tons of videos of people driving
on skinny mountain roads on the side of cliffs
and through claustrophobic tunnels,
just big enough for a Wrangler, no thanks.
Feeling claustrophobic as it, whatever, having this screen
(beep).
(upbeat music)
By now you probably all seen that vice documentary
about lowriders in japan.
Big American lowriders have gained
a huge following over there
and continues to grow in popularity.
Lowriders started in Los Angeles in the 1940s
as a form of rebellion.
White car enthusiasts at the time
were making their cars faster
and beefing up suspension.
But Latinos cut their springs, lowered their cars
and drove slower as a sort of F you.
The 1980s, lowrider culture had blossomed in the US.
Across the pacific, Japan's economy around the same time
was at a all time high
and importers started shipping over classic American cars
like the Impala and Ford's Mercury.
It became the dream to own these Low,
candy painted customs for car enthusiasts
like Junichi Shimodaira,
the owner of Paradise Road, a shop that imports
and customizes American lowriders for use in Japan.
Junichi traveled to the West Coast of the US
in the early '80s to see the lowrider scene for himself.
He met with the lowrider owner
and got to know them and their cars
and the knowledge
and experiences he brought back helped him
when he started Pharaohs,
one of Japan's first lowrider clubs.
While they'll customize any American car,
they specialized in Bombs,
American cars from the '30s, '40s and '50s.
In the 1990s, lowriders started popping up
in the mainstream Hip-hop music videos in the US.
Hip-hop fans in Japan wanted to emulate
their favorite American rappers.
Some lowrider fans in Japan
dressed in stereotypical Mexican gangster fashion
and name their cars like gangster pimp,
hell yeah.
(laughing)
Look, we go cuckoo over JDM cars in America.
Up until a few years ago,
it seemed like a one-sided love affair.
But it's really cool to know
that car enthusiast over in Japan
love the same American cars we love.
It's also really cool to see how they customize these cars
in such a uniquely Japanese way,
stuff that we would never see in the US.
It makes me go,
yeah, I guess Camaro can look like a JDM car.
That's what it's all about man.
We all love the same things.
We live in different places
but we all appreciate the vroom vroom.
I love it and I think it's beautiful.
Speaking of scooters,
we did a bumper to bumper on some Bosozoku
inspired scooters.
Check that out right here
and check out this episode of our newest show right here,
it's really great.
Follow me on instagram @nolanjsykes,
and on twitter, follow Donut @donutmedia.
Be nice, be kind, I'll see you next time.