As I got closer to the infamous RWB HQ in the quaint town of Kashiwa just north of Tokyo, the smell of barbecue filled the muggy air. It was night before the grueling Idlers 12 Hours race held every year at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit, and I had joined the RWB guys as they prepped to head up to the track.
This looks like a Lamborghini Miura Jota SVR, but it’s not a Lamborghini Miura Jota SVR. It’s not a replica, or a kit car. It wasn’t made with revolutionary and dangerous shrink ray technology. It’s simply the work of a man who grew up dreaming of owning a Miura Jota SVR, but it was always just out of his reach. So he…
I’ve always been deeply interested in Italy. The history, the cars, the food, the people, their unique way of life, I just loved all of it. For years I’ve wanted to go experience it, and recently I spent 12 days exploring most of Northern Italy driving between Milan, Modena, and the northern lakes. I drove the whole…
My search for the best driving roads in Japan hasn’t gone quite as well as I had hoped. So far the biggest problem I’ve faced was traffic getting to the roads themselves. When I went to the Hakone Turnpike in the MX-5 Miata RF it was raining, but that’s not really a deal breaker as it was quite fun in the wet. Going…
Every now and then there’ll be a weekend where the whole world gets together and dials its car culture all the way to 11—or in this case, seven. That’s what 7s Day is; a giant celebration of Mazda rotary engines on the weekend of July 7 and 8 that happens in many cities, including New York. But here’s what went down…
I like museums as much as the next guy. Yes, even the ones with paintings of people who are most likely dead now and dinosaur skeletons. It’s a glimpse into artifacts from a bygone era and usually one of the few opportunities to see rare and exciting things. Sometimes they can be quite surprising, and also indicative…
In a country with a rich automotive history as Italy, there are bound to be some special automotive museums scattered around the place. On my last trip to Italy I went to some of the more obvious ones such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Pagani. This trip I was in search of some lesser known museums. And located in the…
Quite literally around the corner from Italy’s Zagato, in the same Arese industrial complex, in an equally unassuming building is Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera. Much like their neighbors Touring, is an independent run coachbuilder. The difference is at first glance Touring appears to be a much smaller operation,…
If there’s one thing I learned on my recent trip to Italy, it’s that style matters. Looking good is more important than looking where you’re going. So it’s no wonder the storied art of coachbuilding—creating customized bodies for cars—is still well and truly alive in the nondescript town of Arese, Northern Italy. Here…
Life, as they say, is full of surprises. But how many of them are genuine? Every now and then something pops up that’ll genuinely catch you off guard. That’s the case with my recent drive on the Akagi touge, or officially known as the Joumo-Sanzan Panorama Highway, in the 2018 Honda Civic Type R. And it’s where I…
The Tokyo Wan Aqua-Line Expressway connects Tokyo to Chiba, and boasts a six-mile long underwater tunnel—the fourth-longest in the world. I’m driving a bright green Lamborghini Gallardo Balboni following a gold Aventador S. We’re doing, well, let’s just say literally some speed in the tunnel, when all of a sudden a…
Ask anyone where their dream driving road is and they’ll probably tell you it’s somewhere in Europe. Perhaps somewhere near the Alps, or that one road in Romania that was on Top Gear with the impossibly long name. Some might say the Pacific Coast Highway in California or Route 66. But most probably wouldn’t say Japan.…
Villa d’Este brings up all those romantic images of Italy. The villa itself is 145 years old and surrounded by a private park and overlooks Lake Como—you know, the place where George Clooney has a house. It’s all very fancy like and the perfect place for a “competition of elegance,” a Concours d’Elegance, if you…
In Japan, the festival for all things cars at the foot of Mount Fuji is quickly becoming one of the must-see events on the motoring calendar, right up there with the Tokyo Auto Salon and the Suzuka Sound of Engine. That event, the Motor Fan Festa, was a lot like last year’s—only a lot better.
Following all the cars I saw on the road in Melbourne and beyond, I had some time to kill after the Pagani rally wrapped up. So in between sightseeing and visiting some art galleries, I went around some of the showrooms in the city. As great as it was to see some of the local culture out in the wild, the best stuff…
Australia: home to some of the weirdest and most dangerous animals in the world, kangaroo-proofing for SUVs, and the world’s largest supplier of Hemsworths. For a country with as much land and space as Australia there’s one thing they’ve been short on—Paganis. Before this year the total number of Paganis in Australia…
What comes to mind when you think of Australia? Kangaroos, summer in December and doing the Locomotion, perhaps? For those not in the know, the car scene is probably not something that comes to mind. But after spending a week in Melbourne recently I found out it’s more than just utes and V8s—it’s just mostly utes and…
Have you ever seen a Tasmanian Tiger? Probably not. Neither have I, and that’s because they’re extinct. I didn’t know these even existed at all until my recent trip to Australia, where I also got to know another extinct beast a little bit better: the Holden HSV GTS.
When I got an invitation from Yasu-san, a member of the Supercar Club of Japan, to check out “an afternoon of about 100 supercars on Fuji Speedway,” I thought about it. For about one second. How could I refuse an offer like that?
It’s an usually warm spring day in Tokyo. After a few days of winter refusing to relinquish the cold weather, we suddenly experienced temperatures in the high teens, or the mid-60s if Fahrenheit is your jam. Either way, I’m standing at an intersection in the Tsukiji district of Tokyo, famous for having the world’s…
