80s & 90s JDM Cars

A Shrine

I've been obsessed with mechanical things ever since I was 8. Dismantling things and reassembling them.

It's only natural that I'd gravitate toward cars. Specifically from the most well engineered time and place.

The 80s was the absolute peak of Japans economy and the shining moment for their tech.

• Four-Wheel Steering (4WS): Honda 1989
• Touch Screen Dash (it was CRT): Toyota 1987.
• Heads Up Display: Nissan 1988.
• The Incredible 2JZ-GTE engine: Toyota & Yamaha 1991

Japan was cooking, just because they could. It pushed the car industry without fears of corporate overreach and profit margins the way it does (with all cars) today.


This is Daikoku Parking area around the 90s. A section of industrial area out of the city that the police left them to enjoy. Car enthusiasts met here with their new cars and new modifications and shared their passions. Driving away at the end of the night to their homes up north in Tokyo.


This is the back of my bald head in 2025 at the same place. Like a kid in a candy store, I paid half a 50,000 Yen to get locals to drive my friends and I here (now unavailable to Gaijin) to wander around obsessing over the world that car enthusiasts refuse to let go of.

Not many cars here from outside the 80s and 90s... I wonder why?

My first Interesting car was a $900 Toyota Celica. ST204. And it was basically a glorified Camry on sports suspension and grippy wheels. But fiddling with this car and selling it for $3500 made me realise that this was a hobby I could not only afford, but make enough money to justify doing with my low financial status.

Enter Cressida

I came across an ad on marketplace. 20 minutes after it was posted.
"1989 Toyota cressida"... It had 150,000 Kilometers. I begged the seller to let me send him a deposit. He declined but held the car for my arrival.

It was love at first sight
As soon as I walked up to this beautiful example of a granny-spec 1989 luxury sedan, I pulled my wallet out and handed the whole asking price over immediately. as soon as i opened the door to see the perfect condition brown and beige interior, I sat down in the driver seat and continued the small talk half-aware of what the car scrapper who had picked it up for $500 the day before.

it was the smoothest, most comfortable car i ever thought id be in
After I bought Eve a 1996 Toyota Celica for her 2nd car, she got that itch. The slightest understanding that these cars each had a personality, and so she set her sights on the MX5. The most kawaii car that could ever be conceived. She found one in Townsville and told me "There's no way we'll ever find one cheaper" So I called the seller, who only had it on an old website for sale. Sent him $1000 deposit and headed north.

I drove 11 hours and we slept in the back of my ute before doing the last 2 hours in the morning. When we got there, the Miata was in much worse shape than advertised. Almost too scary to try to drive home. But the seller decided to discount the car by $2000 and we ran to the local auto store for coolant, spare belts and fluids, and hit the road. The most kilometers this car had done in 10 years, was done over the next 4 days.

When we got home, I called in a dodgy safety certificate and registered it the next day. that afternoon, Eve called me crying "It's fucked... I fucked up and the car is fucked" I rushed over to her location, thinking she'd been in an accident on her first day with the car, only to find her in a carpark, parked in a puddle of coolant.
"I made us spend all our money on a car thats not good" Eve was crying as she walked u to me for a hug
"Honey..." I assured her "It's just a radiator hose, There's gonna be heaps of little things we'll need to fix on this old thing.
I got some tools out of my ute and reattached the hose with a screwclamp, filled the radiator with water and got Eve to follow me home.

After a few thousand dollars worth of mods and backyard paint work, Eve was deep into the car community. Going to meets and everything. I decided to get myself an old car with some street cred so we could enjoy the culture together...

The 1989 ED Honda Civic was a $400 buy that I felt i wouldn't hold onto long. But with some cheap coilovers and some tampering with the twin CV carbs that fuelled this little clapped beast, I decided to keep it for a while. It was a lot of fun. I bought some Mugen CF-48 rims and tinted all the windows and the windsheild. threw some better audio and a subwoofer in there, and got the AC fixed. It was the greatest car I ever drove with a hangover. Slow, high fidelity music with a coffee, 2 painkillers and some water. This drive home on Sunday mornings was a reminder of how beautiful life could still be as a broke MF with no prospects for a good future.