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About Japanese Tuning Archive |
Japanese Tuning Archive is a retro-styled website to capture the creativity of old internet. I love old internet. It was such a different place. Even with limitations of space and speed, there was so much out there. It was a new world and the creativity of what people put out there made for some of the best content.
Part of JTA is to have those presentations preserved here at least on the visual level. A lot of cool and amazing ideas on the internet have been lost and forgotten. From my perspective, I want to keep some of these things alive. As many people are starting to scan magazines and other media, there is a sense of preservation. Some of the scanned materials are from an era before the internet and are limited to print media (magazines). There is a sense of bringing these things to light.
- Pay tribute and homage to the Japanese tuning scene.
- Pay tribute and homage to the companies.
- Pay tribute and homage to the people that build the industry.
- Preserve content and information.
- Bridge the generational differences.
While it is a daunting task that requires passion and dedication, many aspects of the past were amazing and it was kindled my interest into Japanese cars, tuning and the related scenes.
History of JTA and I Heart Japanese cars |
In 1999, my friend Mege-san in Japan and I were exchanging magazines. He was a Nissan guy and into drifting. I was part of the Import scene which in America, was mostly about Hondas (body kits and drag racing). Mege-san influenced me to look into other cars. In 2000, I bought a brand new Civic Hatchback, but I also got my 1st Nissans, A 280z and 280zx.
Owning the Z cars (at the time) lead me to try to learn more about them. During that time, only 2 groups of people offered insight. Pure Datsun enthusiasts and muscle car guys that wanted to put Chevy 350s to make a Poor man's Corvette. As I started to learn about the Z cars, I started to learn from the enthusiasts and purists. It lead me to a whole new appreciation for cars. On the international end, I started to surf (old term) alot of the Japanese homepages and websites to learn about different cars that were never offered in North America. I started to take notes of the various cars and attached communities. One of the coolest things I learned was that a lot of cars had their owner's club.
To this day... I've had an interest in all Japanese cars and tuning. Obviously some styles more than others.
I used to keep cars and info written down in a notebook in 2000. I lost that notebook when I moved. I was busy with school and family, so I decided to stop all my hobbies.
In late 2014, I was inspired to learn about cars then and so I started a blogger/blogspot.
I heart Japanese Cars
I then got busy with rebuiding F31club and going to Japan. Now, I've decided to rebuild all the info into this website.
Old Style
Why old style website? I personally feel that these websites are not as cookie cutter as today's. While not as easy to make, at least it gives a different feel.
Organized
Why not social media? Current Social media feels more visual to me. It is also very overwhelming and you can get lost at times (like group pages). For me, this isn't about likes or hearts. It is about preservation of information.
History
In my past ideas of collecting information, it was about having it accessible and to read it like a history book. Especially since I came up in the 2000s era.
Continuation
Even now, Japanese car tuning keeps getting very interesting. People's fabrication skills, new technology and refreshing ideas have helped keep pushing the scene forward. It is very exciting.
Zymic offered a large amount of quality free templates the early 2000s. This is one of Zymic's templates.
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