![]() ![]() Much like the Spanish Inquisition though, nobody expected the first-gen NSX in 1990, sold as a Honda in the home market but badged as an Acura in the US. When Honda launched the Acura sub-brand in 1986, the first ‘high end’ badge for a Japanese carmaker in the US market, their product line was limited to what were essentially optioned-up, very nice versions of the same cars in Honda dealerships. A diminishing US demand and no new-generation JDM model put an end to the Supra, but Toyota revived the name for a rebadged car based on the BMW G29 platform used in the Z4 in 2019, to a decidedly mixed reception among enthusiasts. But the Mark IV Supra would be the defining version of the mark, and from 1993 to 2002 the Supra would arguably rule the Japanese performance car market in the US. Starting out as simply a stretched version of the Celica, the Supra found its true Kung Fu in the third generation cars introduced in 1986 that were split out into their own model line, and a turbocharged engine was offered for the first time. The 2003-2012 RX-8 was the last hurrah for Mazda’s line of flagship sports cars, and even that was more of a grand tourer a far cry from the light, flickable first-gen cars. At the close of the 20th century, Mazda finally began to step away from the rotary due to emissions and fuel economy concerns that were inherently harder to solve than in piston engine designs. With a unique Wankel rotary powerplant that set it apart from anything else available then or now, it built Mazda’s performance reputation in North America through three generations. Vehicle: Mazda RX-7 FDįollowing the trail blazed by the Z-car, Mazda introduced their own sports car to the US market a decade later with the first-gen RX-7. After six generations in the US, the lineal descendant of the original Z, the Nissan 370Z, remains popular, though the mantle of performance and technology leader for the company has finally passed to the GT-R in the US. The first entries on our list are cars that didn’t have to sell in huge numbers in the US (even though some turned out to be wildly popular) because their purpose was to act as flagships for the brand – performance cars that, through association, would help sell the bread-and-butter commuter cars.īy introducing American enthusiasts to the 240Z in 1969, Nissan (known in America as Datsun back then, but that’s a tale for another time) proved that Japanese imports weren’t exclusively cheap, boring economy cars, and that a world-class sports car didn’t need to be expensive, unreliable, or temperamental. But the ones we did get tend to fall into a few very specific categories that made them worth the effort for Japan to export and sell in US showrooms. “Federalizing” an imported model to prove that it meets US crash performance and emissions standards is not an inexpensive or quick process, and as a result many of the wild and wonderful JDM-only models we all lust over were never brought to our shores as new cars. ![]() While there is plenty of money to be made in the US by Japanese manufacturers (especially if they have plants located stateside), the volume of sales required to make an imported car successful absolutely dwarf what would be considered a hit in the home market. To put those numbers into perspective, between the Ford F-series, Dodge Ram, Chevy Silverado, and it’s twin the GMC Sierra, Americans bought more than 2.4 million full-sized domestic-brand pickup trucks alone. It doesn’t take huge numbers of cars sold to make a car a success in Japan – in 2019, just shy of 5.2 million cars were sold there in total, of which nearly 2 million were “Kei” cars designed specifically around a set of tax and registration rules that make these miniature vehicles less expensive to buy and own. The Japanese domestic car market has produced a lot of innovative, cool models over the years, creating JDM gems that never make it to our shores. 10 Amazing JDM Cars, and How We Got to Buy Them Here ![]()
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