I have been reading these forums for a while now and have only today got around to signing up!
Firstly I would like to thank you all. 6 months ago, going on a lot of tips and advice I found on this site, I bought my first car, a Roadster (of course!).
The car had just been resprayed (white, the original colour). It had had one previous (female) owner, 9 months tax, 2 years MOT (sha-ken in Japan), 30,000 miles on the clock. I payed about £2500
I chose the numberplate “39” because in Japanese it is “san-kyu” which is how the Japanese pronounce “Thank you”. I thought it was cute.
In Kyoto I am a member of Club Roadster, Kyoto. This club meets about once a month to go driving they help me a lot with anything to do with my car if we can get around my poor Japanese (otherwise I just use this forum!).
Japan is a great place for mountain driving, there are a lot of very quiet winding roads and with the right guides it makes tourist trips more like touring car trips!
I’d be happy to help anyone with any questions about Japan (if I can) and could even, perhaps, help anyone making a trip here.
Car looks really good in white - and nice freshly painted white at that.
It looks like you’ve had issues with paragraphs in your post - it could be for a couple of reasons, but if you have a look in “Site Options” here, and set the “content editor” to “standard” or “enhanced”, it should sort it.
Cool pictures of the Kyoto MX meet. Boy the Japanese sure know how to modify their cars, i’m loving picture 7, the black mark 1 with the huge rear wheels, strange but nice!!!
Just goes to show even in Japan, what with all the beasty Skyline’s and Supra’s around, the mark 1 MX-5 still has it’s fans:)
Hey Bradley - Im new to the club/forum as well and have just bought my first 5 in Brunei (just down the road!)
Planning trips to Japan in the coming years so Ill have to check out your pics! Also ordering odd parts from Mazda Japan as it seems as cheap as getting them shipped from the UK (new hood etc). If you’ve got any recommendations of online Japanese parts sites (with English translation!) I’d be gratefull!
Thanks for all your welcome messages! This really does seem like a friendly forum
Driving in Japan is an absolute nightmare on their ‘A’ road equivalents (50kmph limits on intercity roads!!!) the motorways are really expensive too, about the same price as a train ticket for the same distance but the ‘B’ road equivalents are amazing! Since the country is mostly mountains you can find some really fun long winding roads! I go touring with a local ‘Kyoto Roadster’ club once a month so I will try to take some photos of the incredible roads and landscapes for you all. This month… snow!!! Studless tires fitted chains in the boot!
Bennyblueshoes> Yeah, they’re pretty into their mods here and there are some way-out body kits about (or aero parts as they call them here)!
Ben Sledon> There are many website for parts here in Japan but not many with English translations… there is one I know of however, Zoom Engineering, it’s not so cheap but they stock a lot of parts and it’s all in English. At the moment the Yen is pretty strong so I’d check the exchange rates, it may be cheaper to ship from home. Anyway, here’s the website http://zoom-eng.com/
Adam> Thanks! I think I’d prefer red if I was living in the UK. White’s not the manliest of colours back home but you can get away with it here!
