They were all left-hand-drive, and they still had the huge thirsty V-8s that were walloping folks in the pocketbook on both sides of the Pacific. These cars were modified to fit JDM specification, and ended up with a hodgepodge of sidemarkers and other requirements of Japanese road laws, including, in one case, some parts from a Nissan Skyline.īeyond minor tweaks and the affixing of Japanese language labels here and there, these cars were the same as US buyers got. For the Mustang, it was just three years, from 1971-1973, generally very high option cars sold by Ford for maximum profit. Private imports by Japanese enthusiasts are relatively common, and if you walk through downtown Tokyo, you might stumble across a Dodge Ram or a Chevrolet Astro van looking like supersized kei cars.īut for the likes of the Ford Mustang and the Pontiac Firebird/Trans Am, there existed a very small official import business in the 1970s. The First-Generation Honda Civic Changed the WorldĮxactly how many American heavy hitters made it across the Pacific is hard to pin down. And, for a brief time, a blue Pontiac Trans Am would carry the title of the fastest car on the road in Japan. Eventually, they would give rise to one of the most notorious underground street racing teams of the 1980s and 1990s. These big V-8 coupes weren't dinosaurs, they were the imports. In a strange twist, Pontiacs and Fords and Chevrolets were at the heart of Japanese modifying and racing culture in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Honda was not the only Firebird fan in Japan.

Honda loved his Firebird dearly, and called it “Yakitori,” which is Japanese for “grilled chicken.” So inspired was he by his Pontiac, that he ended up using a similar front design for the Honda 1300, a small coupe that predates the Civic and Honda's first “real” car.

According to Honda historians in Japan, Dr. Yes, that Soichiro Honda, he of the globe-spanning Super Cub and the feisty front-wheel-drive Civic. Meanwhile in Japan, what was Soichiro Honda driving? A Pontiac Firebird. Fleet of foot and fun to drive, Japanese compacts were the right way to stave off high fuel prices, and the public snapped them up. The factories of the Big Three kept pumping out lumpen steel dinosaurs, while little Japanese cars overran them. By now, all Firebird trim levels got four-wheel disc brakes with dual-piston front calipers and larger rotors at each wheel with ABS.In America, the 1970s were an era where domestic automakers lost battle after battle. As before, the Formula and Trans Am received a close derivative of the Corvette's LS1 5.7-liter V8, as the LT1 V8s were discontinued. Sharp edges were smoothened to make them more in line with the late-nineties automotive trends. The fourth-gen was, in many ways, a refined approach. The third-gen featured an array of engine options ranging from economic inline-4s to powerful V8s. Folks at GM even thought of bringing a more efficient front-wheel-drive layout to the F-body platform, which later ended up getting scrapped. The third-gen Firebird came during a time when fuel economy and efficiency were of prime importance. The ‘90s saw two generations of the Firebird: the third generation, which was on sale from 1982 to 1992, and the fourth generation, from 1993 to 2002.

Trans am firebird