Phunhaus and I got into somehwat of a heated debate as to what exactly jdm was in the midori hatch thread. Under the advice of Munster I am making a thred to continue this discussion because I am interested to understand what the rest of this forum thinks JDM is.
phunhaus puts forth that he belives JDM is nothing more than Japanese domestic market products, bodykits and engine components, that because of the variaty of parts makers in japan JDM could not possibly be a style as tuneshops in japan are making dramatically different products and cars.
While I belive this is a good point I feel that there are a group of generalizations one can make about JDM tuners in the US, that the members of this site, and other sites, have a specific style of japanese tuning in mind when they build up there cars, and this use of jdm parts, as well as specific styles of tuning that are japanese have influence and created a tuning culture that subsiqently is specifrically American.
JDM style as I see it is not japanese in the slightest... in fact is is very much an American "style"
I argue this point by asking anyone who disagrees with me to look at many of the cars in the member rides thred, and notice that these cars all are similar in many ways.
Jorgie's Midori Green Hatch
Jezek's "Bumble Bee Hatch"
JDM Kid's Gold Eg Hatch
Clearly these cars, which were posted in the past month or so, have a very similar style... sure they are all hatches but even then.JDM in the US is in my opinion a legitmate tuning style.
Yes there are many tuners who buy jdm parts, and put them on their cars, but this is not the same as what I am talking about. JDM style in the US is based around a specific trend in japanese auto tuning that occured from the late 90's into the early 2005, now car tuning in japan has dramatically changed, ironically to copy the US "over the top" tuning style made popular by Fast and the Furious.
I dont think that you can say that someone who built the evo from 2f2f but then has a voltex spoiler, though a jdm product, is in the same class as most if not all of the tuners at theJDM.com, and JDM style tuners everywhere.
but hey, thats just me.
What do you guys think?