10 Modern JDM Cars and How to Actually Get One

Search “modern JDM cars” and you mostly get 1990s legends that just crossed the US 25-year import line. Those cars are great. They’re also not modern, and “newly legal to import” is a different question from “can I buy one this year.”

This list sticks to current and recent Japanese performance cars, roughly 2015 onward. For each one, you’ll see what’s under the hood, what it costs, and whether it’s sold in your market or stuck in Japan.

TL;DR

• Best all-rounder you can buy new: Toyota GR86 / Subaru BRZ. About 228 hp, manual gearbox, around $30,000.
• Best hot hatch: Honda Civic Type R for daily driving, Toyota GR Corolla for traction and attitude.
• Most power for the money: Nissan Z, 400 hp from a twin-turbo V6, from the low $40,000s.
• The one to import (UK and elsewhere): Toyota GR Yaris. It isn’t sold in the US and won’t be legal there until 2045.
• The one that’s gone: the R35 GT-R. Production ended in 2025, and a successor has no date.
• The one you can’t have in the US for a long time: Honda S660, legal under the 25-year rule in 2040.

Table of Contents

• What counts as modern JDM
• The 10 modern JDM cars
• What “JDM” means for a car built today
• Buying guide: new, imported, or not yet
• What’s coming next

What counts as modern JDM

JDM stands for Japanese Domestic Market: cars built and sold in Japan. Strictly, a car only counts if it was made for Japanese buyers. Enthusiasts use the term loosely for any Japanese performance car, and so do we here.

The working definition for this list is a car launched around 2015 or later, or still in production today. Two groups fall under it:

1. Sold new in your market. Walk into a dealer, sign the papers. The GR86, Civic Type R and Nissan Z live here.
2. Japan-only or limited export. The Honda S660 and the Toyota Crown Sedan never officially left the home market. You import them, or you don’t get them.

The distinction matters because the first group is a purchase decision and the second is a legal one.

The 10 modern JDM cars

1. Toyota GR Supra

The Supra is the controversial one. Under the skin it’s a BMW: the B58 inline-six and the chassis architecture it shares with the Z4, assembled by Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria. Purists complained. Then they drove it, and most of the complaints got quieter. The B58 is smooth, torquey and tunes easily, and a six-speed manual arrived for the 2023 model year.

• Engine: 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-six
• Power: 382 hp, 368 lb-ft
• Drivetrain: Rear-wheel drive, 6-speed manual or 8-speed automatic
• Price: Mid-$50,000s and up
• Sold new in: US, UK, Europe, Japan

2. Toyota GR86 and Subaru BRZ

The GR86 and BRZ are one car with two badges, co-developed by Toyota and Subaru and built at Subaru’s plant in Gunma. The current generation fixed the original 86‘s one real complaint, the torque dip in the midrange, by growing the flat-four from 2.0 to 2.4 liters. It weighs about 2,800 lb and the steering is the point of the whole exercise.

Toyota tunes the GR86 a bit sharper. Subaru softens the BRZ’s rear for easier slides. Pick the badge you like.

• Engine: 2.4-liter naturally aspirated flat-four
• Power: 228 hp, 184 lb-ft
• Drivetrain: Rear-wheel drive, 6-speed manual or 6-speed automatic
• Price: Around $30,000
• Sold new in: US, UK, Japan

3. Toyota GR Corolla

A hatchback with a 1.6-liter three-cylinder makes roughly 300 hp, which works out to nearly 190 hp per liter. That engine came from the rally program. So did the GR-Four all-wheel-drive system, which lets you shift the front-to-rear torque split by hand, from 60/40 to 30/70 for the rear-biased setting.

Toyota added an eight-speed automatic in recent model years, but the manual is the one that matters.

• Engine: 1.6-liter turbocharged three-cylinder
• Power: Around 300 hp, 273 lb-ft (manual)
• Drivetrain: All-wheel drive, 6-speed manual or 8-speed automatic
• Price: High $30,000s and up
• Sold new in: US, Canada, Japan

4. Toyota GR Yaris

The GR Yaris is the same engine family in a smaller, lighter, three-door body, and it’s the better car for it. Toyota’s 2024 update lifted output to about 276 hp and 288 lb-ft, and the homologation special remains a car you can drive on the road with real rally DNA.

The catch for American readers: it was never sold in the US. For UK, European and Australian buyers, it’s an ordinary dealer purchase.

• Engine: 1.6-liter turbocharged three-cylinder
• Power: About 276 hp, 288 lb-ft
• Drivetrain: All-wheel drive, 6-speed manual or 8-speed automatic
• Price: High-£30,000s and up (UK)
• Sold new in: Japan, UK, Europe, Australia (not the US)

5. Honda Civic Type R

The current FL5 Civic Type R is the benchmark front-wheel-drive car. Its 2.0-liter turbo makes 315 hp through a six-speed manual with automatic rev-matching, and the front axle somehow handles that much torque without drama. It’s also the only car on this list you can daily without apology: the hatch seats five and the trunk is real.

Compare it with the GR Corolla and the choice is simple. The Honda is sharper on a clean road and calmer in traffic. The Toyota gives you all-wheel drive for rain and snow, and a slightly rougher personality.

• Engine: 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder
• Power: 315 hp, 310 lb-ft
• Drivetrain: Front-wheel drive, 6-speed manual
• Price: Mid-$40,000s
• Sold new in: US, UK, Europe, Japan

6. Nissan Z

The Z is a heavy facelift of the 370Z’s bones with a new engine: the 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 from the Infiniti Q50 and Q60 Red Sport, rated at 400 hp. It’s the least reinvented car here, and the cheapest way to get this much power in a manual rear-drive coupe. The NISMO version adds 20 hp, but only with the automatic.

In Japan it still goes by Fairlady Z.

• Engine: 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged V6
• Power: 400 hp, 350 lb-ft (NISMO: 420 hp)
• Drivetrain: Rear-wheel drive, 6-speed manual or 9-speed automatic
• Price: Low $40,000s and up
• Sold new in: US, Canada, Japan

7. Nissan GT-R (R35)

The R35 arrived in Japan in late 2007 and kept selling into 2025, an 18-year run. The 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6 started with 480 hp and ended at 565 hp, or 600 in NISMO form, through a dual-clutch gearbox and all-wheel drive. Its age shows in the cabin. Its pace still doesn’t.

Production has ended and Nissan has said a successor is coming, but it has committed to no date. Expect used prices to behave like those of a discontinued icon.

• Engine: 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged V6
• Power: 565 hp (NISMO: 600 hp)
• Drivetrain: All-wheel drive, 6-speed dual-clutch
• Price: Above $120,000 when new
• Sold new in: No longer in production

8. Mazda MX-5 Miata (ND)

Four generations in, the ND-generation MX-5 (2015 onward) is still the lightest car on this list, and the only one with a convertible roof as standard. The US gets a 2.0-liter four with 181 hp. Japan gets a 1.5-liter version, which is the one Japanese buyers choose because of tax brackets. It sounds slow. It’s not the point.

• Engine: 2.0-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder (US)
• Power: 181 hp, 151 lb-ft
• Drivetrain: Rear-wheel drive, 6-speed manual or 6-speed automatic
• Price: Around $30,000
• Sold new in: Global, as the Roadster in Japan

9. Toyota Crown

The Crown isn’t a performance car, and that’s why it belongs. It’s the Japanese domestic sedan: the nameplate has run since 1955, and the current generation split into Crossover, Sport, Sedan and Estate bodies. The US gets the Crossover, including a 340 hp turbo-hybrid, and the Estate as the Crown Signia. The Sedan stays largely in Japan and a few Asian and Middle East markets, with a hybrid or hydrogen fuel-cell powertrain.

It’s what the home market actually drives, which is the original meaning of “domestic.”

• Engine: 2.5-liter hybrid (Sedan); 2.4-liter turbo hybrid (Crossover Hybrid Max)
• Power: Roughly 240 hp (Sedan); 340 hp (Crossover Hybrid Max)
• Drivetrain: Rear- or all-wheel drive, automatic
• Price: Crossover from the low $40,000s (US); Sedan from about 7 million yen (Japan)
• Sold new in: Crossover in the US; Sedan mostly Japan

10. Honda S660

A mid-engine, rear-drive roadster with a 660 cc turbo triple. The S660 is the kei-car answer to the Beat, built from 2015 until Honda ended production in 2022. Kei rules cap power at 64 PS, so it makes about 63 hp and 77 lb-ft. At roughly 1,800 lb, it’s quick enough to be fun at legal speeds and small enough to park in a gap that isn’t a space.

It never left Japan officially. It won’t be US-legal under the 25-year rule until 2040.

• Engine: 0.66-liter turbocharged three-cylinder
• Power: About 63 hp, 77 lb-ft
• Drivetrain: Mid-engine, rear-wheel drive, 6-speed manual or CVT
• Price: Roughly 2 million yen when new
• Sold new in: Japan only (production ended 2022)

What “JDM” means for a car built today

Here’s the part most listicles skip. Strictly speaking, a US-spec GR86 is not JDM. It’s a US-market car that happens to be Japanese.

For most of the cars on this list, though, the difference is small. The GR86, Civic Type R and Nissan Z are the same cars sold in Japan, with minor changes to bumpers, lighting, emissions hardware and sometimes power ratings. The 1990s idea of “JDM” meant a different, hotter car than the export version. That gap has mostly closed, because manufacturers now build one global platform and tune it for regulations.

What’s still genuinely domestic: kei cars like the S660, limited editions sold only in Japan, and body styles and trims that skip the export markets entirely. If you want the original meaning of JDM, that’s where to look.

Buying guide: new, imported, or not yet

Buy new if the car is on the sold-in-your-market list above. The GR86, Civic Type R, Nissan Z, Supra, GR Corolla and MX-5 all have dealer warranties and normal financing in the US. The GR Yaris is the same in the UK.

Import if you want something that isn’t sold locally. The rules depend on where you live:

• United States: The US 25-year rule exempts vehicles at least 25 years old from federal safety standards, as NHTSA explains, counted from the month of manufacture. The EPA separately exempts vehicles over 21 years old from emissions rules. In practice, 25 is the number you’re bound by. In 2026 that means cars built in 2001; a 2015 S660 is legal in 2040, and a 2020 GR Yaris in 2045.
• Canada: The cutoff is 15 years, so a 2015 S660 or an early ND MX-5 import becomes eligible around 2030.
• UK: There’s no age cutoff of this kind, but newer imports need approval testing. Right-hand-drive Japanese cars are a natural fit, which is why Japan-only models turn up there far more often.

Not yet: every modern Japan-only car in the US. Companies selling a “modern JDM import” to American buyers are either selling a pre-2001 car, or selling a car that can’t be registered. The only exceptions are narrow federal programs like Show or Display, which cover a small number of historically significant vehicles and are not a route for a normal buyer.

Shipping and import costs vary, so price a landed car, not the car on a Japanese auction site. Check parts and service support before you commit. A Japan-only hybrid can be hard to repair outside Japan.

What’s coming next

Several cars sit just beyond what you can buy:

• A new GT-R. Nissan has confirmed it wants a successor to the R35, with no firm timeline.
• Toyota’s GR GT. Toyota’s new flagship, revealed in late 2025 with a hybrid twin-turbo V8, and a Lexus LFA successor to go with it.
• A smaller Toyota GR. A GR Yaris-sized hot hatch below the Yaris, usually called the GR Starlet, remains rumored and unconfirmed.

Until those arrive, the cars above are the modern JDM lineup. The best value is the GR86 or BRZ. The best daily driver is the Civic Type R. The one to chase, if you live somewhere that allows it, is the GR Yaris.