| Categories | Automobile |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Monthly |
| First issue | 1987 |
| Final issue | 2011 |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Website | http://www.bestmotoring.jp/ |
Best Motoring (ベストモータリング Besuto Mōtaringu) was Japan's preeminent automobile magazine, video, and DVD series. Alongside Best Motoring were Hot Version and Video Special. With the first edition debuting in 1995 and the last in 2011, the videos were marked by non traditional races and challenges such as Touge battles, in which one car tries to outrun another on a twisty mountain pass. The drivers were the premier racers of the various Japanese racing series, including JGTC (now Super GT), the D1 Grand Prix, and Formula Nippon. Some of the regular hosts/drivers included the 'Drift King' Keiichi Tsuchiya, Manabu Orido, and Juichi Wakisaka.
Best Motoring, Hot Version and Video Special were all produced by Kodansha/2&4 Motoring.
In April 2000, Taro Koki founded Zigzag Asia and took international distribution rights for Best Motoring, creating Best Motoring International (BMI). Initial releases were dubbed entirely in English, and some might say suffered from poor voice acting/editing. From volume 3 onwards they settled on having an English narrator and retained the original Japanese audio for the presenters, using subtitles for translation instead of dubbing. International automotive editor Sam Mitani has also appeared on the series.
The Japanese version of Best Motoring was a monthly video series covering mainly non-tuned factory cars, whereas Hot Version (ホットバージョン) was the bi-monthly video series testing mainly tuned cars. Video Special was yet another video series that was released irregularly and usually focused on a particular car model.
The other differences between the two are that the English version did not refer its series by volume number
Other spinoffs series included quarter-yearly Racing History, released in 2005, was dedicated to the historical aspect of Japanese motorsport.
Best Motoring International was an English compilation of various video clips from all three of the Japanese video magazines, Best Motoring, Hot Version and Video Special.
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