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Greg Mathews is building a digital archive of Drift Tengoku, a Japanese magazine devoted to drifting that published from April 1996 to February 2024. He has collected around 400 issues and is scanning and translating them; the scans are available on his site, with plans to add the archive to the Internet Archive.
Greg Mathews is scanning and translating the back catalog of Drift Tengoku, a Japanese magazine devoted to drifting that published from April 1996 until February 2024. The project is making the magazine’s pages accessible online, including to readers who cannot read Japanese, and Mathews says he has collected around 400 issues so far.
Mathews subscribed while the magazine was still in print and later acquired more copies through Yahoo Auctions Japan, according to The Drive’s report and the project website, driftmagarchive.com. He scans the issues and uses optical character recognition (OCR) and translation tools to create digital versions that can be read in English. The issues scanned to date are hosted on his personal web server.
The process has changed as Mathews has refined it. A conventional office scanner took about two hours per issue, he told The Drive. He now uses an overhead camera and an app he built that takes a photograph when it detects no movement in front of the camera. He initially bought a dedicated camera for about $100, then switched to a Sony A6300 he already owned because it produced better images.
Mathews told The Drive the project is not a source of income and costs him money. He estimates that keeping the personal site online adds about $5 a month to costs he was already paying. He plans to continue for as long as he enjoys the work. The report says an Internet Archive employee contacted him after seeing one of his TikToks and offered to connect him with volunteers; the archive’s eventual availability there is a plan, not a completed transfer.
Making Drift Tengoku Readable Online
Drift Tengoku’s run covered nearly three decades of Japanese drifting culture. Its printed issues contain material that can be difficult to locate through ordinary web searches, and readers outside Japan may face an additional language barrier. Mathews’s scans and OCR-based translation work offer a way to search and read at least the issues he has processed, rather than relying on surviving physical copies alone.
The project also shows how preservation can depend on individual collectors and volunteer support. Mathews’s collection is substantial, but the report does not say that he has finished scanning every issue. A transfer to the Internet Archive could give the work a larger public home, though no completion date or final scope has been announced.
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From 1996 Print Run to Digital Files
Drift Tengoku—written ドリフト天国 and roughly translated as “Drift Heaven” or “Drift Paradise”—began publication in April 1996 and ended in February 2024. The Drive describes it as the first magazine dedicated to drifting. After subscribing during its publication, Mathews continued building his collection by buying copies in Japan through Yahoo Auctions Japan.
The project has attracted interest beyond Mathews’s own collection. He told The Drive that people contacted him after he began posting about the archive, including people working on similar efforts to scan older car magazines. The report also described a recent Instagram Reel about the project that had received more than 450,000 views at the time of publication. That is a view count for that post, not a measure of archive readership or completed scans.
““There are a couple of Discord groups with people who are scanning old car magazines and stuff like that.””
— Greg Mathews, speaking to The Drive
How Much Remains to Be Scanned
The report does not specify how many issues Drift Tengoku published in total, how many Mathews has scanned, or how much of the magazine’s full run is represented by the roughly 400 copies in his collection. It also does not provide a schedule for completing the scans or the English translations. The number of issues online may change as the project continues.
The Internet Archive’s participation is also still developing. An employee offered to connect Mathews with volunteers, but the report does not confirm that the collection has been transferred, when it might appear there, or what material could be included. The source does not detail the project’s permissions or rights arrangements.
More Scans and a Possible Archive Transfer
Mathews intends to continue scanning while he remains interested, and he is still seeking additional issues for his collection. The immediate next steps are further digitization and translation, with the existing scans remaining available on driftmagarchive.com. Volunteers connected through the Internet Archive could help with the workload, but the report gives no date for that collaboration or for a public Internet Archive collection.
Readers interested in the project can visit the site or contact Mathews through his social channels, as described in The Drive’s report. Until a fuller catalog or transfer is announced, the archive’s scope and pace remain dependent on copies obtained, scanning time, and available assistance.
Key Questions
What is Drift Tengoku?
Drift Tengoku is a Japanese magazine dedicated to drifting. It was published from April 1996 until February 2024.
Who is creating the digital archive?
Greg Mathews, a car enthusiast and software engineer, is collecting, scanning, and translating issues. He hosts the scanned material completed so far on driftmagarchive.com.
How many issues has Mathews collected?
Mathews told The Drive he has around 400 issues in his collection. The report does not say how many he has scanned or how many issues were published overall.
Will the archive be on the Internet Archive?
An Internet Archive employee offered to connect Mathews with volunteers after seeing one of his TikToks. A completed transfer or publication date has not been confirmed.
Can readers access the scans now?
Mathews’s scanned issues are available on driftmagarchive.com. The site contains the issues processed so far, not necessarily the magazine’s complete run.
Source: thedrive.com
