TORC All Toyotafest
Long Beach, California
May 9, 2009 -
Words: Ben Hsu / Photos: Miles Aquino & Dan Hsu
By popular demand, the All Toyotafest returned to the Long Beach's Queen Mary Park this year. It's a pain for the organizers to funnel everything into such a small space, but their hard work was paid off in full with the best Toyotafest yet.
This year, in addition to the familiar faces of various
daruma Celicas and Frenchy Dehoux's award-winning
Toyopet Crown, there was a sharp rise in the number of Cressidas, Camrys, Starlets and trucks.
Take a look at these
yakuza-worthy MX32s and
MX73 Cressidas, for example. Or if touge racing through mountain passes is more your thing, you'd probably like this flared
KP61 Starlet with period-correct TOM'S wheels and what appears to be a 4A-G. In contrast, this
dragstrip demon stands ready to spin its rear tires into expansion.
Corollas are a mainstay of Toyotafest, but whereas TE27s used to dominate, this year there were beautiful examples of
KE10s,
TE51s, and
TE71s. Of course, there were some deliciously ripe
mangos as well. For Celicas, it was interesting to see
Toysport's 152e-powered beast.
Modified cars are all well and good, but for purists it was hard to top this all
original second-gen Corolla or this
super-clean Starlet. The rarest cars of the show were a pair of car-based pickups: Mooneyes' beautifully restored
S40 Crown pickup fresh off the boat from Yokohama, and a
Toyota Publica pickup that was a New Mexico barn find.
We love the fact that this show welcomes anything that falls under the Toyota marque. Datsun owners have the numbers to hold model-specific shows, but in doing so they lack the diversity of an event like Toyotafest, where there is never a shortage of cars to look at.
In these tough economic times, it's really saying a lot that the organizers at the Toyota Owners' and Restorers' Club were able to pull off a spectacular show that outdoes the previous 13 Toyotafests. They didn't even charge any admission! If you enjoyed the event, please let contact them via the
TORC website and give them some words of encouragment so that it will be even bigger and better next year.