EVENTS: Old Car Heaven, Part 02

While Part 01 of our Old Car Heaven coverage concluded with a mob of rare Mitsubishis, we begin this installment along the perimeter of the show and a bevy of box vans. The Nissan Caravans were part of the Nissan Commercial Car Club, as the event celebrated not just vintage cars, but trucks, buses, and 3-wheelers as well. 

As we transitioned from the NCCC to the Nissan Sports Club we passed what appeared to be passable replica of the works Nissan 240RS parked with an actual 240RS.

The popped hoods of GT-Rs of two generations permitted a gaze at immaculate S20 motors.

Next in line was the S20 Club, staffed with the both the popular Hakosuka GT-R and the equally famed but much rarer Z432 and Kemmeri GT-R, forcing regular and genuine G-nosed Fairladys and first-gen Silvia to fade into the background like Tokyo taxis.

Moving onto the busses and trucks, we were surprised to see both an open roofed wedding car (to allow the bride’s headdress to remain chaste and unmolested) and Totoro-san’s official limousine that both he and Chibi Totori use when they venture from the forest to the big city (to cash their royalty checks we assume).

A period bus was used to ferry show patrons from the local train station to the car parking area. Its slow lumbering four wheel drive system a hang-over from its days plying country routes in the snow.

After a brief walk through the moderately priced spare parts and T-shirts (including pirated JNC goods), we breezed past a Porsche 934, a Ferrari F40, and various other Euro exotica. Pausing only briefly to enjoy the ground scraping antics of a shakotan Lotus club as they jockeyed for parking with a Le Mans Porsche 914/6 replica.

Reminiscing with the owner of a 7.0-liter Pontiac Judge GTO — complete with original build list — about high speed runs on the open highways of North America, we both enjoyed the mash-up of pop-culture with KITT as the Initial D tofu delivery service car, complete with Takumi Fujiwara’s fake Japanese license plate sequence.

Foreign cars gave way though to a new range of domestics and a prime example of late 1970s excess – the crushed velour lined Toyota Mark II Grande coupe.

Carrying over into the 1980s, a Honda City Cabriolet — suitably equipped with what we assumed was a period Pepsi can — reminded us of the stylish and extent of the old days when Honda made interesting and fun cars.

Stuck in no man’s land, as always, were the Subaru. Here a cluster of FF-1s.

A Crown wagon evoking grand tours across the the outer prefectures shone beautifully in a bright metallic blue.

A Corona wagon led us to a collection of Isuzu Piazza, the Giugiaro edition in yellow looking very tasty (I think that was what it was anyway, perhaps an Isuzu otaku can confirm).

More Sunny, Silvia, a Tsukuba-registered Seibu Keisatsu DR30 Skyline replica, and an ever increasing variety of old Nissan seemed to stretch on forever! Even as we watched, yet more were unloaded, including a Cedric 130 police car.

A CVCC and an RS Civic, and a Life GS made nearly the entire Honda collection of cars present on the day. Not a single S-series was present, though there was a twin-cam equipped T800 truck.

Next though in our walk-around of the Daiba site were a series of three wheeled trucks. As well as the common-ish Daihatsu Midget — in both first-gen and MP-Series guises, a Mazda T1500, and an ultra-rare HopeStar SY were present.

From the utilitarian to the exotic, we move from the 3-wheelers to the Toyota 2000GT. Approaching a Shelby replica parked next to the Toyota forklifts, I asked the driver if this was where the Toyota Club was parking, and he politely laughed at my feeble joke. The pairing of the SCCA livery white MF10 and the gold MF12 was appreciated, as I always enjoy their svelte and unique lines.

Nearby, an aircraft gauge equipped Celica made for an interesting interior, giving a new meaning to the term “full instrumentation”. We did wonder though if his EGT gauge was active and properly calibrated. This being Japan; quite possibly so.

Leaving the 2015 Old Car Heaven coverage, we passed an unregistered Nissan Sunny GX, and a Cosmo Sports trying to hide under a ghastly vinyl roof.

The Prince paddock was now fully populated — with a 4-cylinder Skyline or two, as well as more Skyline GT-A and GT-Bs. While we had of course arrived in a GT-B, and have been lucky enough to pilot one around the Shuto-ko a few times, there’s nothing quite like seeing that triple set of big Weber when you open the hood.

After a strong collection of  similar six-cylinder equipped Gloria displaying acres of chrome, we spent time at the head of the line looking at two Skyline Sports, including the 1962 Tokyo Motor Show car.

At a passerby’s request, we were asked to display another triple set of GT-B Weber and a little-known tweak applied by the Prince Skyline racing department for homologation — native Weber velocity stacks, usually hidden by the standard air-filter and housing. The glorious sound of six throats at full song is well known, and this GT-B does not disappoint. Especially in the many tunnels of the Shuto-ko that curiously always seemed to require a quick downshift, and a blip on the throttle for the journey home.

Skorj is co-founder of Filmwasters and you can find more of his work at Cars on Film and here on JNC.