This weekend begins the National Cherry Blossom Festival in our nation’s capital. The sakura were a gift from Japan to the USA in 1912 and the first festival was held in 1935. We’ve seen some sweet old rides with the trees already, so let’s talk about the wheels they inspired.
Although sometimes called sakuras, we learned that the proper name is Yayoi. The originals stopped production in 1980, their rarity fueling an ascension to holy grail status among nostalgists with a full deep-dish set commanding $10,000 at auction. According to this user, in 2006 Hayashi Racing began reproducing 50 sets, in pink and gold alongside Techno Racings, “by hand,” whatever that means. Now, they’re a permanent fixture on Hayashi Racing‘s website, which makes no mention of any production limitation. All we know is that, pink or not, they look killer on this yonmeri (four-door kenmeri Skyline; yon = four).
[Image: RX-7 ‘Verts & Welsh Corgis (Japanese)]
