Remember those 90s Nissan commercials starring Mr. K as a magical Willy Wonka-like figure holding the golden ticket to an automotive wonderland? For young car nuts like us, those ads expressed, in full cinematic color, the entirety of what was going on in the section of our adolescent minds not devoted to girls or producing acne. The one that always had us gawking at the rapidly panning images (this was long before the days of Tivo) was the one where a boy stumbles upon a hidden lair called the “Dream Garage” stocked full of vintage and racing Nissans.
Well, it’s been long known that Nissan has a real life Dream Garage stashed away in a giant warehouse in Japan, and one lucky boy at twinturbo.net has indeed stumbled upon it, taking bunches of photos right before the oompa-loompas escorted him out. Located in Zama, just southwest of Tokyo, the Nissan Heritage Collection has over 250 classic, concept, racing, and emergency cars & trucks tucked away – everything from a 1933 Datsun 12 Phaeton to a 641-hp R390 GT-1 Le Mans homologated road car. Unfortunately, this is not open to the public, but the public can view the collection in the handy-dandy Heritage Collection database. Lastly, we are forever indebted to Stickerman for posting this in our forum. Thank you!
UPDATE: We just surfed over grandJDM to catch up, and discovered that they used the same photo and Willy Wonka reference in their post about the Zama garage. Great minds, mates, great minds.
But therein lies the secret to Toyota’s success. It quickly got to the root of the problem and corrected it. Surviving only on the sales of the Land Cruiser and the introduction of the Crown wagon, they eked by until 1965 and the debut of the Corona, which had been designed specifically for American tastes and driving habits. Although the 1960 Crown was officially a Toyota already, it was still marketed as the Toyopet. The Toyota Corona was the dawn of a new era for the company, and the name was its new flag. Good thing, too, since few would probably take the Toyopet Tundra or Toyopet Supra seriously. Following that, the Corolla appeared in 1968 and the rest is history. Soon, Toyota surpassed the best selling import brand, VW, and the Corolla eventually became the top selling car in the world.
