Yesterday the San Jose Mercury News published an article (reg req’d) titled “Car fan holds first big-scale Japanese show in U.S.” in reference to the upcoming Motoring J Style event in Vallejo, CA and its founder David Swig. It gives some background on Swig, and talks about his collection, which consists of at least 12 cars including a 510, Toyopet Crown, and a couple of Coronas.
The article takes the typical mainstream approach to the whole Japanese car scene, noting the lack of respect J-cars get in standard classic car shows like the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance but that – newsflash! – things are changing. It then talks about Steve Kopito of TORC and his Publicas, the Toyota Museum in Torrance, and ends with a prediction of rising values, your basic rundown of the nostalgic scene, circa 2007.
Of course, by now students of the old school have surely noticed the lack of a Japanese Classic Car Show mention. The JCCS crew definitely pioneered the whole nostalgic movement with the first ever stateside show of its kind, and to give an accurate overview of the status of the scene today they should have been given some recognition.
But that’s why it’s so hard to report on decades old cars. The first JCCS show was held in 2005, just two years ago, and already an article published in a major newspaper is omitting a significant piece of the puzzle. Now imagine the state of words written a half century ago, before the digital archiving and information gathering powers of the web, with much of the information written in Japanese!
Still, we’re glad to see the cars we know and love getting more exposure in the press, and we certainly hope to see all the shows succeed, with more to come.
The article can be found here, though registration is required. We can’t reprint the article, but if one of our readers did in our forum, we would be against stifling free speech 😉
Remember Power Wheels, those battery-powered kid-mobiles with big plastic wheels that inevitably deformed and cracked if the car was anywhere but the kitchen floor? In the US we can recall two flavors – Jeep and Corvette – but as with so many childhood wishes these also passed us by. Our parents could barely afford to keep their actual cars running, much less buy cough up a Benjamin for a glorified plastic bucket with a max speed barely higher than stationary.
