There are 158 countries participating in the Osaka Expo, currently being held in in Japan. As far as we know, the Czech Republic is the only one sending a delegation of vintage cars across Europe and Asia to get there. Among them, a first-generation Toyota Celica that will drive nearly 10,000 miles to visit its homeland.
The Osaka Expo is a World’s Fair, a massive event designed to flaunt the cultural and industrial accomplishments of the host country. It’s kind of like the Olympics, in that there are usually several years between expos, the presenting nation varies each time, and other countries from around the world participate, usually in the form of their own pavilions.
Buildings, parks, and infrastructure are created for the event, and often continue to serve the host city long after the event is over. For example, thanks to Japan’s last fair, the 2005 Aichi Expo, there’s now a mag-lev train that takes you straight to the doors of the Toyota Automobile Museum (it was previously only accessible by car or bus). Osaka is expecting 28 million visitors in the six months that the expo will run.
The Osaka Expo is significant because it was 55 years ago, in 1970, that the original Osaka Expo was held. World’s Fairs date back to the 1850s, but this was the first one to be held not only in Japan, but in all of Asia.
Japan was on a hot streak with the 1964 Olympics, for which the bullet train and first expressways were built, and the 1970 Osaka Expo became another chance to show the world that Japan had arrived. For example, Mazda took the opportunity to show off its rotary engine there. The Tower of the Sun sculpture from that event, by artist Taro Okamoto, still looms over the city.
So expos are kind of a big deal and a good way to build cultural bridges between nations. It’s not unusual to see a government get involved in sponsoring a big show of support. In this case, the Czech government is organizing the caravan of cars, which is comprised of seven vehicles.
Besides the 1977 Celica, there’s a 1949 Tatra 603, a pair of 1960s Skoda Octavias, a 1973 Skoda 100, and a 1980 Skoda 120. The only other non-Czech car is a 1966 Ford Mustang. The cars departed from Prague Castle on June 21, personally seen off by Czech Republic president Petr Pavel.
The journey mirrors that of the Czech delegation in 1970, which traveled the nearly 10,000 miles to Osaka by foot and hitchhiking. The route takes the cars through 12 countries: Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, China, South Korea, and finally to Japan.
There’s also a 1969 Toyota Corona that joined the group for the first leg of the journey. However, it returned to the Czech Republic at the end of the leg, as it was supplied by Toyota Czech Republic, one of the expedition’s sponsors, and is likely part of their heritage collection.
You can follow the convoy via the Czech Old Timer Express website. The caravan is currently somewhere near Istanbul. The Osaka Expo runs through October 13, 2025.
That’s a pretty cool event with a strong mission, especially during these times of unrest. I’m especially interested in learning more about the trek through western Asia and the high desert of China, and how these vehicles fare in that environment.
Sounds like an epic trip to an epic destination. Beautiful TA22, too. The Czechs really get it – up there with Japan and Germany as one of the world’s great engineering cultures. Their stuff is a fascinating mix of Teutonic complexity and precision and Slavic pragmatism.
In other news, Moko Chan and Rabbi Kun will be piloting a Tatra T77 from Osaka to Czechia for the Kopřivnice Klassic.
It is not a country I often hear about, but “mix of Teutonic complexity and precision and Slavic pragmatism” sounds awesome, is there other examples of their engineering feats? Old and nostalgic or new?
Tatra cars and trucks are a bottomless well of fascination, for me anyway. They also build some of the greatest firearms in the world, and have for centuries. Lots of influential early modernist architecture and industrial design comes from that region of the world, too. All of these embody that spirit that makes their stuff so enigmatic and wonderful.
I will be looking into that, thank you!
and a 74 Celica just completed the oldest rally in the world the Peking to Paris
There is a map on their site, nice! I really like following this kind of expedition, last year there was a Transat (english word for a sail-boat race?) starting in my city so we went to see the start and then followed the race over the week, so I will be following this one too! Might even get my significant other interested!