Tokyo Classic Car Meeting 2006<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Main gate</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
It's early Sunday morning and two young Japanese guys are sitting in a red 1960 Berkeley T60, one of those tiny three-wheeler oddities from a bygone era of British motoring. Behind, are a couple of 60s Fiats, an immaculate 600 and now-rare 850 coupe.
Across the way, you find Toyota 2000 GTs parked next to Mitsubishi Minicas, Nissan Cedrics rubbing shoulders with Mazda Cosmos and - as part of this huge, anarchic autojumble - a big man wearing a cowboy hat selling toy cars, books and model trains off a tarpaulin on the ground.
It's deep mid winter, the sun is shining. This is Tokyo and it could only be the New Year meeting.
Now the idea of staging a classic car meet in January, and doing it outside, might look at first sight like something out of Endurance, that classic Japanese TV show (actually called gaman) that Clive James loved to lampoon. Except winter in Tokyo is not as hardcore as you'd think.
While the UK often shivers under dark and gloomy skies, January weather in Tokyo is usually bright, sunny and, er, brisk rather than horrible and freezing cold. Ergo, a good time to do something nice with interesting old cars.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>2006 New Year Meeting in Tokyo</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>The autojumble is always as eclectic as it is compelling...</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Besides, New Year is pretty special in Japan, a time to make a fresh start and look forward to the year ahead. Mazda for instance always has a small local ceremony (complete with priest) down by the port in Hiroshima to wish the first shipment of cars going abroad, and others to follow, good luck. Imagine that happening in, say, Luton or Halewood...
In Japan, it's also traditional to send New Year cards, eat New Year food and have shinnenkai (New Year) parties to ring in the new. January also means the Tokyo Auto Salon, Japan's premier, high-voltage custom/tuner show and, before the end of the month, the New Year classic meeting that has been a fun annual event in the Japanese capital since 1977.
The 2006 version took place in Daiba, the massive, trendy new town area built on reclaimed land out on the Tokyo waterfront. The meeting's been there for a few years now, following a gypsy-like trail around different venues in Tokyo and Yokohama.
Today, in the shadow of the overhead expressway and the mind-bendingly ugly Fuji TV building, this part of Daiba's rather short on what you might call glamour. Visually, it's not exactly an event to compare with the exotic Paris Retromobile or Pebble Beach Concours.
But then, as the number of cars increases (this year there were 338 in the programme) and crowd numbers and autojumble stands do likewise, space is a priority - and Daiba certainly has that.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Berkeley 3-wheeler - in Tokyo!</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Still, the whole thing is, by western standards, amazingly rough and ready: cars on tarmac; owners and families casually sitting around wolfing down noodles and sipping green tea; all kinds of automobilia (and other stuff) beautifully arranged, or at other times strewn haphazardly on the ground or over cars - that's what the New Year meeting's all about it. Scruffy, yes. Crazy? Could be. And it is, in its own unique way, utterly compelling.
Why? Because it's just so different. Because of the cars that come out, some of which you've maybe only ever seen in books. And because you never know what to expect.
This is your chance, for example, to clock not just one immaculate 1969 Nissan Skyline GT-R (the ultra-cool race-winning two-door coupe that started off the whole GT-R legend) but a whole swag of them, plus their cheerfully obsessive owners.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>The original Nissan Skyline GT-R...</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>1967 Nissan R380-II racer</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
At a time when Japanese classics, once scorned by British enthusiasts, are now becoming cool, Daiba must be some kind of mecca. True, you don't encounter some of the worst excesses from Japan's back catalogue (no Suzuki X90s for instance, Mitsubishi Tredias or chintzy Datsun Violet 140Js). But it is, in the end, the people as much as the metal and those awesome autojumble tables - Beaulieu, eat your heart out - that make the show.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Datsun Spirit Forever!</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Every year, the Datsun club brings a big truck as part of their display and talk show, bearing the legend "We love Datsun spirit and forever!" You just can't argue with fandom like that.
One year, I met a Subaru 360 owner who had already 20 of Subaru's pioneering, 1958-70 rear-engined minicars in his collection, he said, but still, every year, went out and bought another one. Why? To 'protect' the 360 and prevent it dying out. But of course...
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Subaru's tiny 360 has a massive cult following</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>1938 Bugatti Type 57C from the Toyota Museum</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
While Italian, French and American cars have their devotees, you'd be genuinely surprised at how many Brit cars show up in Japan. The Lotus Europa is another with a hardcore following and every year at Daiba, you see 20-30 of them, all neatly lined up, JPS colours and all.
From a 50s era when Japanese domestic makers made English cars under licence, an Isuzu-made Hillman Minx at Daiba was a totally different blast from the past.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Enthusiastic Ginetta Owners Club of Japan</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
MGBs, E-types and Caterhams are big hitters in Japan too and at Daiba this year, the Ginetta Club of Japan came up with an eye-poppingly long row of G4s. Be honest: you'd just never expect to see all those Ginettas in Japan. Much less that wonderfully obscure 45-year old 328 cc Berkeley T60 three-wheeler, of course. You just wonder, what the hell is that doing out here?
From the Toyota Museum in Nagoya came a superb 1938 Bugatti Type 57C, the only pre-war car this year; while in the end, the car park, the ultimate mark of any great enthusiast event again had lots to surprise and delight: Toyota S800 Sports, Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow estate, Datsun 510, air-cooled Honda 1300, Ferrari 246 Dino to name but a few.
Tokyo's New Year meeting? There's just nothing like it.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Rolls Silver Shadow wagon, next to a modern Toyota bB</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Immaculate '69 Nissan Skyline GT-R engine</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>'72 Toyota Crown Super saloon (left), '65 Crown DeLuxe (right)</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Main gate</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
It's early Sunday morning and two young Japanese guys are sitting in a red 1960 Berkeley T60, one of those tiny three-wheeler oddities from a bygone era of British motoring. Behind, are a couple of 60s Fiats, an immaculate 600 and now-rare 850 coupe.
Across the way, you find Toyota 2000 GTs parked next to Mitsubishi Minicas, Nissan Cedrics rubbing shoulders with Mazda Cosmos and - as part of this huge, anarchic autojumble - a big man wearing a cowboy hat selling toy cars, books and model trains off a tarpaulin on the ground.
It's deep mid winter, the sun is shining. This is Tokyo and it could only be the New Year meeting.
Now the idea of staging a classic car meet in January, and doing it outside, might look at first sight like something out of Endurance, that classic Japanese TV show (actually called gaman) that Clive James loved to lampoon. Except winter in Tokyo is not as hardcore as you'd think.
While the UK often shivers under dark and gloomy skies, January weather in Tokyo is usually bright, sunny and, er, brisk rather than horrible and freezing cold. Ergo, a good time to do something nice with interesting old cars.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>2006 New Year Meeting in Tokyo</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>The autojumble is always as eclectic as it is compelling...</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Besides, New Year is pretty special in Japan, a time to make a fresh start and look forward to the year ahead. Mazda for instance always has a small local ceremony (complete with priest) down by the port in Hiroshima to wish the first shipment of cars going abroad, and others to follow, good luck. Imagine that happening in, say, Luton or Halewood...
In Japan, it's also traditional to send New Year cards, eat New Year food and have shinnenkai (New Year) parties to ring in the new. January also means the Tokyo Auto Salon, Japan's premier, high-voltage custom/tuner show and, before the end of the month, the New Year classic meeting that has been a fun annual event in the Japanese capital since 1977.
The 2006 version took place in Daiba, the massive, trendy new town area built on reclaimed land out on the Tokyo waterfront. The meeting's been there for a few years now, following a gypsy-like trail around different venues in Tokyo and Yokohama.
Today, in the shadow of the overhead expressway and the mind-bendingly ugly Fuji TV building, this part of Daiba's rather short on what you might call glamour. Visually, it's not exactly an event to compare with the exotic Paris Retromobile or Pebble Beach Concours.
But then, as the number of cars increases (this year there were 338 in the programme) and crowd numbers and autojumble stands do likewise, space is a priority - and Daiba certainly has that.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Berkeley 3-wheeler - in Tokyo!</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Still, the whole thing is, by western standards, amazingly rough and ready: cars on tarmac; owners and families casually sitting around wolfing down noodles and sipping green tea; all kinds of automobilia (and other stuff) beautifully arranged, or at other times strewn haphazardly on the ground or over cars - that's what the New Year meeting's all about it. Scruffy, yes. Crazy? Could be. And it is, in its own unique way, utterly compelling.
Why? Because it's just so different. Because of the cars that come out, some of which you've maybe only ever seen in books. And because you never know what to expect.
This is your chance, for example, to clock not just one immaculate 1969 Nissan Skyline GT-R (the ultra-cool race-winning two-door coupe that started off the whole GT-R legend) but a whole swag of them, plus their cheerfully obsessive owners.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>The original Nissan Skyline GT-R...</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>1967 Nissan R380-II racer</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
At a time when Japanese classics, once scorned by British enthusiasts, are now becoming cool, Daiba must be some kind of mecca. True, you don't encounter some of the worst excesses from Japan's back catalogue (no Suzuki X90s for instance, Mitsubishi Tredias or chintzy Datsun Violet 140Js). But it is, in the end, the people as much as the metal and those awesome autojumble tables - Beaulieu, eat your heart out - that make the show.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Datsun Spirit Forever!</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Every year, the Datsun club brings a big truck as part of their display and talk show, bearing the legend "We love Datsun spirit and forever!" You just can't argue with fandom like that.
One year, I met a Subaru 360 owner who had already 20 of Subaru's pioneering, 1958-70 rear-engined minicars in his collection, he said, but still, every year, went out and bought another one. Why? To 'protect' the 360 and prevent it dying out. But of course...
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Subaru's tiny 360 has a massive cult following</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>1938 Bugatti Type 57C from the Toyota Museum</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
While Italian, French and American cars have their devotees, you'd be genuinely surprised at how many Brit cars show up in Japan. The Lotus Europa is another with a hardcore following and every year at Daiba, you see 20-30 of them, all neatly lined up, JPS colours and all.
From a 50s era when Japanese domestic makers made English cars under licence, an Isuzu-made Hillman Minx at Daiba was a totally different blast from the past.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Enthusiastic Ginetta Owners Club of Japan</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
MGBs, E-types and Caterhams are big hitters in Japan too and at Daiba this year, the Ginetta Club of Japan came up with an eye-poppingly long row of G4s. Be honest: you'd just never expect to see all those Ginettas in Japan. Much less that wonderfully obscure 45-year old 328 cc Berkeley T60 three-wheeler, of course. You just wonder, what the hell is that doing out here?
From the Toyota Museum in Nagoya came a superb 1938 Bugatti Type 57C, the only pre-war car this year; while in the end, the car park, the ultimate mark of any great enthusiast event again had lots to surprise and delight: Toyota S800 Sports, Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow estate, Datsun 510, air-cooled Honda 1300, Ferrari 246 Dino to name but a few.
Tokyo's New Year meeting? There's just nothing like it.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Rolls Silver Shadow wagon, next to a modern Toyota bB</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>Immaculate '69 Nissan Skyline GT-R engine</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11>'72 Toyota Crown Super saloon (left), '65 Crown DeLuxe (right)</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=text11></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
