All-Japanese car show in the Northeast

[Mike Kamm]

I'm a little late, but I still wanted to inform you all about a great show that I attended this weekend that hosted Japanese vehicles only. It's the only one like it in the Northeast. Hopefully some of you can make it out next year. Especially the old school 70's Hondas. Here are the details:

 

On September 16th, was – Japanese Car Day - Sponsored by the DRONE (Datsun Roadster Owners of New England) Club and Lexus USA. It was held at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, MA. Go to: http://www.mot.org/Events/lawn.html .This is a lawn show outdoors in front of the museum.

 

This was a great show and it couldn't have been during a better time of year, or have had better weather. I'm an old schooler, and as such I have to say that I was it was unfortunate that there wasn't a single early Subaru or Honda in attendance. Kind of a shame if you ask me. But Datsun, Toyota, and Mazda guys were all in luck, as there were quite a few of them on hand. I only took a few pics, [mostly video] but here is a sampling for you all.

 

 

They had some Japanese exchange students there dressed in their native attire and they were demonstrating caligraphy for all who requested it. Many cars on the showfield had examples of their work on their windshields.

 

I asked a few of them to pose with me for this picture.

 

 

Although I don't have a picture [yet], there was also a really neat Mazda REPU there. Don't worry, I didn't know what that meant either. It stands for Rotary Engine Pickup Truck. These rare Mazda's were very special for their time. Unlike the standard piston engine Mazda pickups, these were the "Sport" models. They had the 13B rotary engine, wider fender flares, factory tach, wood grain dash, bucket seats, etc. Here's a brief description of them:

 

"Many people remember the small pickups of the 1970's. Pickups like the Chevy LUV, Ford Courier, Toyota and Datsun pickups... but did you know that Mazda made a unique Rotary Powered pickup?! Yes. Known as the Rotary PickUp, or REPU (Pronounced: Rhee-Phoo) for short, this pickup ran circles around the competition. With short gears, and a torquey 1.3 L 13b, the truck was by far the fastest in its class. The limited number of REPUs imported into the US makes the value much more than the others of this same era. With a gross payload capacity of 1400 lbs, not only could you haul a bunch of stuff around, you could just plain haul ass! The 2 rotor 13b 4-port engine gave more grunt than the 1.1 liter 12a. With a rear axle ratio of 4.625, the truck can fly, but that did limit the top speed."

 

Also, there were really nice examples of early RX7's, one of which had 19,000 original miles! There was a really clean Toyota SR5 Lift Back there too. The gent came all the way from Long Island [including a ferry ride] to show it.

 

Then there was this car [above] that won people's choice for the show. It was an early Toyota Corona. This thing was mint and super rare.

 

All show participants received a goodie bag containing free samples of car waxes, polishes, an event dash plaque, coupons for a free bottle of Sta-Bil gas stabilizer, maps pens, etc. A very nice touch by the organizers.

 

Yes there were all sorts of great newer Japanese cars there too, but in this post I am focusing on the old school cars I saw. The organizers told me that this show is continuously growing each year. That's great news. I read in the current issue of Road and Track that the Japanese cars are finally becoming more popular and recognized in the collector car community.

 

Any Honda people out there that might like to join us next year?

 

Mike