Words/Photos –  Joey Lee

I headed out to the Japanese Classic Car Show this past weekend because I was asked to do some coverage for work. This was my first time out there and I must say, I was thoroughly impressed. Man, I love nostalgic cars and I don’t know why I never bothered to go to these shows. Just the vast amount of cars and the variety within the show makes it totally worth the $5 to check it out. I mean, alot of the times people go to like some shitty Extreme Autofest show or whatever and pay like almost $20 to look at the same repetitive shit over and over again. Lambo doors and dubs. I mean, if you’re into that it’s all good. I’m just saying. I’d much prefer to go to a show like JCCS. I will say one thing though, which I didn’t expect. I was a little turned off by the amount of knock-off/replica wheels that were present at the event. I understand that alot of the owners are older and may not know about the differences and that excuse is granted. But seriously, if you can put an Sr20DET into your classic and dump serious amounts of money into it, I’m pretty sure you know the difference between a set of Rotas and the real deal stuff you know. I mean, get whatever you want, don’t let me stop you, but there’s just so much detail and creativity within each of these cars and to miss a little detail like a good set of legit Japanese wheels just tends to take away from it. It is a “Japanese Classic” car show. Let’s throw some Japanese classic wheels on there and ditch the Rota RBs and Drag wheels and shit. Something else I’ve noticed is that alot of these cars kind of lack the detail in the engine bays as alot of the builds in the current generation. Again, maybe these guys don’t come from the same background and understanding as many of the guys today, but the older cars have fewer electronics too, so to have a cleaned up bay is even easier. I don’t know if it’s a drifters mentality with some of the owners but some of the bays are trashed and the cars look great on the outside….Man, alright, I’m probably just nitpicking now. I can’t expect every car to have a tucked bay or everything cleaned thoroughly inside and out. I guess I’ve just been spoiled….

Anyways, the show was great. Just so many cars you will never see anywhere else. I was asked to cover the Honda section exclusively but I ended up venturing off into the Datsun 510 section that I literally spent an hour just in that section alone. I love these things…. Oh I also somehow met up with Big Mike even though we didn’t plan to go to the show together and he hung out throughout the day in awe of some of the cars there as well. I know from just reading the previous paragraph it may sound like I’m disappointed. I’m definitely not. There’s only a couple cars there that were like that which was disappointing but you honestly can’t expect every single car to be perfect you know? I stayed until it was about over and then Big Mike and I just drove around the parking lot because we noticed some really nice cars outside as well. I don’t really know what happened but somehow we ventured off into another part of the lot which consisted of hoards of white people who looked like they were getting ready for some Taylor Swift concert or some other kind of county music. It was weird to see so many people drinking in a parking lot in daisy dukes and cowboy hats while playing hacky sack and shit…it was strange…

In any case, I had a blast at the show and I’m happy I went to see it. I’ll definitely be going back next year to check it out again. I got home and realized that I took almost 300 pictures that day and I’m still in the process of going through all of them. What I do have for you today are a few of my favorites that I’ve gone and edited. I decided to try out like a “vintage photo” finish and to give the pics a sense of age, I guess to try to match the eras that these cars represented and how the pics would look now if the pics were shot then…does that make sense? Probably not. In simple terms, this shit is yellow and has that “sepia” effect like on your cell phone camera…I tried to only use pictures that I liked that didn’t have anything in them that was “current”. As to present the pictures as if it were a show from the cars’ respective eras. Of course I can’t get around spectators and their clothing and the current up-to-date license plates, but it’s close enough. Ehhh, too much explanation. I think when you guys look at the pics you’ll get what I’m talking about. Click on the link for the larger versions…Yes, many non-Hondas but this is for the automotive enthusiast, if you like cars in general, this is for you. I’ll be back throughout the week with the rest of the pics from the event, without all the fancy coloring and shit. Enjoy…

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That’s it for today, got so much other stuff I’m working on. That and I got magazine work this week as well so I did as much editing of the pics as I could…I’ll be getting the other stuff up soon so make sure to come back for that….