We are excited to sponsor and be a part of the 2023 Japanese Classic Car Show in Long Beach, Ca on October 7. In just under two weeks, the JCCS returns to Marina Green Park with hundreds of cool vintage Japanese cars to enjoy. Z Car Garage will have a vendor booth with all of our parts on display. Please stop by and say hello, we would love to answer your questions and talk about Z cars. Read below for a preview…

 

The Z Car Garage booth will have the following parts on display for you to see, touch and inquire: Our Z Car Garage Big-Brakes (Stoptech),  ZCG CV Axles, ZCG Heat Shield and Z Car Garage KW Coil-over suspension. The ZCG Big-Brakes are now officially no longer on back order. We are ready to take orders!

  

Z Car Garage Displays Two Cars at JCCS!

 

On display in our booth for this first time is our #49 Joel Anderson IMSA GTU Datsun 240Z. This is a vintage race car that was built and raced in period by the late Joel Anderson. Z Car Garage restored this Z back to its original livery in 2014,  and Rob Fuller now actively races it. Learn more about this special car HERE.

 

Also on display in our booth will be Sung Kang’s FuguZ. Sung visited Z Car Garage back in 2021, driving “Mrs. Butters”, our 1971 Series 1 240z shop demo car. After driving Butters, Sung wanted the exact same Z Car Garage Big-Brakes (for small wheels), Z Car Garage CV Axles and KW suspension on his very own RB26DETT-powered FuguZ!

   

The show takes place from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm in Marina Green Park, and it is the epitome of all J-Tin shows! Catch a glimpse of what JCCS is all about in our previous Japanese Classic Car Show reports. We will also have and some ZCG swag for you to pick up. Come by, say hello and long live the Z!

 

Mark your calendars for June 5th to celebrate Z Owners of Northern California (ZONC) 50th birthday at the Blackhawk Museum in Danville!

 

The Z Owners of Northern California (ZONC) is one of the oldest Z car clubs in the nation. In its prime they had over 600 members with close ties to Yutaka Katayama (“Mr. K”) and Nissan USA. Of the many events and fun runs they host throughout the year, the famous Blackhawk Museum will be the venue for the June 6 birthday party.

 

Local Datsun specialists/racers Troy Ermish and Rob Fuller will be displaying their race cars. Datsun and Nissan cars will be on the plaza and lower lots for everyone to see. Z you there!

 

 

 

 

The Vintage Auto Salon was held today at the San Leandro Marina and it was yet another successful show from the minds of Ivan and James of HJCG. They even arranged for special guest visits from Diane Krey-Wesley (“Mary” of the Ken and Mary Nissan commercials) and the famous Yoshiya Watanabe, founder of the Rocky Auto shop in Japan. Mr. Watanabe also hand-picked the award winners for the day!

What I love about the HJCG shows is the variety of cars from totally restored to works-in-progress and everything between. At each of their past shows I have been stunned by at least one rare, collectible JDM car. This year I was completely taken back by this incredibly gorgeous, impossibly-rare, jaw dropping Silvia:

This classy beauty exudes cool. Check out the split rear bumpers, jewel-like tailights, impressive front grille and a contrasting cream-colored interior:

The lowered stance and staggered Watanabe wheels against the pale green paint made this car almost too yummy for me to bear!

The Silvias were built on the Datsun Roadster’s frame employing the very same R16/4-speed drivetrain. Even the gauges and toggle switches were carry-overs. I had a hunch that this wasn’t a bone-stock Silvia though so I peered under the chassis and found a NISMO competition aluminum oil pan! I tracked down the owner and begged him to pop open the hood so I could quell my curiosity and behold…it had the mighty U20/5-speed with Solexes from a Datsun 2000. This elegant lady also packs a punch!

Z-car fans unite! Plenty of S30 action with some S130 love as well.  RHD S30 alert! This car now sports beautiful Watanabe wheels(left). Eric drove his TurboZX-powered S30 from Modesto:

You don’t have to be a Datsun/Nissan fan to appreciate the Skyline. Heads turned as three early, GC10 “Hakosukas” and even a 80’s DR30 Skyline came to the show…both coupes were shades of silver and sported flares, triple-carbed L-series motors, cherry interiors and spoilers:

Everyone’s favorite 4-door “Skyrine” also lives with this DR30 Skyline…hello 80’s!

Engine swaps are always entertaining to see and this show had transplants that ranged from “expected” to almost “bizzarre”…
Rotary die-hards this has got to be the ultimate “pissed-on” swap:  A Honda S2000 (F20C) drivetrain into a 1st gen RX-7. Complete with that requisite must-have for any F20-swapped car: the S2K gauge cluster. Yup:

Also rotary-related but nothing shockingly new are rotary swaps into Datsun 510s and Toyota Corollas. The green car is immaculate and won Mr. Watanabe’s heart. The orange 510 sports a roots-style supercharged (!) rotary!

Speaking of Datsun 510s, there were lots of clean SR/KA swapped cars and some amazingly stock examples as well:

 Cool trucks too!  Our roadster-friend Mark completed a KA24E engine swap into his 521 pickup (right)…

Gotta love those vintage wagons. Notice the almost “Chopped” look of the 610? Slim windows make for a cool profile…stock! The red Honda Civic had a boosted B-series. Several Toyota Coronas were present:

It was refreshing to see more Hondas at the show. The white EF Civic was super clean with an OCD-level of detail in the engine bay. We like it:

Have you ever seen a Toyota Sports 800 in person? Super tiny. Super rare!

More sweet Toyotas…I love the 1st gen Celica’s. I always thought the exterior and interior(dash) were ahead of their time:

 Wheels! Wheels! Wheels! Another way to get your JDM-wheel fix is to attend these shows!

We will end with my favorite car, the Datsun Roadster. There was a good showing with 6 roadsters at one point including Mike A’s ’68 SPL/SR20 (He drove up from Pomona!), my ‘67.5 SPL/SR20, Dave P’s ’67 SRL, Will C’s ’69 SRL and a red SPL:

 Our very own Dave P won the award for “Best Restored”…Mr. Watanabe and Rocky Auto approved! Congratulations Dave!

We want to give a big Thank You to James and Ivan for hosting another fun event. HJCG rules!

Lots of pictures in the gallery below so don’t forget to click after the jump!
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***ATTENTION DATSUN FANS***
There are TWO exciting Datsun events this weekend!
Saturday, 4/30    
The Solvang Datsun Roadster Show is being held in beautiful downtown Solvang, CA.

Sunday, 5/1
A record number of Datsuns will be racing at Laguna Seca with HSR on Sunday, 5/1

If you are a Datsun fan and love vintage racing come out to Laguna Seca this weekend! On  5/1 the Historic Sportscar Racing group is bringing an exciting event with plenty of historic race cars and several notable Datsun racers! If you can’t make the Solvang Datsun Roadster Show (held on Saturday) this is another way to get your Datsun fix! We will do our best to attend on Sunday afternoon where the Datsuns are running in group 3. We also want to be there to cheer on our favorite Datsun Roadster racer, Ron Carter!

So just how strong will the Datsun showing be? At least TWENTY 510s, Zs, and Roadsters! Come on out to ‘Seca and watch these Datsun vintage racers mix it up with exotics and other wicked metal 🙂

Let me start off by saying thank you to everyone who had a hand in this event, especially the entire ZONC crew.  Secondly I would like all of you individually to give a few claps of the hand to ZONC for getting a NISMO 370z to this event!!  Seriously, if you only new the kind of elbow grease it took to pull this one off!!

About the NISMO 370z.  It looks amazing in person.  This is the first one that I have seen with my own eyes and it did not let me down.  While the revised front fascia will still take some getting used to, the rear is spot-on from the factory.  I love the look of the new spoiler and the rear bumper has small vertical vents that are very reminiscent of a GT3 Porsche.  The car doesn’t appear to sit too high in stock form, as did the outgoing Z33 NISMO, and the subtle changes inside were not too flamboyant for my taste.

I would love to offer some sort of driving report on the car but I was only able to move it around for a few of the photos that were taken.  I’m sure one of our customers will pick one up as soon as they hit U.S. soil so I’ll be sure to take the keys then.  Haha.  Anyways, thanks to Dublin Nissan as well for bringing out the other while 370z base model as well as a GT-R for a small Nissan family get-together.

Back to the show!  We left the shop almost on time (7:45am) and arrived at the show around 8:20 or so.  The weather was absolutely perfect in the morning and I had the windows down in the Red 280zx Restoration all the way up there.  After moving all the cars into place and saying our “hellos” to faces we haven’t seen in a year I began to notice the lack of the Z32 300zx population at the show.  This group of cars has been fifteen strong in the past and I think the grand total this year was under five, crazy times in the Z world.  Maybe Z32 owners don’t like the heat, the projected forecast for the day was in the mid-nineties.

All of the other groups had pretty strong showings but I was blown away by how many early cars made the trip this year.  Most of these cars were in really good shape if not fully restored.  In this group are the three cars that now wear the ZCG Big Break Kit.  This was our first show with the full production version installed on customer cars and the response was outstanding.  I talked with both owners of the newly installed kits and they couldn’t be happier.  I will have a full post on the production version of the brake kit shortly.

After taking an early, and long, lunch to beat the heat we made our way into the museum.  We were not surprised to see that the cars had changed a little but most of the first floor held something new!  Right as we walked in we were greeted by a beautiful Porsche 959 prototype that was developed a full three years before the existence of the 959 was released, one of three ever made.  Off to a good start!  We proceeded to wander around the first floor in awe of the great cars in front of us until we checked our watches and realized that the trophy presentation was going to start in about fifteen minutes.

We picked up the pace and headed up stairs to the second show room and were greeted with some of the more economical cars of the past, the Honda N600 and the BMW Isetta.  Both cars achieved similar gas mileage to today’s hybrids, albeit today’s cars are much more functional that these micro gas sippers.

Heading into the main upstairs room we are greeted with quite a few cars that we have seen in previous trips, and they are still just as stunning as the first time I saw them.  This room is filled with the large saloon cars of the thirties, all cars of overwhelming opulence in a time when America was at it’s worst just following the great depression.  These cars have the strangest ornate features such as the snakes on the fenders of the car you see below.  It was also interesting to see that SU carburetors, as seen on early Z cars, were used even in these early days in high horsepower applications such as the supercharged Bentley also pictured below.

At this point we got the call wondering where we were and we made haste back to the show.  It turns out the awards presentation was just about over.  Quite a few of the cars we brought with us as a shop had taken home a prize, and we can’t thank ZONC and all the other participants for making it all happen.  Next year’s show promises to be just a good although I’m not sure what car Ann is going to try to get from Nissan next time.  You may just have to show up to find out!!

The full gallery of the show and museum is after the ‘read more.’

I have also have received links to galleries from friends’ photos of the event so expect to see another post pop up about this show.  Enjoy.

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