Words : David Murphy
Photographs : Simon Coulson
Date : June 2006
Location : Tokyo and Shizuoka, Japan
Flights : BA
Reason : Because
Result : Yes it was rather wasn't it...

An awful lot of people talk about doing an awful lot of things. Some times, just some times you are made to stop talking and start doing. It started as a simple conversation, there was no real reason it couldn’t be done. There was the cost to consider, but that could be over come. It became almost like a dare, you didn’t want to be the one that came up with the excuse that meant it didn’t happen. If you looked hard enough or long enough an excuse could be found. Like two people playing chicken neither of us backed down. All the way through the ticket purchase, the hotel booking, the trip to the airport, the check in and then on through the boarding gate each was waiting for the other to back out.

That’s how I ended up living a half life in Japan for four days. There, but not there. You really want to know what its like to travel half way round the world for a car show? For the most part it feels like its happening to some one else. It feels like at some point on the plane you became part of some exceedingly long in flight movie, and when the plane actually lands, then you’ll start actually experiencing it. It doesn’t help your grounding in reality when Michael Jackson, yes the Michael Jackson, walks past you in Tokyo airport. During the coach transfer from airport to hotel you could be anywhere, a series of multi carriageway roads take you to a gleaming city full of hustle and bustle, people, cars, buses. Sure all the cars seem to be brightly coloured Toyota Crown taxis, but then, so what. The hotel is faceless. Four hours sleep. Now I’m on Tokyo time, but am I in Tokyo?

A trip out with a friend to Shibuya district still feels like I’m watching it, or maybe I’m just drowning in jet lag. An eight piece female jazz band start up playing on the street, the police intervene, a stand off ensues. We move on. Starbucks and the busiest junction in Tokyo, it was in Lost In Translation you know. In the same building a magazine shop, here I start grabbing up as much as I can, to prove to myself that I am here, that I now own a bit of my trip to Tokyo, a gift I can give myself when I return, and tell myself ‘it really is lovely, you should visit some time’. Wandering the streets looking for cars, cars, cars we see mainly motorbikes and scooters. That doesn’t matter so much, I suddenly feel a flash of actually being there, but then it’s gone. A meal in a restaurant hidden on the fourth floor of a building, it is great, great company, nice food, good chat, it could be anywhere, why is it so dark in here? Why is this the fourth floor? Would I be able to find it again? No. Then it’s the hotel, sleep, sweet oblivion, tomorrow I’ll wake up in Tokyo.

Tomorrow I wake up. I’m defiantly not at home, but am I in Tokyo? A pilgrimage out into the suburbs to the Hotwire shop and I’m browsing the internet, looking at pictures of this shop, of its merchandise. Even though I’m buying the t-shirt I came for, I feel like browse, add to basket, click, purchase. On the way out I see a pile of posters for tomorrows event, I pick up four, reading the top one a rush of thereness hits me. Back to the faceless hotel to drop off the swag. A quick wash and then we’re off again, we’ve not got long to see everything. We’re driven to the Halfords-on-Saki that is Super Autobacs by a rather confused taxi driver, more used to ferrying tourists to Imperial Palace. Having browsed the car park before entering I find myself standing in the seat cover isle looking for those oh-so Tokyo-taxi chic lacey seat covers and my plane lands. I’m here, I’m really here. ‘Exciting car life city’ indeed.

An afternoon spent in Autobacs, some crepes from an over height pink van in the car park and a wander round a local supermarket reinforce the feeling. I’ve traveled eight thousand miles to come to a car show for a weekend and I’ve been half awake for the half of it so far. Tomorrow is show day.

Awake bright and early. A walk to the train station, a short wait and we’re on the bullet train heading out into the Japanese countryside. The view from the train is one of rolling hills shrouded in mist, we don’t see mount Fuji. We didn’t come for mount Fuji. Again the feeling of not being there, it feels like watching some tourist guide program, 7.30pm Tuesday night at home on my sofa. Fleeing the city into the country side proves difficult, Tokyo goes on for ever and ever. As you reach the outskirts the houses seem to be interspersed with small paddy fields, we never found out if these were actually rice fields, a mystery. We get off at some obscure location at a station whose name I can’t remember, this is really Japan, no English signs. Yes I really am here. This is my trip, it feels like this, because this is what it feels, it sounds like this because this is what it sounds like and it looks like this, because the pictures I bought home tell me it looks like this. Time to catch our connecting train, the platform is full of Japanese, we try and work out which might be going to the show. Our train arrives, two stations and we get off. No one else does. Are we in the right place?

The station is set up for when football games are on. We two wander the huge empty corridors trying to find our way out. Where are the signs to the show? None. The stadium is at the top of the hill, that’s where we need to go. Lets walk, no need for a taxi, take it all in, every breath, every sound. Half way up the hill we see it. A Nissan KPGC10 Skyline coming down the hill, making rasping noises. So this is what they sound like, this is what they actually sound like. It rolls past. I guess we are heading in the right direction. A brown Toyota Cressida passes us on the way up the hill. I’ve seen a Toyota Cressida before, but never have I seen one full of Japanese people, on a Japanese road, on its way to a Japanese car show. We’re getting close. Confusion reigns at the top of the hill, a cross roads has all sorts of retro machinery heading in all directions, every one looks a bit lost and confused. I know how they feel. It takes another ten minutes of aimless wandering before we find what we came for right at the top of the hill. Up a short flight of stairs and suddenly here we are, right where we came to be. Quick as a flash I’m back on the internet and I’m browsing pictures of Nakayoshi Hot Olds Meet, forwarding them to people and posting them on forums for everyone to see. The difference is that now I’m taking those pictures, I’m mentally taking pictures that I won’t actually photograph, those are mine, those are for me, no one else will ever see those pictures. I really was there, I really am there.

Describing the feeling of what it is actually like to arrive at the place we’d be questing towards for months, if not for years, is a very difficult task. So I will just put it down as a dream that is being lived.

The show flashes by, cars we’ve seen before, cars we’ve never seen, people we know, people we don’t. It is a sea of curious faces, people come to meet the English guys that traveled just for the show. Gifts are exchanges, photos taken and suddenly before we can take it all in the prizes are given out. In reality we would be trudging back to the train station for a return trip on the bullet train. However we are living a dream, and one of our new friends asks if we are going back to Tokyo, sure we are, would we like a lift? Damn right we would. So we stay to the very end, sitting and hanging out with a group of Japanese guys who speak great English. It is just like being at a car show back at home, as cars leave everyone is standing and checking them out, murmuring comments to each other. We pack up and it’s our turn to leave. Climbing in the back of a Nissan Cherry camper van complete with 1980’s TV set, we roll out of the show, in a queue of all the coolest cars I’ve ever seen, on our way to the over flow car park, full of all the coolest cars I’ve ever seen. Standing in that car park watching the cars leave for a good half hour is a memory that will stick with me forever, shaking the hand of the man that owns the radically chopped Toyota Crown, hearing the noises of those cars that we’ve only seen in pictures, watching them disappear out into Japan.

Our ride back to Tokyo is waiting for us, a Mazda Persona, a strange pillarless beast with fans that automatically oscillate and a big curved rear seat that we take turns in half laying down on. Traveling the highway back to Tokyo we are accompanied by some of our new friends and by friends of theirs. They blast past us in little groups racing each other, then pull over to the inside lane and we pass them. A few minutes later they blast past us again, cameras are out, many photos being taken, grins from here to the UK on everyone’s face. Tunnels are a good excuse to stick the lights on full beam and roll the windows down, sound bounces off the walls and we’re in a movie again. Before we know it we’re pulling into a service station just outside Tokyo. Everyone traveling with us pulls in and hangs out, the next set of parking bays across from us house a meeting of Porsches, a group of local teenagers seem more interested in the AE86 that’s with us. Then the moment that we knew would happen, it is time to leave, our friend in the AE86 obliges us by doing series of donuts while he waves out the window before he speeds off into the distance. Others sound their horns and wave. Before we want it to happen we are off too.

Straight into the back of huge jam going into Tokyo. Luckily our driver is from this part of Tokyo and dips off the highway. We spend half an hour running through the suburbs at breakneck speed, terrified and thrilled in equal measure. Out new best friend asks us if we’d like to see his other cars? We have no other pressing engagements. So this isn’t over yet, not by a long shot.

We vanish into the night as our driver takes us up through the central Tokyo highway, a confusing mass of interconnecting roads, not a place to get lost. Lights everywhere, cars, trucks, tunnels, bridges, confusion, terror, smiles, experience. We’re heading out the other side of Tokyo into the industrial wasteland on the way to the airport. Then we’re off the highway and on a series of unlit roads through the suburbs and out on to an unmade road into the middle of nowhere. This is where we pull into our friends yard. Old Crowns, Glorias, former taxis, 330s, this is a dream place to be, it is pitch black, we can hardly see anything. In the middle of all this is a double garage workshop where one of our hosts friends is working on their car. We stay here hanging out and checking the cars for an hour. Absorbing it all, eight thousand miles away and it feels the same, these are the same people I know back home. What am I saying? I am home, a yard, a workshop, some friends, what does it matter where it is, this is home. Then it really is time to leave. Back to our hotel, out onto the street again we watch the person that made our trip to Japan one of the most special it could be disappear into off into the Tokyo night, off to face his wife and explain why he was out for so long.

Next day we’re on a flight to the UK, remembering our new friends, Dom, Ishibashi-san, Jetsun and our driver, host and new best friend Takayuki-san. This was an amazing experience, one we will be repeating. We proved it could be done, to follow your dreams is the way to experience retro cars at their best. Don’t just dream your dreams, live them.