I’ve lived in Southern California since 2004, and somehow this was my first time at the Japanese Classic Car Show. The 21st running was held on October 3 at Marina Green Park in Long Beach, from 9 AM to 3 PM, with nearly 500 cars and motorcycles registered according to the organizers. It also happened to land on a day that was over 100 degrees with humidity to match, which is not the Long Beach weather we expected in October.
The thing that took some getting used to was the definition of classic. I came up with cars like the EG Civic, and seeing one parked on the grass as a Japanese classic was a little jarring until the math reminded me that the EG is more than 30 years old now, and so is most of what I grew up wanting. JCCS has always covered the older end of Japanese car history, but the newer end of its range has moved right into my generation.
Despite the temperature, turnout looked strong on all three sides, with the vendor row full, the show field packed, and spectators moving through all day. The vendor section was pretty impressive. The longest lines I saw were at Leen Customs and DieCastTalk, where the HKS collection drop had people queued up from early in the day, and the rest of the row had the names you’d expect at a show like this, including Mothers, HKS, Wilwood, Prisma, Yokohama, and much more. On the show side, Honda and Acura had a huge presence, with Nissan, Toyota, and Mazda rounding out most of the field. If you have a brand loyalty anywhere in the JDM world, there was a section of the grass for you.
Having finally made the drive up, I understand why so many people showed up in that heat. The appeal of JCCS is that it’s one of the few places where the cars that defined the import scene for people my age sit next to the cars that defined it for the generation before, and both get treated as history.
GalleryPhotos by Jason Siu
