There was a huge turnout to the Japanese Car Culture Show recently at the Eikon Centre near Lisburn, with an incredibly high standard of modern Japanese classics and performance cars on show.
This, the stiflingly hot weather, drifting, motocross bikes and a great atmosphere ranks this year’s event up with the very best car shows in the country.
If like me, you grew up with Fast and Furious, Option Motorsport drift videos and the lust for a high revving Honda or burbling boxer engined Subaru, then this is the show of your Gran Tourismo dreams!
The event was superbly laid out with some great trade stands as well as everything from MX5s to Civic Type-Rs to Skylines, Supras and Evos.
From a Ford MkII Escort running a Nissan SR20 engine, that we featured recently [read about it here] the show had some incredibly rare cars on display like a Lexus estate which looked striking, lowered on a set of Rota wheels.
Speaking of estates… This R34-fronted Nissan Stagea was just as striking.
Most makes and models from the land of the rising sun were represented with some highlights for me being the ST205 Toyota Celica GT-4, as well as a few rear-wheel-drive KP Toyota Starlet’s in various forms of modification and tune.
Moving away from ‘the car in front’ – a Nissan Pao always attracts great amounts of attention, mainly as it’s incredibly cute, well styled and for most, they don’t have a clue as to what it is whilst the rallying icon from Mitsubishi, the Evo was well represented, right from showroom condition cars to those pushing big numbers from the power-train.
Rally fans got a chance to see an ’04 WRC Subaru Impreza up close and being almost sticker-less, it looked menacing to say the least while drift fans got a glimpse of a Mazda MX-5 running a James Deane, Falken Tyre inspired livery.
For me though, the car of the show is this 1970’s Colt wagon…
Outside the main halls included private entries near the hall entrance, whilst out at the rear there were trials bikes demos and drifting. With the great weather it was hard to beat sitting out in the grandstand or on one of the picnic tables with a burger and a coffee, with tyre smoke and fresh rubber filling the air.
This really was an excellent day out with the owners of these iconic Japanese cars really making an effort to turn them out in concours standards.
We can’t wait for next year’s show already.
