Not seen it Rocky (or I woulda snapped a pic), but I'll keep my eye out. Actually the bike scene is much bigger and better than the rod scene. I'm not into bikes, but know people that are. I knew a guy once that bought a 70's Electraglide, fixed it up to look like a 40's low slung cruiser with a saddle seat. Cool as hell bike. Anyway, he was $50K into that thing 15 years ago. There are Harley dealers here and I know there is a huge market for vintage bike tin here. Prices are higher, but not like car parts. yeah, I know! I did a double take on that myself. Fit like factory. Ya know, I'm finding that Nagoya might be THE traditional car scene in Japan. There are a handful of well known shops down here, good culture and events and the cars I see at the shows down here are more in line with HAMB material than most of the shows I've attended in Tokyo area. I was talking with Imfatdad last weekend and he seemed to agree on the quality of cars at the shows down here. Nagoya is one of the biggest industrial bases of Japan. Sorta the "Detroit" of Japan, so that might have something to do with it.
Well "G´Day" to You, too, Sir... Note that I never said there weren´t competent craftsmen in Japan. I´m sure they abound over there as much as they do anywhere else (in dealing with any 50+yo vehicles, they´d better...). If You read my previous post again, You´ll see I was merely talking about how none of this (vintage American) stuff, "built" or not, is likely to be based on anything SOLD NEW in Japan. My said statement was based on the common knowledge of Japan being a most restricted market for any "foreign import" motor vehicles in the world. Plus all the stuff I´d heard over the years on their registration/inspection policies encouraging purchase of new motor vehicles as opposed to preserving the "old". And seeing pictures of some perfectly "fine"-looking "late-model" Toyotas etc. sitting lined- and stacked up at scrap yards over there, waiting to be disposed of or sold and shipped out to be put back on the road in the less "tough" markets of China or Russia... Since all vintage rods/customs anywhere in the world are merely based on somebody´s old daily drivers, I took the liberty of assuming, let me spell this out now, that based on what I just wrote, none of these builds seen here were likely to be based on anything anybody bought new and drove daily since day 1 in Japan, because: 1) They most likely wouldn´t have sold in very large numbers to begin with, 2) Not many would be likely to have survived the said 50+ yrs to go from mere disposable household items into the big-ticket novelty items they are considered now. I seem to recall how back in the ´90s the issue of export of vintage US-cars out of California to Japan came up repeatedly in at least Lowrider Magazine, so I´d imagine there has been a quite big demand for this stuff out in Japan in the more recent years, as opposed to when these things were new...
The Jalopy Journal
