Only a few days to go until the premiere Nostalgic Japanese car show in the US, the Japanese Classic Car Show, or JCCS. This Saturday marks the event’s 10th year, and this will undoubtedly be its biggest. We will descend onto the park next to the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California for the third straight year, as this has become a can’t miss event.
So while many of you won’t attend, nor care to, we still use JCCS as an excuse to dedicate the week to classic Japanese Cars in 1:64 form. The last couple of years we have focused on Hot Wheels, and they continue to give us plenty to cover, but we are going to go in a different direction this week. There will still be plenty of Hot Wheels coverage, but look for a heavy emphasis on Tomica Limited Vintage, as well as a look into Japanese car castings by Matchbox.
2014 has been the year of Tomica Limited Vintage here at Lamley. Before 2014 we had a small collection of TLV, but that changed when we met the guys at Japan Booster. Since we discovered their store, we have increased the TLV collection ten-fold. And not just TLV street cars. We have added buses, trucks, fire trucks, car transporters, taxis, and a ton of police cars. We might have a whole city forming.
So we want to start today with the second part of our look at Tomica Limited Vintage’s DR30 Nissan Skyline. We already showcased the Super Silhouettes, but how about the cars the Super Silhouettes were based on?
That would be the DR30 Skyline. It was a very cool car in Japan back in the early 80’s, and not just because of the Super Silhouettes. It was also the car of choice for the heroes of the TV drama Seibu Keisatsu, who zipped after the bad guys in their “RS-Machines” 1 through 3. And as we have said before, because of that, the DR30 Skyline became what KITT and the Duke’s General Lee became for kids in the US. Those are probably good reasons why the DR30 Skyline was voted Best Car of the 1980’s by readers of Hachimaro Hero magazine.
And we think its time is coming in other countries outside of Japan. If you mention “Skyline” to most “JDM as f*#k” fanboys, most will think of the Hakosuka, Kenmeri, R32, and R34. The DR30 doesn’t conjure the same excitement as the others. But as more and more enthusiasts start looking deeper into Japanese cars, the DR30 is bound to pop up. Who knows, maybe we will see one in a Hot Wheels blister someday, which would surely up its visibility in our little world. (Ryu, are you listening?)
Just the other day we were at a Japanese car gathering here in Salt Lake City, and the biggest treat for us was this DR30 “Iron Mask” Skyline owned by a local collector named Brody:
Outside of a slight lowering and a set of Wats, aesthetically this is pretty much what the DR30 looked like. Cool eh? It is hard to ignore how good this car looks. The lines are right on, especially for an early 80’s beast. If you haven’t paid any attention to the DR30 until now, you will soon. It is a hard car to ignore.
That is why we are so happy that Tomica Limited Vintage has dedicated a lot to the DR30. They have done the stock version, the Super Silhouettes, as well as the Seibu Keisatsu RS Machines. These models are very popular in Japan, as their high price on ebay obviously indicates. That is why we are happy to have them all, so why not kick off JCCS week with them?
We will go in depth on the four stock models, including the two Turbo versions, and give you a glimpse at the Seibu Keisatsu versions, which we will showcase more in depth later.
Here is the good thing, in case you like what we show: at the moment all versions are available at Japan Booster.
Don’t miss out…
Tomica Limited Vintage DR30 Neo Nissan Skyline:
NISSAN SKYLINE 2000 RS 1982
NISSAN SKYLINE 2000 RS TURBO
Seibu Keisatsu RS-Machines 1, 2, and 3:
