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I went to tyhe 1st Classic Car show at AkaRenga (Red Brick) on the 10th. The show was sponsored by one of the local mini repair shops: http://www.garage-grace.com/blog/. Here are some pics of the show (more pics posted on the blog).

hi looks like a great show let me know when its on next year cheers thankyou for the great pictures cheers brian

Looks like an excellent event.

The Japanese have a great eye for detail! Some stunning cars to lust after.

M

mk1 wrote:Looks like an excellent event.

The Japanese have a great eye for detail! Some stunning cars to lust after.

M

But this doesn't apply at all to the cars they build themselves.....

Its true there are some poor quality builds in Japan just as there are every where else.
However the sponsor of this event Garage Grace is the one place that consistently builds extremely high quality cars that happen in the main to be Mini's. When I was there in January, Shinobu had built over 140 cars from a bare shell in his career plus servicing and repairs. His shop includes in house paint and panel never in 2 pak along with engine building and machining having done his time as a machinist with Yoshimura. Shinobu has taken mini's to the isle of man rally on a number of occasions and drove with gusto. He is a true enthusiast. So Vegard please do a little homework before making a broad generalisation. He even restored the speedwell streamliner a subject close to your heart.

Mini129, thanks for putting in a good word for Shinobu-san. Garage Grace does excellent work and their labor charges compared to other shops in the Tokyo/Yokohama area are very fair. His body work is the best that I have seen in Japan but can get very expensive. He fabricates his own panels, has some special jig for frame alignment, ect.. I wish I could afford having my 62 countryman restored by him but he is out of my price league. I was at his garage a few months ago and there was mini that was in need of major body work due to being in an accident. He told me the owner wasn't very happy with the car AFTER Shinobu-san informed him the car was not a Cooper S. The owner thought he purchased a Cooper S but the body was modified to look like one (Shinobu-san showed me where the rear was cut to look like a Cooper S). One of my close friends (Fred) purchased a mini from him about 3 years ago and has become very close friends (Tomodachi) with the crew at Garage Grace. They let him get involved with the building of his new mini (like rebuilding his 1300 plus engine, tuning, ect..). He also gave Fred and I pit passes for last summer's mini race that was held at Tsukuba. Great guy and knows his minis!!!

Those are very impressive photo sets.