PEBBLE BEACH \u2014 For a classic car to win Best in Show at an automotive beauty pageant, it needs to be beautiful or interesting, unique, restored to perfection or, perhaps, carry a compelling story. And, it doesn\u2019t hurt to be fast and furious on the racecourse, like marques which have elevated their status via victories at, for example, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.<\/p>\n
Think Bentley, Ferrari, Ford, Alfa Romeo, Porsche, among them.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, for decades, the Japanese automobile arena was built for the popular market, perhaps the daily driver, essentially reliable, easy to drive, paired with innovative technology and long-lasting performance. Think Toyota Corolla, introduced in 1966, Honda Civic, released in 1966, and Honda CR-V, which debuted in 1995.<\/p>\n
However, Honda raced at Le Mans during the years from 1994 to 2006 and won the GT2 Class in 1995.<\/p>\n
Reportedly, the Japanese only turned their focus on international racing in the 1960s, with construction of the Suzuki circuit, long after other countries, which began competing across continents in the early 1900s.<\/p>\n
During the 1990s, Toyota, Mazda and Nissan also entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans. A year later, Mazda won at the Circuit de la Sarthe with the unconventional Mazda 787B\u2013the only rotary-powered vehicle and the first Japanese car to ever win the race.<\/p>\n
Toyota went on to win Le Mans five years in a row, from 2018 to 2022.<\/p>\n
This year, with its Japanese Motorsports Class, the Pebble Beach Concours d\u2019Elegance is welcoming an array of competition cars to the show field from a selection of manufacturers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Japanese motorcar industry came into being after World War II, and it took a while for them to get into racing,\u201d said Chief Class Judge and Selection Committee Member Ken Gross. \u201cOnce they did, they were successful in many instances. Competing in and winning Le Mans was a way of saying their engines are durable, and their cars have the latest state-of-the-art performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The coachbuilt cars to come onto the Pebble Beach show field were classics like Bugatti, Duesenberg, and Rolls-Royce, said Gross, but the automotive arena had nothing like that in Japan.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we picked a race from which to feature Japanese cars, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where the country\u2019s automakers had marked success,\u201d said Gross. \u201cTo develop this class, I contacted people like Ellen Bireley, former director of the Indianapolis 500 Motor Speedway Museum, who is curating a Japanese race car class at Laguna Seca in August, as well as Bruce Canepa of Scotts Valley.\u201d<\/p>\n
A former racecar driver and owner of a world-renowned auto-restoration company, Canepa owns a 1990 Nissan NPT-90 IMSA GT car, which will be featured at the Concours d\u2019Elegance. Among other \u201cRising Sun\u201d racecars headed to the show field are the 1989 Mazda 767B GTP which, among other races, crossed the finish line at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1990, while the 1998 Nissan GTP ZXT was pivotal to the brand\u2019s championships in IMSA, including eight victories in 1988 and 10 in 1989.<\/p>\n
Not only are these cars very cool to look at, with their aerodynamics and racing livery, says Gross, but they will generate a lot of excitement, as they make a lot of noise. When they\u2019re fired up on the field,\u00a0people will take notice.\u00a0Consider the 2010 Honda HPD ARX-01c, which achieved a LMP2 class victory at Le Mans in 2010.<\/p>\n
But it was Toyota that caught international attention with its TS050 Hybrid. With its twin-turbo V6 engine and highly sophisticated front and rear energy-recovery systems, it was this car which, in 2018, gave the company its first win at Le Mans.<\/p>\n
\u201cJapanese automobile makers have long tried to provide cars people needed and wanted,\u201d said Gross, \u201cand they\u2019ve done it often better than anyone. Cars that reach the popular market are important. Elegance is not only a beautiful experience but also it\u2019s what\u2019s under the hood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which is why, he said, the Concours d\u2019Elegance is turning increasingly to Japan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot to learn and to celebrate among Japanese cars, which are so innovative,\u201d said Gross. \u201cHonda created a great engineering department and solved emissions problems before Detroit did. This isn\u2019t the last time I think we\u2019ll see Japanese cars at Pebble Beach. As we continue to bring younger cars to the field, cars from the \u201970s and \u201980s and so forth, we will see more Japanese cars represented.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PEBBLE BEACH \u2014 For a classic car to win Best in Show at an automotive beauty pageant, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2940,48149,48148,10356,8,17,2164,48150,827,32915,170,48151],"class_list":["post-74486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-california","tag-central-coast","tag-classic-car-week","tag-columnists","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-local-news","tag-monterey-county","tag-newsletter","tag-northern-california","tag-opinion","tag-pebble-beach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}