All Toyotafest is All Right

Despite the maelstrom of news surrounding Toyota this year, there are still a great number of people that pledge allegiance to the brand. A good lot of these folks showed up to participate in and be witness to the 15th Annual All Toyotafest on May 15th 2010 at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. In the end it was Robert Co of Vallejo, California that took Best of Show with a gorgeous stock-modified 1975 Toyota Corona. The win was a real photo finish. The AZN Motorsports crew put the final touches on the car just one day before the show. Robert told us while he had the car itself for only a few years, it had been a over ten years since he first laid hands on the original and complete HKS turbocharger system that was bolted up to the 18R-G twin cam engine under the hood. Robert and his Corona joined Celicas and Scions alike for the premiere Toyotas-only event on the West Coast.

The annual All Toyotafest is hosted by T.O.R.C., or the Toyota Owner’s and Restorers Club. T.O.R.C. was established in 1995 with the goal of bringing Toyota collectors and restorers together. Founder Stuart Resor has owned many Toyotas over the years, and started T.O.R.C. hoping there were others who shared passion for driving, preserving, restoring and enjoying old Toyotas. He found them. Early get togethers for BBQ at Cabe Toyota in Long Beach led into an ad placed in Hemmings Motor News. The T.O.R.C. now boasts over 180 members in the USA, with 1100 more lining up from Australia, England, Japan, Europe, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and other global locales. While T.O.R.C. holds restoring and rebuilding old school Toyotas at its core, the All Toyotafest welcomes any year or model Toyota or Lexus to come out and have fun.

In our case Toyota allegiance started with family. Dad’s Ford Pinto begat a late ’70s Toyota Corolla, which my brother Stefan and pals later nicknamed the White Flame. This Corolla was followed by the next – a more powerful half-a-hemi 3TC powered early eighties Corolla, which because if its color, was dubbed the Blue Flame. Today’s Starlet has over 220K on the clock and is as much fun to drive as it was when built in 1982. Maybe a little more. A short time after the All Toyotafest, a woman motioned to roll down the passenger window on the Starlet while we were rolling on Pacific in Venice. She yelled with a huge smile from her Toyota Highlander that she had owned a Starlet for twenty years. That kind of time behind the wheel of any car is long enough to create experiences that give a car its soul. We hope whoever got that Starlet is still enjoying the ride.

For more All Toyotafest information and photos head on over to T.O.R.C., or start with Part One of Japanese Nostalgic Car Magazine’s THREE Part coverage of the show.

15th Annual All Toyotafest Gallery