the 72 Coronet in Japan, Tsutomu Ikeda's 4 door unusual beast

after getting an '84 Firebird Trans Am at age 18, and having to do all the work on it himself, he got a job at a shop that was focused on European cars, and after 3 years, moved on to Osaka to work at an old-school speed shop called California Racing.

While living in Osaka, Tsutomu built a private garage on his property. He also bought his dream car, a '70 Dodge Challenger R/T 440 from Kenji Okazaki, a famous Japanese Funny Car driver in the USA. Along with his Challenger, Tsutomu built a street/strip '71 Corvette for a client that broke a local speed record. The feat put Tsutomu's name on the map in the Japanese drag racing world.

After four years with California Racing, Tsutomu started his own shop in Osaka with the owner of the '71 Corvette. They named their shop Sleepers Performance and for the next four years built various street machines. However, he left this shop to work on another dream, opening a speed shop in his hometown in Wakayama. By the age of 34, Tsutomu returned to Wakayama to start Speed Research. Tsutomu came across this '72 Dodge Coronet when the previous owner asked him to check out the car before putting it out for sale. a 318, 904 and 8 3/4 car

http://www.hotrod.com/cars/featured/ccrp-1303-1972-dodge-coronet-no-gaijin/

A fire starting from the electric distribution box caused a loss of 6 rare 1990's Skylines in an Ontario Ca importers warehouse

Lost to fire
1 : 1990 Skyline 4DR,GTS-T,
2 : 1990 Skyline 4DR,GTS-T,
3 : 1990 Skyline 4DR,GTS-4,
4 : 1989 Cefiro
5 : 1989 Skyline GT-R, KH2,
6 : 1989 Soarer
7 : 1990 Skyline GT-R, (NISMO)
8 : 2000 Skyline GT-R (R34 Race car)
9 : 1989 Skyline GT-R, KH2, ( R34 wheel),
10 : 1994 Eunos/Mazda Cosmo
11 : 1990 Skyline GT-R, KH2,
12 : 1990 Skyline GT-R, KH2,

http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/list-of-cars-lost-in-international-vehicle-importers-fire/#more-49979
http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/news/a29138/international-vehicle-importers-warehouse-fire/
https://www.facebook.com/importavehicle/posts/1157896960908837

Finally, a Southern California rally tour for something other than expensive euro sports cars from Germany and Italy... the Tourge, for pre-1975 Japanese cars

For those of you unfamiliar with the Japanese word touge, it means “pass”. These mountain passes are quite common in Japan and serve the purpose of decreasing elevation in the road. As these twists and turns were built into the mountain, Japanese enthusiasts took to these passes for driving pleasure—and has the entire sport of drifting.

Ben Hsu and Patrick Strong went above and beyond to emulate a touge course in Southern California. The course started in Thousand Oaks, and ended in Torrance at the Toyota Museum in 2015

the Malamut collection in Thousand Oaks http://malamutautomuseum.com/index.htm

For coverage of the 2015 http://petrolicious.com/japanese-nostalgic-car-s-first-true-california-touge
and https://desktopconcours.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/touge-california-2015-presenting-the-birth-of-classic-japanese-car-rallying-in-america/

The 2016 touge, which was Saturday, April 2, put on by the hard-working people at Japanese Nostalgic Car who, along with rallymaster Patrick Strong and Jacob Brown from Touge-sponsor Mazda and a host of others, laid out a course from Mazda R and D in Irvine, South to Escondido, sorted through invitations and lined up all the cars for a long day’s drive into night.

 http://autoweek.com/article/car-life/touge-california-gives-classic-japanese-cars-their-spot-rising-sun

http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/touge-california/