Isuzus at 2009 New Year's Meeting in Odaiba

[JT191]

The theme of this year's NYM is "Hino and Isuzu". This is a show for pre-1979 vehicles held each year in Odaiba (the newly reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay, in the parking lot across from the Maritime Museum, and down the street from Toyota Mega Web).

I do not expect a lot of coverage from English language websites, and none from printed magazines, because of the poor world economic condition, and a general lack of interest from the English speaking older Japanese car fans and writers, who seem myopic about anything that is not Hakosukas and 2000GTs. In general, if they never make an effort to look at the vehicles that Isuzu made, they can continue to write profound statements like "Isuzu never built very exciting cars", or "Isuzu never developed a following".
The only possibility for any in depth coverage of this show would be if one of the Nissan enthusiast writers is a particular fan of Brock Racing Enterprises (American Peter Brock of Nissan fame, not Australian Brock[s]), and decided to devote a lot of words to the Hino Contessa, because BRE raced those for several years.

Anyway, there are pictures filtering onto the internet on Japanese blogs, and I found a few...

On the right is a Hino Contessa. On the left is the KRS Bellett R6 (Coupe).

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[JT191]

Number 46 is one of the cars owned by Aoki Katsuyuki. It was originally built for Shigeki Asaoka and Tsusumi. (Another coupe was built for Tachiyo Yonemura).

[JT191]

The other good Isuzu picture I found, a Bellett GT Fastback.

Past years coverage of this show always shows the same two GTs and the same two 117 Coupes, probably local regulars. That Blue GT looks like one of the regulars.

There is a line of Belletts in the background of one of the pictures above, and a Hillman Minx in the row. There appears to have been more Isuzu participants this year. I saw some interest on one of the internet club websites, but no mention from the conventional clubs. The 1979 cutoff date would have been an issue for the Gemini clubs...

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[hudson]

Love the Hino Contessa Coupe! Except maybe the rear end.

Also love the Bellett racers and the fastbacks.. has anyone seen a Bellett Fastback in the flesh? I was actually going to post up one of my photos of one asking this very question when I stumbled upon JT191s post here..

Sometimes I wish I married my long time Japanese girlfriend and went to Japan instead of staying in Canada.. this is one of those times

[2ldohc]

Thanks for posting the info JT191. It's always great to find out what's happening back in Japan and if not for people like yourself the rest of the English speaking world wouldn't know.

Thanks,
Ross.