Supra National Meeting 2022 in Japan
The Supra National Meeting 2022 was held at Fuji Speedway in November 2022. As an event exclusively for variants of many generations. Supra owners drove from all over Japan, introduce you to some of the owners who are a big fan of Supra and their cars that showed their passion and great emotion.
Memorable car from my school days
Although the “Supra” name has been used in North America since the 1970s, the GA70, which debuted in 1986, was the first car in Japan to adopt the Supra name following Celica. Mr. Honyo, who was one of the entrants to the event with a 1986 Supra GT Twin Turbo, told us that he had bought a different GA70 Supra from this one with a part-time job during school days.
He once stayed away from Supra, but one day he found an old photo, had taken with GA70 and friends as a student time. He wanted to do it again, so he repurchased GA70, it was just started to own 8 GA70s in total, 6 complete cars of which 5 registered for a drive in the town, 2 of which will be secure the parts.
He said, “It’s been a while since I rode one, and it was heavy, slow, and noisy from the wind. But I don’t mind at all. Getting obsessive about running out of parts, I looked at more and more cars for parts at the beginning, but I found more and more cars. When I looked back, there were many cars on hand.”
“Sometimes I bought one, due to the original rare color! Continuously looking for the cars and parts, I started to fix them up and buy more quite simply. It’s completely my hobby. The earlier model’s design of the front and rear is different from the later model. I’m just interested in the earlier GA70”.
The body color Noble Toning is just for the 1st gen.
This 1986 model that participated was purchased about three years ago, and the rare two-tone Noble Toning body color, which was only available on the first GA70 models, was the deciding factor in its purchase.
The condition of the car was not so bad, but he took the engine down and gave it an all-new paint job. It also overheated during a long drive, so the radiator was repaired and the engine was overhauled. In addition, the car stereo system was replaced due to malfunction, but many of the original parts have been kept. All of Honyo’s Supra models are in stock condition, he says.
“Parts are available to some extent from GR Heritage Parts, in addition, to spare cars, and MA70 parts are still available in the US. I also buy them when I find them on net auctions. Now the time, the radiator is out of stock. But I kept it in my stock when I overheated the other day.”
“Just want to drive the car I drove in evergreen memory”
Honyo says he is only interested in the GA70, which will soon be 40 years old, and only in its earlier models. Even though he owns a car for town use, is he interested in adding other cars to his collection?
“I think it will be a silver ｍodel JZA80. I also used to drive this car when I was a student. Back then, we wanted to drive Supras or Soarers as a generation memory. So if I want to drive a car, I will drive the JZA80 Supra or Z30 Soarer that I used to drive. I just want to drive the car I used to.”
■ORIGINAL TEXT: Hiroyuki Kondo