The garage life that everyone envies
The biggest dream for car enthusiasts is to acquire the famous cars they have admired since childhood as an adult. The owner was able to fulfill such a dream and has two Toyota 2000GTs lined up in his garage. What is the story behind this fateful encounter?
The 2000GT, a car he has always admired
What is the biggest dream for car lovers? I think it would have to be to have the famous car that I admired when I was a child, when I grew up.
I too have loved cars (or rather miniature cars) since I was little. When I was in kindergarten, I admired my uncle’s Nissan ‘Sunny Coupe’ and Toyota ‘Celica’. Eventually, I discovered that there were all kinds of cars in the world, and my number of dreams exploded. The final stage was the supercar boom when I was in primary school. The Lamborghini Countach and Ferrari 512BB (Berlinetta Boxer) descended deep into my heart.
When I later acquired both cars and lined them up in the warehouse, I thanked God from the bottom of my heart that my dream had come true. Since then, I have been able to enjoy the “dream sequence” with some leeway (in other words, a bit boring).
Mr H, a member of the supercar boom generation, has also admired the Toyota 2000GT since he was a child. As a child, he used to draw pictures of the 2000GT all the time, and he hated Hayato Peterson, who drove a 2000GT in the comic ‘Wolf of the Circuit’. Perhaps that’s why I liked the earlier models.
It takes time to realize a dream (that’s why it’s a dream), and Mr H had no idea that he would ever become a 2000GT owner. After graduating from a local high school, he went to Tokyo and became an office worker. One day, he saw a 2000GT sitting out in the rain at a nearby dealer. The price tag was 8 million yen. Even at 8 million yen, it was out of reach for Mr H at the time, and he was too scared to buy it.
“Good cars” go to people with strong feelings
Thirty years have passed since then. After returning to his hometown, Mr H was a car enthusiast and enjoyed various models to the extent that he could afford them. However, the 2000GT of his dreams quickly became a luxury item. It was no longer something you could buy at a car shop. Just when I was about to give up, I found out that there was a well-made replica in Aichi Prefecture. It was the R3000GT from Rocky Auto. If I could do my best, I might be able to buy one. ……
I chose an automatic with a 2JZ engine. I wanted to use it daily. The fact that it was an early model design, which I love, was also a key point. Mr H was happy to have the style he had always wanted. Rocky Auto had a real early model, but it had already been sold, and having got the 3000GT, he had given up in a good way and began to think that the real thing was more out of reach. That’s when …….
“If it’s a late model, it might come in soon. ……”
Mr H felt doomed. He had not given up. His desire to buy one flared up even more than before. And he was convinced that the reason he had been led to this shop in search of a 3000GT was to find the real thing.
He did everything in his power to finance the purchase and succeeded in acquiring a white late-model. With an R3000GT with an early-model face for everyday use and a genuine late-model 2000GT next to it in the garage, he has completed a garage line-up that any car enthusiast would be envious of.
