Growing up in Milwaukee, I was not a stranger to the name Jack Safro. In fact, my parents like many other Wisconsin residents within the last forty years have come to know Jack Safro as synonymous with Toyota. Jack Safro died of a heart attack earlier this year and a large portion of his personal estate was liquidated recently at the Mecum High Performance Auctions.

A private cruise of cars before JCCA classic car show.

Old Car Festival in Iwamizawa, Japan.

It was a sunny yet breezy Saturday morning in Long Beach, California and the only thing better than the weather were the cars that were dock side to the Queen Mary. Even more tantalizing was that over half of the vehicles were Japanese classics and nostalgic models.

Every day we hear in the news about how terrible the economy is doing and how the Big Three is on the brink of bankruptcy in Detroit. But things must be getting out of hand when even Toyota, the world’s most profitable automaker, announces that it suffered major profit loss.

A resurrection of childhood fantasies. Faster, more powerful, and just as sexy as the original.