It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon in the parking lot of Soldier Field. The hot sun had baked the tarmac dry and though the weatherman had predicted 85 degree weather, we knew it was going to be much hotter during Hot Import Nights.

We arrived in the mid-afternoon, hours before the general public, and grabbed our press passes from the booth. The other members of the press and models were all anxious to get inside the gates. Like an over-caffeinated mob, everyone waited through the sound of burning rubber and the smell of high octane gasoline as it hung in the air. Only a hundred yards away the Formula D Pro-AM drift racers had already begun their warm up.

Outside the gates the energy coming from the event could already be felt. The music was loud and the cars glittered in all their glory with the afternoon sun beating down on them. The owners finished up the last details on their cars, shined up the tires and gave them one quick final wipe-down.

Getting there early was imperative so that our photographer could snap some clean shots of the cars well before the majority of the crowd began to pile in. After the first run through, it wasn’t hard to see that the true Japanese classic cars were few and far between. Even at an event such as Hot Import Nights where Japanese makes hold reign, it really starts to settle in that prime features of the golden days of Japanese cars are dwindling.

Of the hundreds of vehicles at the show, there were only a handful of cars from the pre-1980’s era, including a couple of Datsun Z’s and a Mazda RX-2, the car with the first rotary ever to come stateside. Their owners were all standing nearby and after a quick talk with each of them it was impressive to find that most of them had owned the cars since they were sixteen! (The owner of the RX-2 actually had a scrap book detailing with pictures the immense amount of work that it took to restore the vehicle.)

An unfortunate part of the search for the classics was the wishful thinking of seeing a few of them in the drifting competition. Although the drift event was quite furious, not even an AE86 made an appearance.

As the day quickly turned to night, it was becoming more obvious that the car scene doesn’t always stop to remember the originals that pushed the scene to where it is today. Those who appreciate the classics are a rare breed indeed. But those that understand where the culture has come from hold a truly unique love for the cars.

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Why don’t we feature any of the other cars from HIN? Because you can find all the other cars featured everywhere else on the internet. Here at JDM Origins Magazine we look beyond the big rims and flashy stickers: we focus purely on the classics.

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