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.

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.