Dirt Legends in the City: JDM Rally History on Display in Tokyo
Traveling to Tokyo, Japan can be an incredible experience for car lovers. Whether it’s the big events, informal car meets or just finding cool stuff parked on the street, there’s never a shortage of automotive-related stuff to see and do.
One thing we recommend is a trip to Odaiba to see the Toyota Megaweb showroom and History Garage located at the Venus Fort shopping mall along the Tokyo waterfront. Easily accessible by train and free of charge, it’s a perfect way to spend a few hours.
History Garage
In particular, the History Garage is a don’t-miss destination, not only with an assortment of classic Toyotas, but plenty of vintage cars from other manufacturers as well. As part of a remodel a couple years back, they also added a new Motorsport Heritage area that makes the History Garage even better.
We dropped by during our recent visit to Tokyo and found that the Motorsport area has one of the coolest ever displays of historic Toyota rally cars.
Starting at the Beginning
The exhibit traces Toyota's rally history all the way back to 1957, when the Toyopet Crown RSD was entered in the Mobilgas Rally in Australia and placed 47th overall, proving the capabilities of a Japanese car on a global level.
Years later, Toyota proved that it could build very successful rally cars like this battle-scarred ST185 Celica GT-Four that won the 43rd annual Safari Rally in 1995.
Not only is the car itself on display, but so are many other artifacts from the event, including maps, navigation guides, racing suits and even the bottle of champagne used to celebrate the victory. Together, they tell quite the story.
Mitsubishi Is There Too
While Toyota owns and operates the History Garage, it includes cars from many different global manufacturers. This rally exhibition even included a trio of rally machines supplied by Mitsubishi's factory collection, including a pair of Lancers representing the '70s and '80s and an Evolution III that won the '95 Australian Rally.
We highly recommend to anyone who might be in Tokyo to drop by the History Garage and see the incredible cars for themselves, but if that's not possible we've done the next best thing and prepared an extensive gallery below. Enjoy!
