2007 All Toyotafest Car Show
Pull up T.O.R.C.'s website and it all makes sense - "...to promote the preservation, restoration, modification and use of pre-1985 Toyota models." That's what the Toyota Owner's and Restorer's Club is there for; kind of like the National Archives of Japanese cars. T.O.R.C opens up its vault of historic automotive paraphernalia but once a year at its All Toyotafest car show held near the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA. If the site looks familiar to you, that's because the same people behind T.O.R.C are also responsible for JCCS, the Japanese Classic Car Show, which you may recall coverage of in Turbo's Feb. '07 issue. Like JCCS, the All Toyotafest is free, and with more than 250 members' cars of the Toyota, Lexus and Scion variety on display, it isn't something we wanted to miss. Neither should you.
T.O.R.C.'s pre-1985 cutoff apparently isn't exactly hard and fast though as we saw plenty of late '80s, '90s and even a few '07 models out and about. Toyota, Lexus and Scion all made official appearances displaying everything from the redesigned xB to the impressive IS-F, which somehow manages to cram a 400hp 5.0L V-8 underneath its hood. This little surprise from Lexus made the show all the more worthwhile for those who trekked from destinations as far off as the Midwest and even the East Coast since it's the first time this car's been unveiled outside of the major auto shows. About half the cars on the field exemplified T.O.R.C and carried their respective pre-1985 torches proudly. The other half consisted of small gatherings of VIP Lexus sedans, rock crawler Cruisers, boy racer Scions and a swarm of drift-ready AE86's.
You could call T.O.R.C.'s 12th All Toyotafest a success. Of course, the fact that this year also marks Toyota's 50th anniversary and that the carmaker also announced news just two weeks prior that it's officially surpassed General Motors in overall sales now making it the world's largest automaker didn't hurt.