San Marino Concours d' - Japanese Entrants - June 10

[bakerjf]

Peter (mraitch) - Wrap-up please! Hoping to hear my cynicism was unfounded and the chain finally broken.

[mraitch]

John,

Chain sorta broken

1st 1971 right hooker 240Z S
2nd Toyota S800
3rd Toyota Celica (convertible) - virtually pristine after 161K miles

So, Mike Malamut was in 2nd. Can't help it. Lefthand drive - roughly only 300 made for US servicemen) out of ony 3131
(If he had paid more attention to some details like screws and had all lights working, he likely would have done better.)

J class is not so much about 'elegance', but more about the holistic car (at least in San Marino)

We were told to ignore obvious signs of a car been driven as long as it was maintained. Dirty engine compartments will lose points, while dusty won't (as example)

Fortunately also, as my 'assistant', I had a guy from Australia, who knew much more about these cars than I.

We spent pretty much 15 minutes on each of the 8 cars, communicating with the owners. and I think all were treated professionally.

Coupla people were 'inquisitive' shall we say about the judging, i.e. they weren't placed.

It's really hard work (not physically of course) evaluating and judging.

Can't imagine what it must be like to judge Packards,Peerless,Duesenberg etc.

I'm going to do it again, but certainly when I go to JCCS this year, I will spend much more time across the spectrum and talking with the owners.

So last year Malamut won with a Mazda R360 and was 3rd with a Toyota 2000GT (left hand drive) after another 2000GT.

I'm surprised that ANY J-Car could beat a well turned out GT, but hey, I wasn't there judging. Mike's cars are museum quality for the most part and he has the opportunity to cherry-pick to add to his collection.

To an extent, it's kinda like competing with the Nethercutt.

So, that's that.

[bakerjf]

Thanks Peter! I’m guessing the not-placed weren’t thrilled with the Celica. I know there were some other nice Z’s there, but I assume it would have been overkill to recognize another Z after you chose one as Best in Class.

[mraitch]

John,

If the z's warranted it, they would have been 1,2,3 - we didn't have that as a criteria.

Judging is just tough, but I will be better informed next year.