About 80 miles north of Tokyo deep in the countryside of Gunma, Japan, the 2007 M. Yokota Classic Car Rally stirred up a huge buzz in the normally quite and sleepy town of Mt. Harunasan. Having many more pre-registered rally participants than anticipated, M. Yokota had to make a last-minute location change. The Rally is usually based at M. Yokota's classic car, toy and candy museum, but Mr. Yokota quickly realized his parking lot would not be able to accommodate that many cars.

The new location was the Sky land Amusement Park a couple of miles away on Mt. Harunna. There were over 200 pre-1989 classic vehicles ready for battle, and quite a few of these vehicles were deep into the 6-figure price range.

Participating in the rally were some very rare and expensive cars from all over the world. Vehicles ranging from pristine classic Bentleys to an Initial D inspired Hachi-Roku. All of the participants vehicles came completely restored and there was not one "under construction"-type vehicle in the rally. It was rumored there was a family participating in the event and the father raced a classic Rolls Royce while the son raced their Toyota 2000GT. That's just one example of the mega bucks involved.

The rally was not a full-on race. Actually, the goal is to come as close to the pre-calculated race completion time. The calculation was established by taking the distance of the street course and multiplying it by the posted speed limits, which equals the target finish time (length x speed = time). There were a few other rules, like no passing the vehicle in front of you (unless it stops for repairs or breaks), and there were race officials hiding throughout the course with radar guns to make sure no one was speeding. If anyone was caught breaking the rules, they were automatically disqualified. Each car had a driver and a navigator, and the navigator's job was to get the vehicle to each predetermined checkpoint in the shortest route possible by using the map provided by M. Yokota.

How can there be a race event on Mt. Harunasan without a Takumi Fujiwara sighting? Mt. Harusan is rumored to be the inspiration for Initial D's Fujiwara Tofu shop.

It's pretty rare to see one 2000GT on the road. There were 6 pristine GTs participating in the M. Yokota rally, not too mention M. Yokota has 2 more in his museum that were not in the event.

Without a doubt the most popular car at the rally was the Datsun Fairlady (Roadster in the US). There were numerous very rare 2000cc/2-liter Fairladys, as well as dozens of 1600 Fairladys.

Not only were there Japanese classics participating, there were a number of European vehicles running the event, European vehicles ranging from Bentley, Rolls Royce, Jaguar, and Porsche, not to mention a rare BMW M1.

There was a 1971 Datsun 432Z at the event. Datsun made 419 of these vehicles and they each came equipped with a 160hp S20 Skyline power plant. The 432 designation stands for 4 valves per cylinder, 3 carburetors and 2 camshafts.

M. Yokota must have raided his gift shop's inventory for this event, giving out dozens prizes to rally participants. Prizes were awarded to those who drove unique makes and models, as well as people who did well in the event. One of the prizes was a $500 2000GT Teddy bear.

There was the traditional champagne spray for the top 3 finishers of the rally.