Milestone anniversaries were celebrated at Beaulieu’s eighth annual Simply Japanese rally, which took place on July 28. The event marked 30 years of the evergreen Mazda MX-5 and 50 years of the Nissan GT-R, with first-class examples joining a bumper display of 1410 Japanese cars – nearly a 50 per cent increase over last year.
Over 2500 people joined the cars in the sunny grounds of the National Motor Museum, where they could witness everything from original-spec survivors to full-on modified cars. Naturally the MX-5 and Nissan GT-R were both well represented, but there were plenty of other Japanese favourites including MR2s, Mitsubishi Evos, Nissan Cubes, various Type Rs and more. At the heart of show, meanwhile, were displays by car clubs including SouthCoastJap, Hampshire Honda Crew and Celica-Club.
Show-goers voted for their favourite Japanese car of the show in People’s Choice Award, with Daniel Smart from Poole winning with his 1995 Nissan Skyline GT-R R33. Also scoring highly were runners-up Aaron Britton from Portsmouth with his 1972 Datsun 240Z, and Lee Smith from Poole with his 2015 Honda Civic Type R. Aaron’s 240Z had been subject to a major overhaul, and turned many heads with its impressive blue paintwork. All winners were presented with Autoglym prizes.
Simply Japanese was Beaulieu’s eighth Simply rally this year. It will be followed by the first Simply Mercedes on August 18 and Simply Smart on November 10. For tickets and details see www.beaulieu.co.uk/events.
