The sky went orange, a thin moon came up over the power lines, and in the middle of an industrial parking lot in Ontario sat a row of cars that Japan once built for company men: a Toyota Chaser, a Crown Estate wagon, a Verossa. This was a boat meet.
What is a boat?
"Boat" is what the scene calls the big, soft, rear-drive Japanese four-doors of the 1990s and early 2000s. The heart of it is Toyota JZX: the Mark II, Chaser, Cresta and Verossa family, named after the JZ straight-six engines that powered the best of them. They were built as comfortable saloons, and then drifters and tuners discovered that a long wheelbase, rear drive and a 1JZ make one of the best platforms ever made. Canada's 15-year import rule lets them in, and now they're turning up in Ontario parking lots like this one.
The row
The Verossa is the odd one of the family, and our favourite here. Toyota built it from 2001 to 2004 on the X110 platform shared with the Mark II, and gave it an Italian-flavoured face: a mesh grille and swept-back lamps that look nothing like any other Toyota of the time. Next to it, a silver Chaser JZX100 wearing a Zen Style banner, the generation that drifters still fight over, and a Crown saloon on five-hole monoblock wheels. They were lined up outside the Automoon, auto detailing and Amazing RC Store units, with a few more JDM cars at the end of the row.
Crown, Crown Estate and Century
The Crown is the car the Mark II family looked up to, and there were two of them in S170 form: a saloon and a Crown Estate wagon with a Zen Style banner across the tailgate. Then the biggest boat of all: a dark blue Toyota Century with "V12" on its emblem. That makes it the second-generation G50, built from 1997 to 2017 with the 5.0-litre 1GZ-FE, the only production V12 Japan has ever made. We've seen them in Tokyo with someone important in the back seat. Seeing one in an Ontario parking lot is something else entirely.
Not everyone came by boat
A red AE86 with "APEX TWIN CAM 16" across the hatch, the GT-APEX trim and the 4A-GE twin-cam. A colour-shift purple Silvia S15 with a stack of Japanese-shop stickers on the rear glass, parked next to a red Z32 300ZX with its T-top roof. And as the street lights came on, the silver saloons sat in a row with their underglow on.
Verdict
These cars were never meant to be exciting. That's exactly why a parking lot full of them is. If you like your Toyotas big and your nights long, the same family turns up sideways at D1GP Ebisu.
Photos: One Breath Pictures.
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