Enjoy some great pictures and story from Japan, of the Custom Hill Reunion 2020 show By @Tokyosoul_ Daran Hull-Brown

Like anywhere else in the world, Japan has had most, if not all of its 2020 car events cancelled. And before we knew it, summer was over, fall was upon us and Costco already had blow-up Santas on the shelves. Mooneyes 2020 Hot Rod Custom Show had already been cancelled. Custom Hill Reunion 2020 was a welcome invitation. Nice fall weather, outdoors, open enough to avoid being TOO close, and most of all, right in the middle of Japan, somewhere it was really easy for people to come to from all directions. 200 custom cars. On a hill. Hadn’t happened for about 2 years. And this whole corona covid thing has affected us all in too many ways to count. Makes perfect sense. 

In 1999, a Japanese guy named Akila, (with an L, not the R), decided to have a car show. Any and everything from before 1978, ‘Because that’s what’s classic’. Akila owns and runs Vannuys Automotive, a custom garage based in Shizuoka, Japan, famous for a couple of different builds that have achieved Mooneyes Hot Rod Custom Show fame. It’s right near Mt. Fuji. Helluva nice guy. Easygoing, set in his ways. Speaks English, lived in California years back. So he starts this car show. Opens it at a camping ground. If it’s fine and sunny you can even see Mt. Fuji. (Apparently. It has always been cloudy so no one knows for sure.) 

Layout is interesting. It’s this big grassy green expanse of different tiered areas. It’s a campground with a few running water sinks and some semi-temporary toilets here and there. There aren’t any houses around so not a lot of noise complaints, (which are sadly the biggest killer of car / bike shows in Japan.) Lots of different car clubs come, and they all get their own areas within the venue. Nothing was roped off. People sit by their parked cars drinking beer and firing up little BBQs. No show queens either. All of the cars are driven, regularly, and they all had to drive from somewhere to get here. Even if you weren’t in a car club there would be a place for you too (pre-registration required for all), near similar makes and models of cars to yours. And the whole area is encompassed in trees. It’s like a secret fort for big kids. 

It’s hardly a one man show though. Akila thanks the scores of ‘regular car guys’, supporters of his shop and members of The Camshafters car club who are all there to help, swarms of helpers in this year’s event t-shirt, dark green with yellow lettering. Asking Aklia about the color he says, “This is this year’s color. If covid19 has a color, this is it.” So there he is, Akila san running his car show, annually, for 10 years. And then, with true Forrest Gump-tion, at the end of his 10th show, he’d had enough. He stops. That’s it. No more. Nothing. Nada. Zip. 

10 years later, people start bugging him about the show again. The early fall season is great, that nasty summer burning skin feeling is gone, the venue is fantastic, (‘BBQ and BEERS dood!!) The timing is good, 2 months from Mooneyes Yokohama. Everything seemed to line up nicely, so in 2018, he revives the show. “But you know, it’s a lot of work. So once every 2 years is great.” Akila has already confirmed the next Custom Hill WILL BE in 2022, but he hasn’t started planning for it yet. That just means we are going to have to wait and see what color the t-shirts are will be. 

NOTE: There is one BIG building that you may see in the background of many of the photos on the net. I thought it was part of the campgrounds. (It so reminded me of the hotel in The Shining.) Turns out it’s actually a nursing home. Hope they didn’t mind our DJ slinging all sorts of tunes from all sorts of genres and ages. That, or they just couldn’t hear him. There was definitely no shortage of musical funkiness.