Tatsumi Parking Area

Tatsumi Parking Area (or Tatsumi PA for short) was one of the most unexpected but incredible car experiences in Japan I had. Join me as we visit not once but twice!

Before we get into that what exactly is it? As the name suggests it is a parking area on the side of the Bayshore Route that wraps around Tokyo Bay. It is this bay that gave inspiration to the legendary ‘Bayside Blue’ colour found on the R34 GTR, as a note the name was almost ‘Wangan Blue’. This was in reference to the Bayshore (Wangan) Route but the affiliation to the Midnight Club street racers mean the name had to change….

You might be familiar with the Rainbow Bridge, it has featured in video games and is part of the loop popular with car enthusiasts around Tokyo Bay.

A beautiful Sunday afternoon as we pulled into Tatsumi.

Anyway back to Tatsumi! My first visit was on a warm Sunday afternoon with Tad from Grand Touring after we had been to Omori Factory (you can read about that here). I wasn’t really sure what to expect, it is fair to say Tatsumi is the little brother when compared to Daikoku so I was just happy to go along for the ride.

This nice 35 was sitting as the owner presumably went for a look at some of the other cars or to meet friends or to grab a drink – that is the great thing about Tatsumi it is very relaxed.

Speaking of drinks, it wouldn’t be Japan without a vending machine or three! I really wanted to try every flavour but wasn’t there for that long!

I was admiring this 370Z as a DeLorean rolled in. Note the Enkeis on the Z are like the model found on the Falken 24 Hour 34 GTR race car.

Said DeLorean after it pulled in, notice the CRX/Del Sol I don’t see many of these around today, as they get older and older.

This 458 was cooling down, presumably after blasting a few laps of the bay. A nice little AMG roadster also arrived at this stage.

By this stage we were just sitting there enjoying the show which changed every few minutes, in fact it is my quintessential Japanese memory, if I close my eyes I can still feel the sun, humidity, smell and noise as we sat there without any care enjoying life!

A this stage something rolled in that piqued my interest – this GT3. You can find a video of it here.

Not just because of the large Cup Car rear wing (the Cup Cars were made by Porsche specifically for racing – the wing is larger than the considerably large stock wing on the GT3!). If you look closely at these two pics you will see some stickers that indicate one thing – Midnight Club – the crew that were famous for high speed runs on these exact roads before being disbanded. I have seen this car in various articles and know the owner tracks it as well, it was a slightly surreal sight. I would be lying if I said I haven’t been intrigued by the whole Midnight Club crew and it definitely adds to the Japanese aurora.

Okay, now things are getting serious $$$ but like most cars this Aventador SV pulled, the owner grabbed a drink (a few have a smoke or meet friends) and then off they blast for another lap! On this particular day people weren’t parking for hours and just hanging it was more like a pit stop. If you wish to see and hear this car as it left here you go: https://www.instagram.com/p/B2JiQVSH26M/

After a while we decided it was time to head off, we jumped into Tad’s awesome 33 and blasted off for a lap ourselves – that doesn’t conclude my Tatsumi coverage though, if anything that was just the entree!

A lot of owners use Tatsumi as a break for themselves and their cars, cooling down never hurts.

As we pulled onto the Wangan we soon had some company!

It was quite surreal to be driving these roads which I remember from video games as cars like this serious RX7 went past!

So our second visit to Tasumi was accidental! It was a Friday night, we had just been to Super Autobacs ( a Japanese car parts shop) and had put the hotel back address into the navigator, as we were driving along I started recognising where we were… I am positive that this wasn’t the quickest way back to our hotel but I wasn’t arguing! We had to pull in of course and WOW!

We pulled in and immediately I knew we were onto something!

I didn’t actually have my camera on me (which is strange trust me) so I had to use my phone (Galaxy S9+ if you are wondering) and must admit it did a good job! Anyway back to the cars, Friday and Saturday night are the ‘big’ nights at Tatsumi.

We parked our hire car, it was actaully a rental from Toyota who in Japan have their own hire company. For anyone going to Japan I would highly reccomend this option, they do good rates and having a car like an 86 instead of something a bit more ‘normal’ means you can semi fit in at events like this and not have to worry as much taking up car parks in your standard commuter spec car.

Immediately obvious were the number of super cars out, we saw plenty during our trip at hotels and on the streets but to see them out like this together was cool. I like exotic cars but JDM is still really my true love but to see Lamborghini’s with lots of lights and shiny stickers was really cool – a truly bucket list type experience.

An older Diabalo with lots of flashing lights!

You might see ‘Anija’ on various cars, they’re a high end ‘customisation’ company as well as a crew, there were many members out in this particular night.

It wasn’t just older exotics, the SV-J had only just been released so this particular car must have been straight from the showroom!

Of course it wasn’t all exotics! This S15 looked good with the Tokyo skyline in the background.

Everyone was just chatting, checking out cars and generally enjoying themselves. That is a clear perspex bonnet in case you are wondering…

This Superleggera was one of my favourite cars and while the black was hard to photograph it looked great.

This 33 GTR really grabbed me, white being a great base for the Nismo stripes.

‘2193E’ of course referring to Nismo Competition Oil.

More stripes, you may have seen in the last pic the stripped out interior – bucket seats and no rear seats whatsoever.

This Bayside Blue 34 GTR wearing silver LM GT4s, sideskirts and rear spats is a timeless look.

A classic Porsche merging back on the Wangan!

I don’t mind Lexus LC500s, they are almost mini LFAs, then when this black version arrived sporting larger wheels and a bodykit it really did it for me.

A Civic Type R, no rear bumper, aftermarket exhaust – for all of us who have had JDM daydreams (or night dreams in this case) this was heaven!

Now is probably a good time for me to take off my rose coloured glasses! The police eventually arrived on the scene and started asking people to move on, that said no one was in too much of a rush! It was odd to see the police not be too forceful or start defecting cars, they just waited for people to head off. Unfortunately Tatsumi has changes since our visit, large metals screens have been erected between the road and the parking area, partly for noise control and partly to block visibility/screen. Furthermore, when Tokyo Auto Salon was on at the start of the year police completely blocked off the entry/exit ramps meaning events like this had no chance of occurring. A real shame but with the big events that occur around TAS and presumably the impending Olympics, the police weren’t taking any chances!

The fun police arrived! No one was in a big rush, despite many of the cars being parked illegally… and when V12s went blasting past back on the Wangan they still didn’t seem worried!

I was still scurrying around trying to take it all in! Liberty Walk kitted M3 was another surreal sight…

Imagine if this was your regular Friday night meet!

With an early morning for Rs Meeting (you can read that here) the next day it was almost time to push off – just a few more pics to take haha!

After what was a surreal night it was time to head off but there was still one more highlight! As we headed off and drove down the Wangan flashing lights appeared in the rear view mirror and soon went past at a rate of knots! It was many of the cars from Tatsumi off to their next destination… It was a truly amazing experience, I am going to sign off and leave you with a few more pics – enjoy!