Remembering Joji Luz: Toysport Legend, ToyGarage Founder, and Keeper of the Fifth Toyota Celica

Fifth Celica RA20 Joji Luz Toysport My ToyGarage Cabe Toyota Toyotafest JCCS

Joji Luz was the kind of person who made everyone around him feel like they belonged. As one of the key figures behind Toysport, the legendary Toyota parts shop in El Segundo, California, and later as founder of ToyGarage, he spent decades building something that went far beyond selling parts. He built community.

I bought my first car just after I graduated from high school, a used ST162 1986 Toyota Celica. I didn’t know much about cars back then, but every OG on the Toyota Mods Email List told me the same thing when I asked where to find parts: “Go to Toysport in El Segundo. And make sure you ask for Joji. He’s cool.“

Founded in 1980, Toysport was established to distribute Toyota Racing Development parts, other aftermarket manufacturers, and even hard-to-find Toyota parts from the Philippines, like Nodalos headers, Solex locks, and PI-made gaskets and rebuild kits for rare Toyota engines. It quickly became the leading Toyota tuning specialist in Southern California. If you were a Toyota person visiting Southern California, Toysport was like your Mecca. It was the place you went when you were serious.

Joji really was cool. He’d hook up repeat buyers with a slight discount on parts, the kind of thing that made you feel like you were part of something, not just a transaction. His older brother Joel (RIP to Joel too) ran things a little more strictly by the book, but Joji understood the culture in a way that went beyond moving inventory. He understood that the cars were just the entry point. What people were really looking for was community.

Joji Luz really was cool. He’d hook up repeat buyers with a slight discount on parts, which is the kind of thing that made you feel like you were part of something, not just a transaction. Everyone knows his older brother Joel (RIP to Joel too) was a little more strictly business, but Joji understood the culture in a way that went beyond just moving inventory. He understood that the cars were just the entry point. What people were really looking for was community.

When I first visited Toysport, I didn’t have much money, but I knew I had to buy something. I ended up buying a Cusco front strut tower bar for my Celica, and I was shocked that they actually had it in stock. Joji sold it to me. He pulled it out of the stash in the back (the plastic was a little dusty, to be honest), but I was so excited to have purchased something from Toysport, which was pretty much like the church of modified Toyotas.

Joji Luz, ToyGarage, and the Soul of Toyotafest

Joji wasn’t just behind a parts counter. He was one of the people who shaped what Toyota enthusiast culture looked like in America.

When Joji left Toysport to run his own business, he founded ToyGarage (aka My Toy Garage) and joined the Toyota Owners and Restorers Club, which started just as a small gathering of classic Toyota owners, but eventually turned into the group that organizes the giant annual Toyotafest.

Joji was tasked with bringing in modified cars to Toyotafest. “At first, I didn’t know if they’d be accepted,” he recalled, but the modified cars brought in a younger generation (people like me and my AE86 back in 2000) during the height of the Tuner Era. “Soon we started to get sponsors,” he said, and the show snowballed from there.

He served as president of TORC before Cabe Toyota’s Mike Bingham, and his fingerprints are all over what Toyotafest became: one of the longest-running Japanese car shows in the country, a multigenerational gathering that to this day feels more like a family reunion than a car show.

Joji captured the philosophy perfectly: “Competition is not the focus. It’s not about who pours the most money into their car. It’s how much soul does the car have? That’s why we give out ‘Recognition for Outstanding Workmanship’ awards rather than first, second, or third place trophies.”

That one quote tells you everything about who Joji was. He wasn’t interested in hierarchy. He was interested in heart.

He also spoke about what made the show most meaningful to him in his later years: “The show has been going on for so long now you see your friends’ children getting into it. The cars become an heirloom or the kids are building their own. Now you have multiple generations coming to the show together. That’s what is most rewarding about Toyotafest.”

The Fifth Toyota Celica Ever Sold in America

Joji was the man. But also, there’s the car. His yellow “Smily Bumper Celica” always made serious Toyota collectors stop and stare.

The first Toyota Celica for North America arrived for the 1971 model year as the ST trim. Toyota positioned the Celica as its answer to the popular American muscle cars of the time, marketing it directly against the Ford Mustang, the Chevrolet Camaro, and the Dodge Challenger. The Celica didn’t have a monstrous V8, but it had a muscular look, rear-wheel drive, and a fastback roofline that drew obvious inspiration from the Mustang. If you’ve ever parked a first-gen Celica next to a Mustang of the same era, the family resemblance is hard to ignore. It was Japan’s pony car. Lightweight, honest, and charming in a way that most American muscle of that era simply wasn’t.

In his Redondo Beach, California home, Joji proudly kept and protected the fifth US-market Celica ever built, as well as the thirteenth, plus even more Toyotas. He grew up in the Philippines, where American muscle cars didn’t exist, but imported sport coupes like the Toyota Celica were coveted objects because they were made famous in rallying by the esteemed Silverio family, the official importers of Toyota to the Philippines. Joji described the vintage Celica as a car you could genuinely enjoy driving while still being practical enough for everyday use. “An old Toyota can be stored for three years and then be driven again with no problems,” he said.

The fifth Celica ever sold in America. That’s not a number you hear often in any collector car conversation, and Joji owned it. This wasn’t a garage queen sitting behind a velvet rope. It was a car that Joji had a deeply personal connection to, one that traced all the way back to his childhood in the Philippines and the first time he ever understood what a Toyota could be.

Drive the Cars. Make the Memories.

Joji’s passing makes me think about something I believe every car person needs to hear (especially myself), even if it’s uncomfortable.

Some people spend so much time protecting their cars, worrying about their rare uncracked vintage dashboards and mileage, keeping them off the road when it rains, covering them up so the sun doesn’t fade the paint. There’s nothing wrong with preservation, especially with a car as rare as a 1970s Toyota – especially the fifth Celica ever sold in this country.

Here’s the thing, though. Joji seemed to understand something that a lot of collectors forget. He called the vintage Celica a nice car that you can enjoy driving, yet practical. He cherished and protected his Number 5 Celica and his Sports 800, but he actually drove them too. He didn’t use them for getting groceries, but he did drive them to shows. He let people see them, touch them, and connect with them. The cars were the bridge between people, not the destination.

You can’t take it with you when you go. You just can’t.

What your family and friends will remember isn’t the condition of the paint or how few miles were on the odometer. They’ll remember the morning you loaded everyone up and drove somewhere just because you could. They’ll remember the sound of the engine at a car show, the amazing smell of old Toyota vinyl interior mixed with the fuel smell from the twin side-draft Mikuni carbs. Kids will build core memories when cruising with their parents in their cool old car. (Parents, please make sure you own a cool old car in the first place.)

Those memories don’t depreciate. They compound.

The last time I saw Joji was at a night time offroad truck meet in Orange County. I had already moved to Vegas by then, so Joji was surprised when he saw me… but he still greeted me with his signature smile, and I remember him excitedly telling me, “dude. I know you have some Toyota offroad vehicles now. You gotta sit in my Land Cruiser and hear the sound system that Sandy (our mutual friend Sandy Lirag, from OEM Audio Plus) put in my 80 series.” Then he unlocked the door, gave me the key, and said, “go ahead. Blast it!”

Joji spent decades building community around these cars, not just selling parts, not just attending shows, but genuinely investing in the people who loved Toyotas as much as he did. He understood that the car is just the object. The memory is what lasts.

Rest easy, Joji. The community you helped build is going to carry this forward. Somewhere at the next Toyotafest, somebody is going to walk past a first-gen Celica and feel exactly what you wanted them to feel.

That’s the legacy.

To Joji’s family: thank you for sharing him with us for all these years. Our deepest condolences. May eternal light shine upon him like the headlights behind his clear headlight covers.

Rest in peace, friend. Thank you for 25 years of friendship and inspiration.

:: Antonio Alvendia

Instagram: @AntonioSureshot • @MOTORMAVENS
www.antoniosureshot.com

One of the things that gets lost when we grieve on social media is that the memories eventually disappear. Instagram and Facebook posts get buried. Timelines move on.

We want this page to be a permanent record of who Joji was to this community. If you have a memory of Joji, a story from Toysport or Toyotafest or JCCS, or just something you wish you had told him, please leave it in the comments below.

His family and friends will be able to find it here. So will anyone who searches his name years from now.

Relevant Links about Joji and his Celica:

Follow MotorMavens on Instagram at @MotorMavens for daily content, build updates, and real enthusiast culture. Subscribe to the MotorMavens YouTube channel for video features, shop tours, and everything happening with the builds you’ve been following. The community lives there. Come be part of it.