Larry Chen, an automotive photographer based out of Los Angeles, is a globally known figure among car enthusiasts for his photographs, his YouTube channel capturing car culture, and his impressive car collection. On April 3rd, Chen hosted a car meet called “TYPE S Night Lights” in collaboration with Toyota Gazoo Racing, Type S, ST Suspensions, and Formula Drift in the parking lot in front of the Queen Mary in Long Beach.
Chen stated that with this meet he “wanted to do something that was inspired by [the Wangan Base Yokohama Option Street Night Festival]” after attending the event in Japan last year that featured professional drivers, famous tuners, and legendary cars.
For Night Lights, Chen wanted to bring a similar event to the United States that combined car and tuning culture in a single place with a stunning night time view.
“But instead of it being in Japan, I wanted to do it in the US, specifically Long Beach because there’s this beautiful ship here called the Queen Mary, and it’s this island where we get to shoot downtown Long Beach as a backdrop,” he said.
When he planned the event, Chen could have never imagined the turn out at his own car meet. On top of visitors from Southern California, cars from out of the state and even from other countries attended the event.
“[The amount of people] exceeded my expectations. Southern California car culture came out in force,” he said in an interview with Annenberg Media.
When driving into the port of Long Beach, people were met with an almost mile-long line of cars trying to get into the Queen Mary parking lot. After about an hour of waiting and entering the parking lot, visitors were immediately then guided by event staff to the exit as the primary lot was full. This in turn led to many people finding parking in nearby restaurant lots and illegally parking on the street.
Many people, including me, resorted to parking at the Pike Outlets Parking Garage and other lots on the opposite side of the Los Angeles River, and walking across the bridge to attend the event.
With the recent popularity of 80′s and 90′s Japanese classic cars, especially among younger people, Chen has attracted new and existing Japanese car enthusiasts because of his numerous videos documenting the subject. Cars on display at the event included both domestic and imported Japanese car models.
The term “JDM,” Japanese domestic market, is an acronym used for cars designed, built, and sold solely for the Japanese market. These JDM vehicles have surged in popularity in recent years in the United States with many importers across the country bringing in these cars from overseas.
Due to American importation laws, cars that were not designated and sold to the American market cannot be imported unless they are over 25 years old.
Because these cars were not sold in the United States, this has allowed for a revival of these older cars finding new owners and living a new life overseas from their home island of Japan. With cars from the 90′s and now early 2000′s being eligible for importation, many now dream of owning a unique, old, and right hand drive car in the United States.
One fan favorite and a dream car for many enthusiasts is the Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R, of which Chen imported from Japan. Some might recognize it from the “Fast & Furious” series or “Gran Turismo” video game franchise on the Playstation. People in the United States young and old are dying to get their hands on this classic car and as of 2024, it became legal for importation.
In extreme cases, this has led to some of these 25+ year old cars being sold for up to almost nine times their original price. On Chen’s Youtube channel, you can find videos documenting the purchasing and restoration of his personal R34 GT-R in Japan. At this event, Chen was able to display his newly imported car for the first time to the public.
When talking to Chen about the event, he mentioned how civil people were and the quality of the cars people brought to display.
“Everybody was so well behaved and the cars were excellent,” he said. “It was incredible to see this kind of support for the car culture.”
In addition to fans bringing and showing off their own prized possessions, the event featured the appearance of the cars competing in Formula Drift Long Beach, a yearly competition where race cars compete in one on one drifting battles.
Due to Formula Drift having a good relationship with the City of Long Beach, they were able to secure Chen the Queen Mary parking lot for the event. In previous years, the drift race cars were paraded on the streets of Long Beach with a large crowd following the cars throughout the city. This was shut down by the city as it was deemed too wild and dangerous for spectators. However for Night Lights, the cars were able to be driven from the Formula Drift race course to the meet for fans to enjoy.
“The City of Long Beach supported it too, which was absolutely insane and they were all onboard with the police, with traffic control.” said Chen. “They obviously love racing and drifting so much because they have the Long Beach Grand Prix and also Formula Drift Long Beach here.”
When it was time for the Formula Drift cars to return to the race course, spectators gathered around as the loud roaring of the engines began. One by one each car started and the crowd tried to get as close as possible to watch the cars leave.
Fans were not deterred at all by the deafeningly loud engines revving to the max and continued to film the cars on their phones. As the cars continued to drive out of the Queen Mary parking lot, the crowd continued to follow the cars and watch in excitement.
Also featured at the event were different types of booths including vendors and Toyota Gazoo Racing, a sponsor of the event. At their booth, Toyota unveiled for the first time to the public three new special models of their existing sports cars.
This included a preview of the new GR Corolla, featuring a plethora of new carbon fiber parts and other changes that were not revealed at the event. While not much is currently known about this new model, Chen shared his experience of first examining the car in a video on his YouTube channel. Also unveiled at the booth were two new limited edition models of the GR86 and GR Supra.
A new limited edition model of the GR86, labeled the “Yuzu Edition,” features a new exclusive Yuzu Yellow exterior paint job, quad exhaust, different rear bumper, and more. This model will be limited to just 860 cars for the North American market, a nod to the GR86 name and lineage of the AE86 Corolla.
In addition, the booth featured the new and limited version of the GR Supra, labeled the “Final Edition.” With the production of the GR Supra scheduled to end in Spring 2026, this model will serve to be a final send-off for the GR Supra line. The special model will feature larger Brembo brake discs, suspension and chassis changes, and other performance enhancing modifications over the standard GR Supra.
Both new limited edition models of the GR86 and GR Supra are scheduled to be released in 2026.
When asking Chen what we can expect for the future of TYPE S Night Lights, he stated how he would want this to happen again.
“I would love this to be a yearly event, it would be my dream,” he said.
To wrap up the interview, I asked Chen what we could expect to see from him going forward in 2025.
“I’m just excited about my book,” Chen said. “My life’s work book is coming out, it’s called ‘Life At Shutter Speed’ and it’s 20 years of my career in one book.”