Tours of the Nissan Heritage Collection are free, but reservations are hard to get. Slots for the following month are released all at once at 12:00 noon on the 5th of each month, and popular dates fill immediately. This article covers what the facility is, how the booking system works, and how to catch cancellation slots if you miss the initial release. Information for visitors from overseas and our booking assistance service are at the end.
About the Nissan Heritage Collection
The Nissan Heritage Collection is a storage facility located inside Nissan’s Zama Plant in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture. It holds around 500 vehicles dating from the 1930s onward, including production models, racing cars, and concept cars. About 280 of them are on view during the tour, among them generations of the Skyline and Fairlady Z, as well as cars that raced at Le Mans.
This is a working storage facility rather than a museum, so vehicles are rotated and loaned out to other events on an ongoing basis. As a result, the lineup differs depending on when you visit. The tour is free and takes about 90 minutes.
Booking rules
- How to apply: Online reservation through the official website only. Advance booking is required; walk-ins are not accepted.
- Allocation: First come, first served. A date closes as soon as it reaches capacity. There is no waiting list system.
- Tour days: Not daily. Roughly 10 days per month, on both weekdays and weekends/holidays.
- Times: Twice a day (10:00–11:30 and 14:00–15:30).
- Capacity: 25 people per tour on weekdays, 30 on weekends and public holidays.
- Calendar update: Slots for the following month open at 12:00 noon on the 5th (for example, May dates open at noon on April 5).
With a limited number of tour days and small group sizes, demand far exceeds supply. Weekend and holiday slots are the most competitive.
There are two chances to book
There are two points at which a reservation can be made, and they work differently. It helps to treat them separately.
1. The monthly release at noon on the 5th
All slots for the following month become available at once. Since the release time is published, everyone is on equal footing. You simply open the booking page at noon and apply — there is no special technique.
The flip side is that if you cannot be at a screen at midday Japan time, or if your travel dates are not yet fixed, securing your preferred date at this stage is difficult. Popular dates go quickly.
2. Cancellation slots afterwards
A date being full is not final. Slots return when people cancel, and this can happen right up to the day before the tour.
However, cancellations are not announced. They occur at unpredictable times, including late at night and early in the morning, and a returned slot is usually taken again within a short window. Whether you notice it in time is what decides the outcome. The official site has no alert function for this, so it otherwise requires checking manually.
An account that posts cancellation slots
Since monitoring the site around the clock is not practical, we run an automated monitoring account.
Nissan Heritage Collection Booking Alerts by Good Loop (@GoodLoop_Nissan)
It checks the official booking page automatically and posts to X whenever availability changes — for example, that a given date has opened up, or that a date has become full. If you follow the account and turn on notifications, an alert reaches your phone as soon as a slot is released. The service is free.
- Posts are written in both Japanese and English, so you can follow them without reading Japanese.
- Openings that appear late at night or early in the morning are covered.
- Because it also posts when a date fills up, you need to reopen the booking page far less often just to check.
Note that everyone else receiving the alert is applying for the same slot, so a notification does not guarantee a booking. It is a way to avoid missing openings you would never have seen, not a way to skip the queue.
Steps to get a reservation
- Decide on several possible dates. Weekends and holidays are the most contested, so including weekdays improves your chances considerably.
- Apply at noon on the 5th. If you can be available then, this is the most direct route.
- If you miss out, follow the alerts account. Turn on notifications and wait for a cancellation slot.
- Apply immediately when an alert arrives. Returned slots do not stay open long.
- Keep watching until the day itself. Last-minute cancellations do occur.
Planning a visit from overseas
If you are fitting this into a trip to Japan, keep the following in mind.
- You cannot book more than about two months ahead. If you are travelling in May, the earliest you can reserve is noon on April 5. There is no way to secure a place before that.
- The release time is noon Japan Standard Time (UTC+9). Check what that means in your own time zone.
- The booking site is available in English, so you can apply yourself from abroad.
- It is not in central Tokyo. The facility is in Zama, Kanagawa, and the trip takes over an hour each way even from Shinjuku Station. Leave room in your schedule before and after the tour.
- Waiting for a cancellation is a weak strategy on a short trip, since there is no guarantee one will appear while you happen to be in Japan. If your time in the country is limited, aim to book at the release on the 5th.
For current details such as the language used during the tour and what to bring, please check the official website.
Booking assistance
The booking site is in English, but if the time difference makes it impractical to be online at noon Japan time, or if you cannot spend weeks waiting for a cancellation slot, we can handle the reservation on your behalf. Please get in touch through the contact form.
Nearby: AEON Mall Zama
AEON Mall Zama, a short distance away, is worth a stop. The site was once part of the Nissan Zama Plant and opened as a shopping mall in 2018. The Nissan Zama Information Center inside displays a different Nissan car each month, and cars are sometimes placed near the third-floor atrium as well. It fits easily into the time before or after the tour.
