So what does a newly married man do while on honeymoon in Japan? Goes Kei-car hunting of course!
As a long time Keijidosha fan, and one time visitor to J, I was excited to have 3 weeks in the birthplace of the Kei-car. Our trip was to take us to Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Nagoya, lots of busy areas with many opportunities for Kei hunting.
My second visit to J confirmed an observation I made during my first visit – there are not GTR’s, EVO’s, WRX’s, Silvia’s etc, all over the place. In fact, we Australians would see more tuned cars, or at least sports model JDM cars, on our roads in the course of a week, than you see in Japan. Living in Melbourne, I see way more of the above mentioned cars in a week than I saw in Japan.
Without boring you with a history lesson (and some of my own opinions/observations) there are a couple of reasons for this. (Don’t take this as gospel, but I’ve tried to best understand the situation with some basic research and communication)
1: Although cars (seem to be) cheap to buy in Japan, (for example, the new Toyota 86 in its premium specification, would be less than $39,000 AUD if converted directly from the Japanese Yen. You can bet if won’t be that cheap here in Australia!) they do seem expensive to own. Talking to some locals and ex-pats, I understand that registration and certain taxes for car parking etc are high, (if you choose to own a ‘vintage car it’s higher again) the toll way costs are huge, and like most of the world, petrol prices keep rising; the Japanese pay close to $2 AUD a litre.
2: Traffic, it’s mad! Most cars are fitted with TV/DVD as traffic jams stretching on for kilometers are a daily challenge. The rail network is SO GOOD, I imagine most city dwellers and even those on the fringe, just don’t need a car. You can get anywhere you need on the train/tram/bus, it’s not expensive and always runs on time.
3: The crazy Japanese tuning culture is a thing of the past. Of course there are still plenty of tuning shops in Japan, but the wild heydays of car tuning of the 80’s and 90’s are well behind Japan now. The biggest car show in Japan, the Tokyo Auto Salon used to be all about highly tuned J rides, but now it’s just as much about body-kits, rims, paint, i.c.e, l.e.d. conversions and other trinkets and bling, and a lot less about performance parts. I came to understand that it’s a generational shift, and that the Japanese youth (probably like here in Australia) would prefer something cheap to run. As a perfect case in point, a friend of mine, a Japanese citizen working in the automotive tuning sector, asked his teenage son what kind of car he would like, even offering to buy him a series one MX5, was met with the response, ‘I just want something easy to drive with 4 doors so I can drive my friends around’ !?! On that note, cheap and easy to drive Kei cars, account for half of Japans new car sales, and those of you with an interest in Kei cars in general will know that there are no sports Keijidosha on sale anymore. Not since the days of the Suzuki Cappuccino and Alto Works (and the like) has there been a Kei car worthy of tuning. The only ‘sports’ Kei I noticed in any sort of numbers was the Daihatsu Copen, and calling that sporty is drawing a long bow!
4: I personally feel of lot of the good rides from Japan are no longer in Japan. A R32 GTR is an old car now, as are the early Silvia’s, and even Toyotas last Supra. The Japanese don’t tend to hang on to ‘old’ stuff, and if what I understand of older car rego is true, they are better off moving onto what’s new. There is no doubt of the massive importing of Japanese performance cars into Austraila - legislation was changed to try and stop it! But you only need to check online or pick up a copy of Unique Cars to realize just how many ‘grey imports’ we have here. I would suggest that New Zealand has even more per capita as they are able to buy used Japanese cars so easily. My tuner friend in Japan tells me that many tuners are buying cars back from Australia now.
Anyway, I digress.
So what does all this mean for Kei hunting in J?
A butt load of these;
window of a swiftly moving Shinkansen (bullet train) I am sure I spotted the distinctive taillights of an MB, far in the distance under a tarp, in what seemed to be a farming district).
So that’s part one. The boring wordy stuff. In part two – pictures.
