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Here in Japan I drive a Honda Logo, a supermini that was kind of a precursor to the Fit you’re familiar with. Honda, unfortunately, never made a Logo Type-R, but I’m getting close with a few simple and affordable interior swaps. I used factory parts, just never in way the factory imagined.
Let’s be honest, the Tokyo Auto Salon isn’t exactly known for its high number of classic vehicles. Instead it’s known for all the utter insanity of its modification. When a classic shows up, it sticks out. And the WWork rich blue Triumph TR3A is a Rembrandt at a hipster modern art gallery.
In 2016, it was disappointing to see the very few Honda vehicles at Tokyo Auto Salon. And, it has to be admitted, I still have a great deal of disappointment that so few ‘90s Hondas like Civics, CRXs, and Preludes showed up at 2017, too. However, a number of modified S660s, Honda’s tiny kei car roadster, were everywhere.
Long distance road trips can be expensive, especially in places like Japan where to get any distance in a reasonable amount of time, you have to take tollways. When you add up the cost of hotels and food it can get quite expensive. But there’s a better way: turn your car into a mini-camper!
With the withdrawal of America from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Donald Trump’s tough talk on imported cars, and the Japan’s large trade surplus, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is asking the question: how does he get his public to buy more American cars? The answer: he can’t. Because the Japanese don’t want them.
Corazon isn’t a well-known player in the Japanese aftermarket world, but the Subaru parts company brought the glitz and glimmer to Tokyo Auto Salon. Not content to just add aero features and ground effects to their show pieces, they gave them the appearance of etched stainless steel. The effect looks like it just flew off a Cylon BaseStar from Battlestar Galactica.
The new Toyota C-HR is meant to take on the Honda HR-V and other dull little crossover/hatchbacks around the globe. It’s not an interesting type of car, and Toyota must know it—the company modified the hell out of a bunch of C-HRs at the Tokyo Auto Salon this year.
Every year at Tokyo Auto Salon, the students of Nihon Automotive College build some pretty crazy customs. And one of the things they seem especially good at is making tiny cars into versions of other cars that weren’t originally so tiny. This year, a Suzuki Cappuccino became a mini Mazda RX-7.
On any trip to Tokyo, there are plenty of spots for the Nippon-phile to hit. For those of us who are Japanese car fans, the MegaWeb Toyota City Showcase has to be on our list. Crawl all over about just every vehicle Toyota has made in recent years, and then top it off with a test drive around the showcase!
Last year at Tokyo Auto Salon, Lexus had a pretty large booth that mimicked some kind of Nordic dance club bar one might see in Oslo or Stockholm, all white and glass and steel, with flashing lights, dancers, and Lexus staffers in thin, crisp reflective suits. This year? Carbon fiber race cars. That’s it.
Thirty-seven years ago today, Honda brought to us a great and long, and woody, addition the Civic family with the 1980 Civic Country. With its extended hatch and its rolling rows of red, almost four decades later and it would still look perfect on the farm or the ranch.
A reader recently inquired on the initial Tokyo Auto Salon 2017 post about if any vendors from China were present, and if so, how bad were they? Well... the answers are “yes” and “pretty pathetic.”
Ninety-nine times out of 100, when an automaker tries to make “cars for women,” it comes off as clueless, condescending and just plain bad. Here’s that one time out of 100 when it’s OK, and it comes from a brand that’s forbidden fruit in the U.S. these days. Meet the Daihatsu Sporza Revival line, aimed at custom-conscious Japanese women!
Do you need to transport eight of your closest hacker buddies to the nearest totally “underground” techno rave in the deep warrens of the city’s industrial district? Do you still live in the mid-90s? Do you love glow sticks a little bit too much? Well, just for you, Honda introduces the Freed Active!
There’s Japanese Domestic Market, then there’s JDM. Just because something is made for the Japanese market doesn’t mean it fits with JDM style. Given the severe modifications in many sections of the Tokyo Auto Salon, it was heart-warming to see students of Toyota Automotive College produce a prime example of JDM: the Toyota Starlet KP61 STREET.
Mugen, Honda’s little-brother modification company for Honda products started by a Honda family member, has a long history of “classic” JDM design modifications. For Tokyo Auto Salon 2017, Mugen threw all of that right out the window for its S660, which looks like it belongs cruising the Death Star or Imperial Coruscant.
In 2016, Jalopnik East covered the S660 Neo Classic prototype concept. It was the concept we wished was real. Well, now, its creators have stepped up the game for 2017, and I’ve never considered Grand Theft Auto so much in my life. Stripe game and color scheme on point.
Another year of Jalopnik brings you another year of Jalopnik East, and coming off Detroit, we’re once again back at the Tokyo Auto Salon for 2017, bringing you all the JDM goodness from Nissan, Subaru, Honda, Toyota, Daihatsu, Suzuki, and a bunch aftermarket manufacturers. Turn on some Eurobeat and let’s hit the floor!
Recently new series of Kei cars from Honda, especially the N-One, have harkened back to the classic design language. You can see it on the front ends of the otherwise boxy and unassuming 660cc powered mini-cars. But what if boxes aren’t your thing? The N-Labs S660 Neo Classic has you covered.
Japan is a “Galapagos Market”, so called because its unique regulations lead to unique species of vehicles seen almost nowhere else. Including just about the entire Daihatsu lineup. That includes the modular Daihatsu Copen. You can have any Copen you like as long as it’s... er... 64 horsepower. The rest is up to you!
Last night America met Democratic vice presidential contender Tim Kaine. I wanted to see if he would be a worthy successor to the Gearhead-in-Chief, Vice President Joe Biden. He’s not Uncle Joe, but he is very much the goofy dad of our everyday motoring experiences. The following traits of our next potential VP may or may not be true, but we really hope they are.
Everyone is trying to make cars that can drive themselves, but Honda and Japanese mobile carrier SoftBank want to go a lot further: they want cute emotional robot cars that talk to you about your feelings. There’s no way that could go horribly wrong, am I right?
If you choose to make your way out to the great man-over-nature feat of manufactured land tracts that is Tokyo’s Odaiba, you’ll get a chance to go absolutely crazy in Toyota Motor Corporation’s MegaWeb, especially if you are a Toyota fan. However, if classic cars are more your style, do the MegaWeb History Garage first. It’s even in a mall designed to look like a 1950s or 1960s Italian city. Perfect setting!
The main purpose of today’s Jalopnik East excursion was to check out the Toyota Showcase City at Megaweb in Odaiba. Instead, I stumbled into the middle of a private demonstration and test drive event for Bentley... and they let me in!
If you don’t know 18-year-old Koyama Miki (????), you’re far from alone, but it’s definitely ignorance you should correct. She’s in the Japanese Formula Four Championships and, like a lot of young racers, she’s gunning for a slot in F1. She’s good enough that Honda just let her thrash an S660 in a brand new commercial.
If you’re in the Far East and want to combine a two hour flight from Japan, an amazing trafficless tropical drive, and a ton of World War II history, then get yourself to the island territory of Guam and your ass in a rental car. You won’t be disappointed.
If you can find the time to spare to go an hour from Tokyo into a sleepy industrial part of Yokohama near Shin-Koyasu station, you will find the original factory of Nissan Motors. Inside are a plethora of Nissan engines, and a very friendly curator who will walk you through the automaker’s history.