The car was originally ordered as a municipality vehicle for a city in Aichi Prefecture. The city used it for visiting officials from 1984-2011. In 2011, the car went up for auction and sat for months until a DoD employee here in Misawa made an offer. After some negotiating, he was able to get the vehicle for cheaper than expected and planned on adding it to his collection of automobiles stateside. Unfortunately, he ran into some issues and was considering selling the car. Ironically, when he was trying to decide to keep/sell the car, I happened to see him parking one day and had the usual car talk. I had no intentions to own such a car but just out of the spontaneous idea of "I've never owned something like this," I asked him if he was planning on selling it. This was October 2012. After months of emails and phone calls, he finally let me purchase the car May 17th for an astoundingly low price. Here are a few specs:
1984 Toyota Century VG40
16,000 km
Power locks
Power windows
Power wing mirrors
Power trunk lid
Auto dimming headlights
Self adjusting hydraulic rear suspension
Dual audio control
Dual climate control
Column shift auto
4.0 liter V8
Digital tachometer
Horizontal speedometer
Power reclining rear seats
Power massaging rear seats
Rear folding reading lamp
7 layers of black paint
Hand built made to order only
Japanese Royal Family's vehicle of choice
I have already added a few of my personal touches but have a few more plans. So far:
Espilar lowering springs (approximately 2" drop)
Junction Produce taillights
Junction Produce fender indicator lenses
Removed the seat covers
