Based on the cars, we’d peg this photo as no later than 1963. According to The Guardian the crowded street is located somewhere in Tokyo, and if we’re right about the year only about 5km of the Shuto Expressway would have been open at this point. There are no shoulders or street-side parking on this thoroughfare, and no median either despite six lanes of traffic.
The mix of cars is fascinating, with 312 Bluebirds, Toyota Publicas, Isuzu Hillman Minxes, and Mitsubishi Minicas fighting for space against Nissan Junior, Prince Clipper, and Toyota Toyoace trucks. The S40 Crowns were stately sedans of the day, but an imported 1962 Dodge Dart has found its way across the Pacific as well. Meanwhile, the bus headed for the mountain town of Hakone has a long way to go.
Ah memories!
All the cars in Japan were available to a person in Tokyo and they looked at a 1962 Dodge Dart and said “Yep, that’s the car for me.”
For a while, there was a disturbing number of PT Cruisers around Tokyo.
I spent a week in Tokyo in 2019 and only heard one car honk, and it also happened to be the only aggressively driven car I saw the entire time in that glorious megacity – “Chinese tourists”, explained my Japanese host Kozo-san without missing a beat.
I love that they are primarily commercial vehicles and are all rather narrow and by today standard – short. So you fit much more than a bunch of SUVs from today