Monday, September 19, was Respect for the Aged Day in Japan. To mark the occasion Kinto, a car sharing service, held a survey to ask drivers of three generations about their motoring habits, including what their dream cars were when they were in their 20s. It should be no surprise that the Nissan Skyline topped the lists, but here are the detailed results.
The Kinto survey divided the results from hundreds participants into three categories: senior, bubble, and millennial generations. The questions asked included topics like “Why do you own a car?”, to which to top spot for senior (46.4%) and bubble (41.2%) participants responded “Because I longed to own one.” That answer ranked third among millennials, while the top millennial (45.7%) answer was “Because I need it to commute to school or work.”
When asked, “In your 20s, what was your dream car?” 358 seniors responded overwhelmingly with the Nissan Skyline, specifically the Hakosuka. The top 10 broke down like this:
1. Nissan Skyline (72 votes)
2. Nissan Bluebird (23 votes)
3. Toyota Crown (21 votes)
4. Nissan Fairlady Z (20 votes)
5. Toyota Corolla (19 votes)
6. Toyota 2000GT (16 votes)
7. Nissan Sunny (15 votes)
8. Toyota Celica (12 votes)
9. Toyota Corona (9 votes)
10 (tie) Isuzu 117 Coupe / Isuzu Bellett (7 votes each)
Among the 356 bubble generation respondents, the Nissan Skyline still came in first, but it the runaway favorite as it was with the seniors. The top 10 looked like this:
1. Nissan Skyline (32 votes)
2. Toyota Soarer (28 votes)
3. Toyota Celica (15 votes)
4 (tie). Honda Prelude / Nissan Fairlady Z (14 votes each)
6. Toyota Supra (13 votes)
7. Toyota Crown (12 votes)
8 (tie) Ferrari / Lamborghini / Mercedes-Benz / BMW (9 votes each)
Among the 238 millennial respondents, imports topped the list. The Skyline still ranked high, but not quite as high as winner Mercedes. Also, SUVs cracked the top 10 for the first time. Surprisingly the Toyota Crown, a car even Toyota is convinced only seniors want, still had a decent mid-pack showing while 90s cars like the Cima and Silvia rounded out the top 10.
1. Mercedes-Benz (14 votes)
2 (tie). Nissan Skyline / Toyota Land Cruiser / Lexus / Audi / VW (7 votes each)
7 (tie). Toyota Crown / BMW (6 votes each)
9 (tie). Jeep (5 votes)
10 (tie). Toyota Alphard / Nissan Cima / Nissan Silvia / Nissan GT-R (4 votes each).
It’s not surprising that the Skyline had such a strong showing. Culturally, it’s Japan’s Mustang. Funnily enough, Kinto’s business is based on the idea that people don’t want to own a car at all, preferring instead to subscribe to a service that lets them borrow different models when they need one. And perhaps even more ironically, if Kinto sounds familiar it’s because it’s a subsidiary of Toyota. In other words, a Nissan Skyline topped a Toyota survey about dream cars.
Sounds right to me, except I would say Z10 Soarer and 130 Crown.
Unfortunately they didn’t say which generation of those cars.
When I stopped by Blitz in 2017 (https://www.f31club.com/2017/05/26/visit-to-blitz-tokyo-may-2017/), there was a group of Bostonians that stopped by as well.
They were asking where all the R and S chassis were, and my friend Ogino-san, told them that those were old chassis that aren’t around as much.
But then Ogino-san said something to me that kinda hurt.
He said that Japanese blame Americans for taking their dream car, the Skyline.
I had to say that America has a 25yr limit, so the other countries like Russia, New Zealand, Australia and Canada need to be blamed because they had access WAY before the US did.
ha ha, about the ONLY time a Corolla is more desireable than a 2000GT.