Japanese Nostalgic Car

One of the main reasons people buy Japanese cars in the first place is because of their ridiculous longevity. Ironically, Japanese roadworthiness inspections are so prohibitively expensive that it’s fairly common for many owners to ditch new cars after just three years of ownership. And yet, Japan’s automakers are still maniacally obsessed with building cars that will survive just about any apocalypse you can throw at them.

What’s your best high mileage JNC story?

If you ever visit the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology, you’ll see a well-worn X70 Toyota Mark II wagon in the middle of it. About 10 years ago, Toyota found the car for sale with something close to a million kilometers on the odometer. They bought it back from the owner, drove it across Japan, and arrived at the museum just shy of 999,999km. To reach that magic number, they drove it in circles in the parking lot until the odometer was just about to roll over to all zeros. Then they parked it in the museum as a monument to Aichi’s legendary dependability.

What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining comment by next Monday will receive a toy. Click through to see the winner of the last QotW, “What’s the most insane luxury feature on a JNC?”  Continue reading →

Japan’s culture had always put a high priority on service, but along with new technologies came novel ways for automakers to provide some truly crazy luxury experiences for their customers. Therefore we ask:

What’s the most insane luxury feature?

Heaps of things come to mind, like the flip-down portal in the front passenger seatback of a Toyota Century (so you can extend your legs and rest your feet up there), the Mitsubishi Debonair’s height adjustable suspension, or Honda’s 1981 navigation system. DR30 Skylines had some sort of lane guidance thing, the Mark II/Cressida had an entire auxiliary stereo control module located about 8 inches closer to the driver than the actual stereo, and the Nissan President had anti-lock brakes in 1971. And that’s not even counting the cars with build-in fridges.

What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining comment by next Monday will receive a toy. Click through to see the winner of the last QotW, “Which JNC has the greatest grille?”  Continue reading →