Today, December 1, is Movie Day in Japan, marking the country’s first public screening of a film in 1896. So it’s only fitting that we ask about notable movie scenes depicting Japanese cars. We’re not talking about petrolhead movies necessarily, and in fact the vehicle in question doesn’t even need to be the hero car. Nor does it have to be involved in a pivotal action scene. In fact, we’re looking for blink-and-you’ll miss it appearances, the more obscure the better. For example, we’ll never forget the time in Mission to Mars when Gary Sinese briefly drove the Isuzu VX-O2 concept, essentially an open-top VehiCross for a few seconds on-screen.
Which movie scene forever seared a Japanese car into your brain?
The most entertaining comment by next week will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “Which car had the best evolution between generations?“.
Surprisingly, no one mentioned the Mitsubishi Lance Evolution, even though evolution is right there in the name. Nevertheless, last week’s answers were a who’s who of Japanese cars. Icons like Rotor Nutcase‘s Mazda Miata, ynori‘s Nissan Skyline/GT-R, and streetspirit‘s Honda Prelude all evolved into progressively better machines with each successive generation.
Others offered models that stopped improving at a generation. You could even say they regressed, like Nigel‘s pre-seventh-gen Honda Civic, speedie‘s pre-A90 Toyota Supra, and Land Ark‘s pre-fifth-gen Subaru Legacy. We’d probably have to rein in Random Rascal‘s Subaru WRX lineage at the VB.
Left-field answers included Franxou‘s limb-growing Daihatsu Midget, and Dillon‘s entirely truthful account of the now-gorgeous Toyota Prius. Two different people, entirehawg and Taylor C., chose the Infiniti G, which transformed from an FF Nissan Primera into an FR Skyline.
However, the winner this week was Dutch 1960, who gave a succinct but accurate description of the Mazda RX-7.
Mazda RX7. First gen SA/FB simple, cheap, light. Second gen FC sophisticated, comfortable, capable, easy to live with day-to-day, at least until it got old. Third gen FD world-beating street-legal race car of its day, light, fussy, spectacular, fragile. Choose your favorite, three distinctive flavors. As you move from one to the next, the driving excitement moves up the scale.
Omedetou, your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop!
