Japanese cars are synonymous with small economy and boring in the impression of many people, but the 10 cars I want to introduce today can definitely break this concept in your mind.
The Japanese auto industry dates back to 1904, when Shintaro Yoshida founded Japan's first automobile factory, the Tokyo Automobile Manufacturing Plant, which is now renamed Isuzu Motors. Thanks to the attention of society and the support of the government, Japan's automobile manufacturing industry has developed rapidly, and an oil crisis in the 1970s has enabled Japanese cars to successfully go global.
After a long period of development, the Japanese automobile industry is becoming more and more powerful, although the United States, German cars have also risen, but Japan has always mastered a lot of core technologies in the automobile industry, especially the internal combustion engine technology can be called the exclusive technology of the Japanese automobile industry, has been at the top level in the world.
In terms of design, Japanese manufacturers known for their innovations can easily gain a foothold in front of European car companies and sell more than overseas brands in their own markets.
Some of the local companies will also jump out of the design normal and launch some novel cars, which are quite crazy in design and can be driven legally, so let me take stock of those wild JDM cars!
Toyota GT-One
Toyota GT-One is Toyota Motorsport in Germany to assemble a certified supercar, when the FIA set the GT race category requirements, must produce the same type of car can be legally on the road to qualify for the race, the Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR and Porsche 911GT1 are the products of that special period.
The Toyota GT ONE is one of the most important cars in Toyota's racing history and qualified for the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Unlike any product that Toyota has previously created, the wild design of the GT-One stems from the hard requirements of the competition, which was originally built for the GT1 group, and later changed to the Le Mans GTP group, but the legal on-road version created during the period, that is, the civilian version, has also quietly entered the road.
Designed by André de Cortanze, the car is built on a carbon fiber and aluminum honeycomb hard-shell chassis and powered by a 3.6-litre twin-turbo V8 engine. Engine horsepower can produce 800bhp – 1120bhp, while torque output is stable at around 650N·m.
Due to the weight reduction, the final weight of the vehicle is 900kg. In the actual measurement, the road version of the GT-ONE performed quite optimistically, accelerating 3.2 seconds from 100 kilometers and reaching an extreme speed of 420km/h. At present, two road versions are placed in the Toyota Museum in Japan and Toyota's research and development center in Germany.
Nissan R390 GT1
The R390 was originally built as a road car before the racing version was developed in 1997 and 1998 for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Originally decorated with red paint, it was rebuilt in 1998 and repainted to blue.
Powered by a 3.5-litre twin-turbo V8 engine, the car is rear-wheel-driven and the drivetrain is mated to a 6-speed sequential transmission. As a legal version of the VRH25L twin-turbo engine, horsepower was downgraded to 557PS/6800rpm and 637N·m/4400rpm.
With the help of the start control program, it accelerates to 3.9 seconds from 100 km/h, accelerates to 11.9 seconds from a quarter-mile, and reaches a top speed of 354 km/h.
Currently, a Nissan R390 GT1 is stored in Nissan's Zama warehouse. The second, sold at an auction and registered in the UK with the R390 NIS license plate.
TRD 3000GT
I think "sensational" can be used to describe the TRD 3000GT, which was born in toyota racing division TRD.
Initially, instead of planning to launch a production car for a particular motorsport, they were directly inspired by racing to build a car that could legitimately hit the road.
One of the most striking features of this car is the hood vents, in order to enable the car to get a higher power effect.
To this end, the TRD department designed four heat dissipation holes in the hood to greatly improve the heat dissipation in the engine compartment, and adopted a special waterproof material at the bottom of the hood, so that it can still obtain good heat dissipation on the basis of waterproofing.
The front bumper has a three-stage diversion design, which not only generates stronger downforce, but also allows air to enter the radiator and intercooler directly along the air duct, giving it stronger performance.
The car performed better and was built with only 35 units, making it the rarest Toyota Supra today.
Nissan S-Cargo
The name "S-Cargo" is a word game that stands for "Small Cargo" and sounds like the French word "escargot," meaning snail, which refers to the shape of a car.
The vintage-inspired S-Cargo is a small commercial vehicle built on the same platform as the B11 Nissan Sunny/Datsun 130Y, with a 1.5-liter in-line four-cylinder engine with a maximum power of 73 horsepower and a drivetrain mated to a 3-speed automatic transmission.
Launched at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1989, the car is named and designed from the Citroën 2CV. The production period from 1989 to 1991, a total of more than 12,000 units, is one of the representative works of Nissan Motor in the bubble economy era.
Toyota WiLL Vi
In August 1999, Toyota partnered with companies such as Panasonic, Asahi Asahi Beer, Kao Kao, and Kokuyo KOKUYO to start an experimental marketing project for young people called WiLL.
The NBC platform-based WiLL Vi is an ultra-compact 4-door sedan introduced by Toyota under the WiLL brand between 2000 and 2001.
The WiLL Vi, sold only at the Toyota Vista Store, is powered by a 1.3-litre L4 engine with a drivetrain mated to a 4-speed automatic transmission. The design of the car is quite novel, with angular lines and reverse-sloping rear windows that are very creative.
The entire series is equipped with front seat dual airbags, ABS and EBD as standard, and the safety configuration is quite in place.
However, the price point is relatively higher than other K-car cars, the price range is between 1.26 million and 1.49 million yen (about 7-82,000 yuan), and it was only produced at Toyota's main factory at that time, so the geometry did not launch a left-hand drive version.
Mitsuoka Himiko (Queen)
Mitsuoka Himiko is a 2-door luxury convertible luxury station wagon, the Queen of Mitsuoka, which was once introduced to the domestic market, and the exterior of this car was designed by Takahito Aoki and produced since 2018.
It shared the Mazda N platform with the Mazda MX-5, extended the wheelbase, and added fiber-reinforced plastic body panels to make the car the perfect result.
In fact, the front face of this car is quite similar to the original Mini, and the headlights have a surprising point with morgan Aero. Known as the Roadster in the UK, the first generation was powered by a 2.0-litre L4 engine with a maximum power of 150 horsepower, while the second generation was replaced with a 1.5-liter engine with a drivetrain mated to a six-speed manual or six-speed self-propelled transmission.
Although the MX-5 is full of fun, it has nothing to do with the word "play" in Mitsuoka, and the longer wheelbase means that there is no driving pleasure at all.
Mitsuoka Orochi (Big Snake)
Before entering the showroom of the 2007 model year, the Mitsuoka Orochi first appeared as a concept car in 2001. Named after the mythical "Great Snake of The Eight-Way", it is a striking 2-door coupe or convertible.
At the beginning of the design, Takashi Aoki said that "my definition of supercar is a little different, do not design it to resemble the image of an Italian supercar, but hope that the car can bring enough to give people a more evil feeling."
In terms of power, it is equipped with a combination of Toyota 3MZ-FE 3.3-liter V6 engine and 5-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive, maximum power of 230 horsepower, peak torque of 328 N·m, maximum speed of 240 km/h, 0-100 km/h acceleration time of 7.2 seconds.
Mitsuoka's name comes from its founder, Mitsuoka Jinsumu Mitsuoka, who is very fond of antique cars. In February 1968, Mitsuoka Automobile Industries was established in Toyama, Japan.
At its inception, Mitsuoka was only a car sales and vehicle maintenance company.
Mainly engaged in imported luxury cars, but also provide used car trading services and vehicle maintenance and modification. In November 1979, Guanggang Automobile Industry Company officially changed its name to Guanggang Automobile Co., Ltd.
Toyota 2000GT
Before Toyota launched the 2000GT, Japan was considered the home of imitation and boring cars. With the recovery of the economy, people see the car as no longer a simple means of transportation, and Japanese automakers think that they do not have the corresponding models to compete with car brands such as Jaguar, Porsche and Chevrolet Corvette.
That's why the 2000GT, jointly developed by Toyota and Yamaha, was unveiled at the 1965 Tokyo Motor Show and produced between 1967 and 1970.
The exterior design is clearly inspired by the Jaguar E-Type, with the 2000GT's low body made of aluminium, while the comfortable interior features Yamaha's luxurious décor.
For rear-wheel drive, the car offers two in-line 6-cylinder engines, a 148-horsepower 2.0-liter engine and a 138-horsepower 2.3-liter engine, mated to a five-speed manual transmission.
The body weight was only 2400 pounds (1.08 tons), so the lightweight body allowed it to reach a top speed of 220 km/h, which was the highest level in the world for a 2.0L displacement car at that time.
In addition, the 0-100km/h acceleration time is only 8.6 seconds, and according to today's performance standards, its performance beats the FAW Toyota Corolla currently on the market.
Toyota bB Open Deck
The Toyota bB is a mini utility vehicle built by Toyota on the Toyota NBC platform from 2000 to 2016. Originally designed as a boxy 5-door hatchback, bB redesigned it to be called Open Deck.
The car changed the driver's side to a single door, the co-pilot side with a B-pillarless counter-opening door, and a separate door between the rear small cargo box and the cockpit, which can be opened into one to form a more spacious loading space.
If you further fold the rear seats and flip the front seat backrests, you can get a flat space of nearly 3m in length. Although the overall vehicle size is small, it provides a lot of flexible loading space.
In terms of power, this car is equipped with a 1.5L VVT-i engine, the transmission system is matched with a 4AT gearbox, as a concept car is understandable, but we can hardly imagine that Toyota really mass-produced it!
Sales figures are unknown, but most are still sold in japan, and by looking up classic car trading data, we can see that on February 1, a 2001 Toyota bB Open Deck was sold in the UK market for 4600 pounds (about 39,000 yuan).
Daihatsu Midget II
Launched in 1993 as a small 4-wheel truck and the world's smallest truck, the Midget MIDGET II was abandoned by Daihatsu in order to meet safety benchmarks.
But the Midget II still continues most of the designs of the older generations, such as a cargo pocket with a certain degree of practicality, a small body, a very short turning radius, and so on.
The car was discontinued in 1996 and not produced until 2002, when the new car was priced at 492,000 yen. In addition to being very popular in Japan, this car also has good sales in Southeast Asia and other regions, and foreign used car trading websites often have Daihatsu Midget II figures.
As a K-Car, it is powered by a 0.7-liter naturally aspirated 3-cylinder engine with a maximum power of 30.5 hp and a transmission system matched with a 4-speed manual transmission. According to the manufacturer's information, this Daihatsu Midget II can carry a load of 150kg,
The sporty model comes with front fog lights and front spare tires, while the standard version comes with one seat, while a 2-seater version is also available. It is a favorite of bar owners and the perfect companion for carrying barrels through the narrow city streets of Japan.