What have the Japanese ever done for us? Well, there’s the aqueduct, of course. They gave us that. And better sanitation and roads and public order … but apart from that?
OK, enough from the Monty Python canon. But it is coming up to 20 years since Roger B. Smith, then head of General Motors, famously said: “Tell me one thing Japanese technology has put on the automobile outside of coin-holders on the dashboard.”
If Smith were still with us (he died in 2007), he would probably begrudgingly acknowledge that the car-makers of the Rising Sun have gone much further than he could have imagined back when he was in the GM hot seat.
They’ve given us coin-holders in the centre consoles, too. Plus cup holders in the doors and CD bins in the armrests.
They’ve also, in effect, sent General Motors out of business. It hasn’t been solely down to additional storage; they’ve made a better product in a more efficient manner than the twisted wreck of GM that Smith bequeathed to future generations when he resigned in 1990.
Rather than debating Japanese technology - a stoush that rages continually, furiously and usually illogically on the internet - what about considering classic cars? What have the Japanese ever done for us there?
The Toyota 2000GT, a convertible version of which outran a Toyota Crown in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice, is often cited as the first truly collectable Japanese car. It is fetching huge money, too.
But what else? Unmodified versions of the early Z cars before they turned from Datsun sports car to chintzy Nissan boulevard cruisers will probably fetch good money one day. Same for early MX-5s. The original 1.6 is simply the best low-cost British roadster ever built. The second best was possibly the Datsun 2000 Fairlady of the late 1960s.
An interesting 1960s/early-1970s Japanese trend was Italianate styling, typified by the Mazda Luce (sold here as the Mazda 1500). The prettiest of them was the Datsun/Nissan Silvia built between 1965 and 1968.
This rare, Lancia-like coupe was designed with help from Germany’s Albrecht Goertz, who also penned the Toyota 2000GT.
However, the next Silvia was as ugly as the original wasn’t and the one after that set a new benchmark for bland, so if you’re on eBay, don’t tick the wrong box.
Some would cite various Nissan GT-Rs as future big-money items but a true classic has to be beautiful as well as capable. GT-Rs are neither pretty nor interestingly ugly. Yeah, go on, argue.
Same for Rexes and Evos. They’ll be admired but, except in their hardest-edge competition form, never truly prized. Mind you, you might have argued that about Toranas.
The first and third-generation Mazda RX-7s were stylish and, unusually, rotary. Some of the early Celicas (including the original front-driver of the mid-1980s) were kind of cool, though most of them look flat today. That’s probably because they’ve been flogged by P-plater after P-plater.
Japan has built a greater number of ugly and stupid cars than most countries, partly because of its ability to turn out copious speciality vehicles and turn them over on short model cycles. Step up, Subaru Vortex, Mitsubishi 3000GT, Datsun 120Y coupe, Toyota Starlet the list goes on.
But for every one of them (all right, for every 20 of them), there’s something like the Toyota MR2 coupe of the 1990s. Or those interesting and original Mazdas of the 1990s, like the second-generation four-steer MX-6 or curvaceous 929.
There’s quite a few svelte and technically interesting Honda Preludes, too, plus some amazing 1960s Honda sports cars in third-scale. And there’s cars designed to be curious, such as the snail-like Nissan S-Cargo or the Figaro. That was a 1990s Nissan inspired by the 1950s Trabant P70 coupe.
At least some of these will go down in history, along with Roger B. Smith’s daftness.
Tony Davis
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