After getting married in 2015 we saved up for our honeymoon and left for Japan one year later.
Such an awesome interesting country. We spent 3 weeks over there traveling the country from north to south then back again.
While I was there I went to a few car related places. This post will cover car stuff only. I'll put in some other shots of places we went to in the next post.
First off we went to Toyota Megaweb on Odiba Island in Tokyo Bay. This is a giant show room of all their latest cars that you can sit in and even take some for a test drive around a short road course.
They also had a few of their race cars straight from the track, dirt, damage and all the rest.
Gazoo Racing Lexus LFA #83 Nurburgring 24h SP8 class winner 2012.
Gazoo Racing Toyota 86 #165 Nurburgring 24h SP3 class 6th place 2012.
Everything you need to turn a GT86 into a TRD version.
Toyotas Mirai Hydrogen powered car.
GT86 Police car
Initial D AE86 Trueno replica in the Venus Fort mall historic Toyota section.
1970 KPGC10 Skyline
1973 TE27 Sprinter
1967 MF12 2000GT Export Version for the US market.
1965 UP15 Toyota Sports 800
1971 Mazda L10B Sports Cosmo
1966 Nissan Fairlady 1600/Sports EDIT: Derp! 1966 Honda S600. Coz Honda badge....
There were a whole lot of model cars too.
AW11 features quite a bit in Toyota model collections throughout the country. Sadly the SW20 isn't to be seen much. The ZZW30 is more common in their collections too.
First car related purchase. Well a gift from the wife.
TRD keyring with carbon fibre embedded in it.
Then we headed up to Sapporo for the snow festival.
Random grey and green S2000
Then back to Tokyo to meet up with a school friend who lives there now. Having someone who speaks Japanese came in use for a few things I wanted to do, mainly buy stuff.
Some of you may know I am a closet Subaru enthusiast so I had to go to the STi showroom in Mitaka to check out what they had there.
In the showroom they had a few of their road going cars, some models you'll see here in NZ and others you won't unless specifically imported privately. But what I really wanted to see was the rally cars that were there.
Colin McRaes 1998 Sanremo Rally WRC #3
Peter Solbergs 2007 Monte Carlo Rally WRC #7
And his 2008 car.
And a very special car to any Subaru lover. The limited 22B. This is one of the 400 built.
A couple of Subarus Nurburgring race cars.
2012 SP3T class winner #133. Based on the S206.
#120
A few other things they had on display.
A flexible strut bar, an interesting concept.
Looking out over the Subaru filled car park. You could test drive cars here too but I didn't get my drivers license while I was there due to the amount of train travel we did. Missed out on driving a new BRZ or 2015 WRX STi.
The history of STi started in 1988. Same age as me!
While I was there I bought a few things.
I got a cap and shirt.
And for my brother as a gift I got a key ring. He owns a 1998 WRX LTD so it works out.
When I went to pay for these items they brought out a box, luckily our friend was with us and could talk to the people at Subaru and she told me it was complimentary.
Inside the box was a document wallet, a card case, a keycase and a name stamp case. In Japan you carry a name stamp, it's sort of like your signature for singing/stamping documents.
The Japanese people are so nice. Thank you Subaru.
The next place I went for car stuff was one of the many Super Autobacs stores. These are effectively massive Repco/Supercheap Auto stores but you can buy so much more. Turbos, exhausts, wheels, tyres, in car entertainment. Everything you could want. They also run a chain of mechanics garages so you can get your car serviced or modified. Saw my first JDM in Japan R34 GTR being driven out of the shop. I've seen a few in NZ but it was nice to see one in Japan.
So I bought a few things from the TRD section.
TRD tire valve caps.
TRD radiator cap. Sadly when I got it home I realised it was the wrong type and doesn't fit an MR2. Owell, desk ornament.
And just because I want to own some genuine Japanese learner plates I grabbed these magnetic novice driver plates.
The next place we went was Toyota HQ in Toyota City near Nagoya. This was to go on a plant tour to the Motomachi plant.
This is where they make the Estima van, Mark X and versions of the Crown. This is also where they made 390,000 Supras until 1997.
Unfortunately the MR2 was built in the Miyagi Ohira Plant just north of Sendai of which they produced 300,108 from 1984 to 1999. I didn't manage to get to the birth place of my car. Owell.
The plant tour started in the welding shop where the car bodies were spot, arc and laser welded together. The majority of the welding is done by robots, 97% I think. It's quite odd seeing 6 different car models being built on the same assembly line at the same time. For example there would be an Estima then a Crown then another Crown then a Mark X in a row. The robots just figure out what body is coming next and change the way they weld or in the case of the Estima some of the robots would just vacuum the floor of the body to remove the weld spatter.
Next it was off to the assembly floor. The first thing we saw was a whole lot of pre-assembled parts ready to go into the production line. Then you would see car bodies moving along the line in the same order they left the welding shop but this time they were painted. As they move along the line each person has a little cart that gets filled with the required parts to be installed in their station. It would change depending on the car model being built or the optional extras a customer has ordered. Further along there was a sea of engines and gearboxes being prepd to go onto the production line and drop into the cars. Well not into, the car body would get lifted up and then the engine and drivetrain would go underneath then they would come together and get bolted on.
All this takes 20 hours to assemble a car from flat sheet metal to a driving car. Obviously there are a lot of pre-assembled parts that are put together by other plants of Toyota or other companies who make parts for Toyota.
They were making about 300 cars per shift with 2 shifts per day. They don't run 24 hours though.
At the end they gave us some pens which say on the back in Japanese 'Good Thinking, Good Products' which is the companies motto. The carts that carry the parts along side each station are an invention of the Toyota employees themselves who work on the production line. They are encouraged to come up with better ways to do things.
There was a museum there but most of it was just a 'buy our new cars' and 'look at our special GR (Gazoo Racing Edition) cars. There was a Yellow Lexus LFA there though.
What I really wanted was to go to the shop. So upstairs I went and bought more stuff.
Another key ring.
A TRD wallet
TRD Key case
TRD cap
TRD shirt
And the last car related thing I saw while heading toward Tokyo Tower was this Tommy Kaira ZZS EV. An electric car based off the ZZS.
That's pretty much all I went to see. While walking the street you mostly see Kei cars, Toyota Crown Comfort Taxis and of all things, scooters with large exhausts. I did see a few cool 80s and 90s cars but they are very hard to find in the larger cities. There is a large presence of LHD Porsche in Tokyo and quite a few European supercars and luxury sedans.
All in all we had a great time. This car stuff took up maybe 5% of what we did while over there. Going to see the country and the buildings was great. The culture and the people are all wonderful. There's always someone there to help us useless tourists. Getting around the country is actually really easy. Their transport systems are great.
ops: 
Still looking clean mate.
